The state of fan engagement in English football has changed since we published the first Fan Engagement Index in 2019. Then, it’s role was about encouraging the development of this emerging area of expertise. Now, things have changed. Here’s how that’s happened, why it’s important, and what’s coming next.
Don’t forget you can join us on the 14th May at Life with Football Legislation; preparing for meaningful fan engagement & consultation, where you can hear from experts, clubs and fans on where fan engagement is headed in this new, regulated era! Go to https://www.tickettailor.com/events/thinkfanengagement/1650506 to book!
A step back in time to before the Pandemic
Before we were all locked-down and before even the European Super League had come and gone in the blink of an eye, the first Fan Engagement Index for English football was launched by us, covering the season 2018-2019. It worked on a very simple premise: to set out clearly what football rules, regulations and best practice said clubs should doing or promised to do, and to reflect back at football clubs what they were actually doing. Holding a mirror up to how clubs listened to, collaborated and consulted with their fans meant we finally had some substance to what the term ‘fan engagement’ actually meant, and began to and seize from those who would use it purely to tell you that everything is solved with an app.
It wasn’t about bashing clubs on the head and criticising what they were doing badly either. That has never been the spirit we’ve sought to work in. It was always about trying to identify what worked, praise it, and get others to do the same. Along with all those doing the work at the coalface, I like to think we’ve created a better, more productive conversation about fan engagement, and that it is no longer simply one of those things you have to do, but instead, want to do.
If football clubs are unique, let’s treat them uniquely
Football is notorious at focusing its time on the next match, the next transfer window, the next managerial appointment. It’s not a surprise given that the point of football clubs is to put on matches. But those matches have to be watched by people who pay, and those people have to be looked after properly. It makes good business sense after all. Except the business itself is awkwardly shaped, and that has made fan engagement more of a challenge to do well. A football club is a sporting, cultural and geographical monopoly, gifted a customer base that clicks through the turnstiles come rain or shine and which will get excited because the 1997 kit is being re-released. Fans can be very easy to please, and that can make them easy to disregard or not put effort into pleasing. When you add to that the fact that clubs in the top four or five divisions of English football even get handed a chunk of money every year to run themselves, that makes it doubly challenging to persuade clubs that fan engagement is, aside from being a tool to monetise, a worthwhile thing to expend time & resources on. Clubs don’t operate in a capitalistic marketplace of the striver who builds a business from nothing – like my local corner shop owner, and nothing will change that.
Strategy or ambition can sometimes be a distraction from the reality
A factor that gets overplayed is the type of ambition or strategy the owners have. I take the view that whether or not the owners seek to grow the fanbase beyond its traditional boundaries of place, family and connection to become a star on the international stage, or whether an investor sees the margins in a particular transfer strategy or development opportunity, it is merely layering over the core factor of the basic premise of the club as cultural, sporting and geographical monopoly.
As far as how this money is spent, we all expect the ‘talent’ on the pitch to get the bulk of the money. In a West-End theatre, no-one is expecting the lead part to be paid less than the ticket office manager or ushers or the supporting actor to work for nothing, but no theatre worth its salt would fail to employ ushers or a ticket office manager, or would neglect all the supporting roles that make it possible to open and run a theatre on a nightly basis. Ok, so the analogy is awkward, but the point is the same, and it’s this: football clubs need to ensure that their resources – money, time, people – are in places that support the core business and that means looking after your number one stakeholders. Your fans.
Where we’re headed and why that matters
English football has been through the ringer in recent years. We’ve had fallings-out over the the European Super League and Project Big Picture, and that has in part led us to where we now are in terms of structured engagement. We have seen some significant changes, with Fan Advisory Boards (football’s take on the the Corporate Governance Institute’s ‘shadow boards’) now mandatory part of the infrastructure at Premier League clubs. Many EFL clubs have established these as well. It’s important to point out that this should not be instead of the vital and independent voice that supporters’ trusts provide in the ecosystem of engagement, but in addition to. It’s not beyond the wit of clubs to incorporate relationships with both. As a result we now have way of clubs being held accountable that has never existed before, and it’s about balancing the need for the club’s own internal mechansims, and the need for fans to act and speak independently of the club, whilst maintaining a close and fruitful relationship.
We’ve all argued about the rights and wrongs of a regulator, what they should do, what they shouldn’t, and yet, here we are, on the eve of the biggest change to the game in 33 years in the introduction of the Independent Regulator. The new Chair, David Kogan, is about to be signed off by DCMS Secretary of State Lisa Nandy.
This change is going to make all of us in clubs and the industry as a whole work harder in all areas of the business. Having someone marking your homework changes the way you think and act. The fact that a regulator will be demanding to see what clubs are doing, with the power of enforcement at its elbow, asking questions and probing, will, specific regulations aside, change the game irrevocably, and that includes in fan engagement.
Some of us will embrace it, of that I have no doubt. There are so many fantastic people in the game who I know who will become unleashed by the changes, and whose work will finally have the chance to shine. The best practice they have pioneered for years, but often in the shade, will be far more obvious and, through things like the Fan Engagement Index and annual awards as well, be increasingly rewarded and recognised. Others will be running to keep up, wary that they are in danger of falling behind.
Fan experience needs fan engagement
It will also make collaboration with colleagues focused on the fan experience side much easier. Recognising where fan engagement and fan experience overlap and complement each other is a vital aspect of football’s direction of travel. This element of a club’s business, pioneered by the likes of my friends over at the Fan Experience Company, ensures that engagement is actually productive and helps to justify the Return On Investment (ROI) that clubs will invariably seek when they invest in it.
Join us on the 14th May in London!
That is the now my focus, and why both Think Fan Engagement and Consultation Guru Rhion Jones, the UK’s leader in public and stakeholder consultation, are together hosting ‘Life with Football Legislation; Preparing for Meaningful Fan Engagement & Consultation’, 14th May 2025, at the El Alamein Room at Victory Services Club, London, W2 2HF.
This is an opportunity for everyone in and around football who work or have an interest in fan engagement, to understand emerging statutory requirements, learn best practices in fan engagement and consultation, and network with others addressing the same agenda. It is for a wide range for people, from football club executives, senior managers, supporters’ trusts, industry bodies or specialists, sports policy-makers, or those specialising in public engagement programmes.
Some of those speaking on the day
We’d love to see you there, and you can join us by heading over to our Ticket Tailor page to book.
A big thanks to our Lead Sponsor for the day, Tracivity and to LCP for being our Event Partner.