The Fan Engagement Pod

This week we’re stepping back into the sport of Rugby League, in a chat with fan activist and Bradford Bulls fan, Andrew Foster.  Andrew is a keen student and lover of the game, and has for some time been very concerned about the near permanent state of change and crisis that things appear to be in. Think Fan Engagement carried out an extensive survey in the summer of this year about the state of...

Marco Sansoni is an expert in the role of spectators in sports events, steeped in expertise in both Fan Experience and Fan Engagement. He’s a former Senior Advisor to the World Cup in Brazil, worked in senior spectator roles in some of the biggest sports events in the World including the Summer and Winter Olympics, for FIFA advising on spectator services, and now teaches at the prestigious Luiss B...

Welcome to the Fan Engagement Pod. This is the Fan Engagement Chat, where we hear about someone’s approach to Fan Engagement. This week we chat with Leigh Pomlett, Chairman and owner of Walsall FC. Leigh has a long career in business, working in freight and logistics, and remains Chairman of the Freight Transport Association. I can imagine he’s busy enough with that, but he’s also a progressive th...

Seb White is from Mundial. Seb is a fan and director of Hampton & Richmond Borough FC, but also still holds a candle for Yeovil Town FC, the club he was born into supporting. Go to mundialmag.com to find out more about Mundial, the sometime magazine, full-time agency and consultancy celebrating football and fan culture.  Go to fanengagement.net to find out more about the work of Think Fan Enga...

Surveying & Questionnaires: How to do it Definition: a method of data collection where a sample is taken from the population and researched via a standardized questionnaire Uses:  Post match Fan Experience Annual or mid-season Fan Engagement/Fan Experience Annual fan survey by a league or FA/federation  Done before season ticket campaigns  Step One: Preparations1. Decide what you want to measu...

This week it’s Labour Party General Secretary and Chester fan and activist, David Evans. He tells us all about how he fell in love with the club off the back of a 0-0 draw at Aldershot, goes into his personal journey as a fan - including the Terry Smith era, the US owner who famously had Chester players chasing imaginary balls. David was involved in the reformation of Chester back in 2010, sat on...

Episode 61 is with Stuart Dykes from SD Europe’s Supporter Liaison (SLO) Project. SD Europe is one part of the legacy of Supporters Direct, and works across Europe with clubs, fans, leagues and federations on how to implement the role. Go to sdeurope.eu for more. The SLO role was first seen in German football, but can now be seen across all of UEFA’s member associations, including in men’s profess...

Episode 60 is a Fan Engagement Chat with Steve Wignall, Chair of Marching Out Together, the group for LGBT+ fans of Leeds United. You can find them at ​​ https://www.marchingouttogether.co.uk Although I had some conversations with members of Spurs group Proud Lilywhites some years back, it’s an area I’m not that familiar with and wanted to find out more about.  It’s easy to presume that being fan...

This is a chat with Ryan McKnight, CEO of the North of England Football Academy, former Stockport County CEO and adviser to a whole series of clubs, and ex-editor of FC Business Magazine. Ryan has been thinking a lot about the relationship between fans and clubs, and how that manifests itself in the practical - as well as emotional - sense. We talk about the mistakes clubs make in marketing, how l...

Episode 41 of the Fan Engagement Pod is a bonus episode, with Fiona Green from sports industry data experts Winners, chatting about the new edition of her book, Winning with Data, published by Routledge. She’s well known in her field, and you can hear more about her and what Winners does in Episode 30. We’ve also got three copies of her book to give away. Listen to find out how! If you’re not fort...

Welcome to BasChat episode three. This is where me, Kevin Rye and Bas Schnater, Fan Engagement consultant and expert, chat about marketing, commercial and activations with a Fan Engagement Flavour. This month we look at the known unknown of what happens after Covid and the return of fans to stadiums, focusing on whether brands will pull back from their involvement in clubs, season ticket ‘no-shows...

Welcome to Episode 35 of the Fan Engagement Pod, a chat with the person responsible at The FA for relationships with The Football Supporters Association, as well as clubs and others, Director of Professional Game Relations, Andy Ambler. Andy used to run Millwall and before that, Fulham, under quite different owners, John Berylson and Muhammed Fayed. At Millwall they had a fan on the board (and sti...

Welcome to Episode 33 of the Fan Engagement Pod, a chat with another Mark, this time Mark Catlin the Chief Executive of Portsmouth FC. Mark is someone I don’t need to persuade of the merits of open and transparent communication, and good Fan Engagement, as they finished 9th in the inaugural Fan Engagement Index. We chat about the prospects for football whenever it is we emerge from the pandemic, a...

This episode is one of the most fascinating I’ve done, because I learned such a huge amount about a subject I knew very little about: esports. It centres around a chat with Trev Keane, a Dublin-based consultant with Took Media and a founding board member of Ireland Esports. There’s a lot of talk about whether football - and other sports - should see esports as a threat to their business model, and...

In this episode, we chat about how to ensure that insight from the fans is part of how you work with your commercial partners. Not as some kind of necessary evil, or a brake on something, but as a positive way of ensuring that you get the most out of your sponsorship and activation. We take a particular look at Borussia Dortmund, and Bas also muses about loyalty and the attempted coup by Donald Tr...

This episode is a chat with Niamh O’Mahony, Secretary of the Irish Football Supporters Network, and one of the two representatives of fans on the FAI (Football Association of Ireland) Council. She is also a former acting CEO of SD Europe, and one of the people behind the saving of her own Cork City in 2010. Niamh is steeped in the Irish and European trust and supporters’ movement. We talk about be...

The Fan Engagement Pod returns tomorrow, 19/01/21. Don't forget Bas Chat, the last Thursday of every month. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to Episode 28 of the Fan Engagement Pod. This episode is back to a chat with a guest about their experience and perspective on Fan Engagement, with an old friend of mine from my days working in European football, Digital Project Manager at Brøndby IF, Troels Johnsen. We really get into some of the commercial issues around converting loyalty, identity, belonging and being part of something...