Sports teams, leagues, and venues are all gearing up for live sporting events in a new post-COVID world. The only thing that is clear today is that flexible mobile app technology will be a huge part of successful plans for the re-opening of large venues for live events. Gabriel Smallman, FanReach’s president, explains why technology will be key to give fans great experiences as sports venues welcome people back.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Gabe Smallman, FanReach:

This year is going to be about adapting to whatever the environment will be when it’s time to play games. We are hopeful that with the vaccines and rollouts and good procedures and numbers coming down that most if not all of our teams will have fans in the venue. I know that whatever the procedure was two years ago it ain’t it today. It’s gonna be a whole new staggered entry, a ton of stuff, and so it’s gonna be about supporting them in a multitude of ways. It can be through ticketing application. And say our state is going to require XYZ. We are working with the ticketing provider to make sure that that happens. It’s going to be giving venues and teams powerful tools within the app to let fans know what they’re supposed to do. Just simple things like that will be a challenge. And just like I was mentioning how gaming’s the Wild West, every state is different. So shall the rules for what the team can do in the venue. Every team is going to have probably a different operating procedure, different set of rules, and our job is to make sure that we are flexible enough to help them meet those needs and welcome those fans back in the venue. So teams aren’t saying directly to us “get ready to be flexible” what we’re hearing is “get ready to help us.”