The footy seasons are back in full force and fans are flocking to venues to watch their favourite teams in action.
FANZO (formerly MatchPint), the fan engagement platform, is seeing an 80% increase in traffic searching for venues to watch the games since the 2022 NRL Telstra Premiership and the 2022 Toyota AFL Premiership Season kicked off earlier in March.
Head of FANZO Australia, Jono Richards explains, “Speaking to sports fans about the last two years it’s amazing how little they remember about the big moments. That’s because to make truly great memories watching live sport, these moments need to be shared.
“The buzz around the footy season this year is so big and there’s a huge anticipation from fans that they can get together with mates and watch their team, so we are seeing an increase in usage of the platform to find the best venue to watch the games in groups.”
In Sydney alone during the week-long period of 6-12 March, there were 10,419 individual searches for venues that were showing the footy. Proof enough that both NRL and AFL are great draw cards to bring the crowds to venues.
And between the Foxtel and FANZO partnership, venues can show every game of every round of both codes as well as promote the fact that they’re showing the games to existing and potential new customers.
Another huge draw for venues are the UFC and boxing bouts. Last week’s Tim Tszyu v Terrell Gausha clash and November’s Canelo Alvarez vs Caleb Plant boxing match each saw over 10,000 searches of where to watch the fights through the FANZO platform.
“Fans want to watch a big fight at their local, but not all venues show every Pay-Per-View event so fans can’t just turn up and expect it to be on. When there’s a Pay-Per-View event, we see huge numbers of fans going to the FANZO website or app to find venues to watch the big fight,” Jono Richards said.
“And we can see that the majority of searches happen on the day of the fight with about 92% of the searches being done the same day. So it’s key for venues to ensure that even if they buy the fight last-minute, they still list it with FANZO to ensure they promote it to all those fans trying to find a venue the day of the fixture.”
These sporting boosts in trade are key for venues after a tough two years with Covid, lockdowns and capacity restrictions.
As well as helping venues promote sport to fans, FANZO can provide venues with valuable data to help them understand the value sport delivers.
Troy Williams, Venue Manager at the Burleigh Town Tavern said: “We can see how many clicks we’ve had and searches we appear in etc, and we have recently participated in a food promo deal exclusive to MatchPint (now FANZO) users for our latest UFC Event – it went really well and brought in new customers.”
Foxtel venue customers can access a FANZO profile, worth $349 per year, as part of their subscription. For more information visit www.foxtelfanzo.com.au