Case study: Melbourne Renegades create all year online fan engagement

As the Big Bash League and Women's Big Bash League (BBL) seasons are only two months long, the Melbourne Renegades wanted to find a way to engage their fans all year round.

Felicity George, head of brand, marketing and fan engagement at the Melbourne Renegades discussed with Digital Nation how they implemented an online platform for their fans to interact with the team whenever and wherever.

George said the cricket team was looking at ways to engage fans both during the season and off-season.

“One of the key business objectives we have is looking at ways that we can continue the Renegades brand throughout the year, so outside of the season, engage our fans as often as we can throughout the offseason,” she explained.

“Then when we're in the season looking at new ways to engage fans that encourage them to come to our games, as well as engaged with us during away games or between the games that we have going on.”

The platform, called Renegades Connect, created by SparkUp Studios and launched last December in time for the BBL season was a test to see how fans interacted with it.

George said the platform allows for fans to get points and “kudos” for engaging with the team. There are also games where fans can predict who will hit the highest number of runs or who will win a match.

The platform also rewards points to be at the game, to help boost attendance for matches.

“The overarching goal of the Renegades as well as the BBL overall was to try and increase attendance at games. We have great broadcast viewership numbers, but getting people there has been a challenge, especially after Covid,” George explained.

George explained how the platform gave them insights into how fans interacted online.

“We found that the majority of people that registered for that first season were already quite engaged with the Renegades,” she said.

“But we were able to get a deeper understanding of them of whether they liked engaging with the club in this way or what rewards they might want from the app.

Relaunching the platform before the beginning of the new season, George said they are adding more interactive elements to the app.

“Over the next few months, more arcade games will come in, and few more elements that will keep bringing fans back and more users back,” she said.

“As they would normally pick up their phone to play Candy Crush, hopefully they will also pick up their phone to play some of these games we have on the Renegades Connect platform.”