Could the digital ticketing mandate be a valuable mobile moment for football clubs?

It’s something that clubs must implement by the 2026/2027 season to meet league requirements and modernise legacy systems. However, viewing digital ticketing as simply a compliance task significantly undersells its strategic and commercial  value.

What is digital ticketing?

The move to digital only essentially means fans will enter the ground using a QR code or NFC ticket stored in the wallet or as a file on their smartphone. Tickets can be assigned to individuals, both home and away, and helps to create efficiencies around delivering, transferring and using tickets, as well as reducing illegal touting.

When tickets move into a club-owned mobile app, they can also be more than just a barcode and a more direct connection with individuals. It provides an opportunity to create recurring, high-intent moments of ongoing fan engagement. Few other interactions give clubs such a reliable opportunity to reach supporters directly, at scale, and at a moment when attention is guaranteed. 

There is a broader opportunity for clubs that take advantage of this mobile moment. Done well, digital ticketing could become the cornerstone of a club’s mobile strategy, creating a mobile-led fan experience, with broader data ownership and commercial growth. 

Starting with a reliable moment of interaction 

Regular fan engagement on mobile both on matchday and beyond is an ongoing challenge. There’s an initial always-on need for club apps as a fan, driven largely by fixtures and team news.

The introduction of in-app tickets offers a reliable moment of interaction when fans will have to engage digitally creating a more predictable and valuable moment for fans. 

In a well-designed mobile experience, the digital ticket should be instantly accessible, even offline, to reduce friction at the turnstile. With stadiums notorious for congestion, a securely stored ticket on a device becomes a moment of reliability rather than a source of stress.

It also presents a chance for clubs to start building a mobile relationship with fans,  creating a foundation of trust that can then open the door for future and ongoing engagement whether that be commercially or with content. 

Reliable mobile moments - how does this add value for clubs?

• It builds trust in the club’s mobile ecosystem

• It increases usage of the app beyond ticketing

• Matchday friction and steward pressure is reduced

Can owning the ticket mean owning the fan relationship?

For some clubs, ticketing is still mediated through third-party platforms. These systems can be effective for distribution, but ultimately, they can be a barrier between club and fan. With data split across providers, clubs lack a clear picture of their supporters. Who are they? How do they behave? How do they engage beyond a single transaction?

Bringing tickets into a club-owned app means clubs can take back control of the fan relationship. Ticket purchases, attendance data and in-stadium behaviour can all feed directly into a central CRM, forming the foundation of a true single view of the fan. This offers the chance to create consistency across a fan’s mobile experience, from buying a ticket to entering a stadium, visiting the shop to redeeming an offer. 

By having a better understanding of how each fan interacts with the club both online and offline, there can be a move away from generic messaging and towards greater personalisation. 

Stronger fan engagement - how does this add value for clubs?

• It restores ownership of first-party fan data

• This in turn allows for personalised communication and offers 

• It lays the groundwork for long-term fan value modelling

Matchday becomes a broader commercial opportunity with mobile

Once ticketing lives inside a club’s app, matchday can be treated as a live commercial environment. Every scan at the turnstile confirms attendance and location, and this signal can be used to trigger relevant, timely interactions.

Rather than pushing generic promotions, clubs can share context-aware offers: a merchandise discount as a fan enters the stadium, a pre-order food option at half-time, or a surprise loyalty reward for attending multiple fixtures in a season. These personalised interactions will feel helpful instead of intrusive because they are tied directly to each fan’s behaviour. 

Over time, this approach shifts fans away from one-off transactions and towards incremental, behaviour-driven spend that also enhances the overall matchday experience.

Personalised matchday moments - how does this add value for clubs?

• It increases per-fan revenue without raising ticket prices

• Loyalty can be strengthened through instant, relevant rewards

• It connects physical attendance with digital engagement

Fixing issues already causing fan frustration

Fan sentiment across a number of club-owned apps raises recurring frustrations from tickets that don’t load at gates to clunky transfer processes to repeated login failures during time-sensitive moments. This has led to several major premier league clubs with low ratings and reviews, further damaging fan trust and engagement.

A seamless mobile experience can fix these frustrations head-on. Native, in-app ticket transfers make it as easy to send a ticket as it is to send a message, with offline access ensuring tickets are available when connectivity is lost. Simplifying authentication can also eliminate the “login loop” many fans describe repeatedly experiencing. 

Fixing fan frustration - how does this add value for clubs?

• It can improve fan trust and satisfaction

• Reduces app store negativity and support overhead

• Encourages fans to rely on the app, whether for tickets or other purchases and content

Mobile ticketing as a foundation of a unified club app

While digital ticketing is acting as a catalyst for many Premier League clubs, the real value piece is how mobile can become a foundation in fan experience and engagement. This will extend beyond clubs where digital ticketing is becoming mandatory and has the potential to set a standard across both leagues, and countries.

For clubs in the EFL and across European leagues where digital ticketing is not yet a requirement, the decision to invest in a club-owned app is not so much about compliance, but more about ambition. These clubs often have fewer home matches, lower average attendances and smaller commercial teams, which makes maintaining consistent fan engagement even more critical. 

A well-designed, multi-faceted mobile app becomes a way to stay present in fans’ lives between fixtures, rather than relying solely on matchdays.

In this context, ticketing may be a part of a fan’s mobile experience, but it won’t be the centrepoint. If the app becomes a hub for exclusive content, merchandise, news, offers and community connection; clubs have the opportunity to make mobile the ultimate fan destination. Push notifications can work as a tool to remind fans of what’s on offer in-app in between matches, driving engagement and revenue in non-peak seasons.

Taking mobile beyond digital ticketing - how does this add value for clubs?

• This sets a precedent for consistent fan engagement beyond match day

• Fan relationships build outside of the stadium

• There’s an opportunity to nurture the club community whilst driving additional sales in between matches with exclusive merchandise and offers

What does this mean for clubs outside the Premier League?

If Premier League clubs begin to invest in mobile, it sets a new standard for other leagues and clubs to follow. For Championship Leagues, or even those lower down on the football pyramid, mobile presents an opportunity to match their league ambitions and punch above their weigh

These clubs often have very loyal fanbases, with a sense of strong local identity and growing international fanbases, but currently have fewer digital or mobile touchpoints for engagement. 

A well-built app can centralise club information, offer up exclusive video content, provide access to digital memberships or fan passes, and even become the primary channel for merchandise and limited-edition drops. This is a chance to build more personalised experiences beyond the usual social media platforms where attention is often limited, and data is owned by third parties. 

Beyond the Premier League - how does this add value for clubs?

• Clubs can own a direct channel to their fans which grows and scales with their league ambition 

• It reduces dependency on third-party platforms to connect with fans

• Clubs in leagues lower down the pyramid, and global clubs, can match and even set new standards for mobile experience beyond the Premier League

Mobile experiences that perform under pressure

Delivering this kind of mobile experience requires platforms that perform under extreme conditions including peak traffic, offline environments, complex integrations and high fan expectations.

At Apadmi, we specialise in building performance-critical mobile products where reliability, data integrity and user experience are non-negotiable. Our work on large-scale sports and consumer platforms, including innovative digital products developed alongside Chelsea FC and SailGP, demonstrates how mobile can be delivered at scale, when it matters most, without compromising usability or trust.

The same principles that build the foundations of successful training, health and fan engagement apps (reliability, personalisation and intelligent use of data) are exactly what make digital ticketing such a powerful opportunity when executed properly.

Premier League football clubs have the opportunity to take an operational moment of integrating tickets into mobile, and use this as a stepping stone to stronger club- fan relationships that unlocks new revenue streams whilst optimising fan experience. 

Clubs that approach digital ticketing as a mobile-first experience over a compliance task will come out on top and set a new standard for next generation fan engagement. 

Reach out to Apadmi to explore how our global team of 450+ mobile experts can support your club in unlocking more from the new mobile mandate.