EintrachtTech: The Digital Transformation of Eintracht Frankfurt

EintrachtTech Ltd, the digital subsidiary of Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt, sees all strategic digital projects bundled in the club’s 100%-owned subsidiary and is responsible for the internal digital professionalisation and the development of new digital business models that reach far beyond the stadium borders, whilst playing a central role in securing the club’s present and future financial independence and growth potential using a holistic and far-reaching approach.

fcbusiness speaks to CEO, Timm Jäger, to find out more about the company and its growing importance at the club.

What is EintrachtTech? How is it structured and what is its overall purpose?

Eintracht Frankfurt started its digital transformation in 2017, which lead to the foundation of the tech subsidiary EintrachtTech. At that time, the club found itself in a situation in which it was sold out from a sponsoring perspective and had an average attendance of 50,000 (stadium capacity 51,500). Even though being very successful on the business side, the club had financial disadvantages compared to other German clubs with external investors, for example: Leipzig, Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg – and clubs that regularly compete in the UEFA Champions League such as Bayern [Munich], Dortmund and Leverkusen. To establish new revenue streams and become more competitive on the business side, Eintracht Frankfurt decided to dedicate itself to new digital business models and digital innovation with the ambition to become the most digital and most innovative German sports club. Within EintrachtTech all strategic digital projects and business models of the club are bundled.

EintrachtTech’s business areas are:

Platform & app: key business area is a self-developed fan-centric platform with different software modules that enable Eintracht Frankfurt to optimally organise and offer all fan related services and products via its own B2C platform mainaqila and to generate new revenues for the club and partners.

Digital hub ‘Arena of IoT’: EintrachtTech founded the digital hub ‘Arena of IoT’ within the Deutsche Bank Park. Internet of Things solutions are developed together with national and international tech companies in areas such as smart building, smart energy, automated visitor flow control, autonomous driving etc. to make Eintracht’s stadium one of the most innovative and digitised stadiums in Europe.

Esports: All esports activities are also part of EintrachtTech’s responsibilities with a focus on FIFA and League of Legends. Therefore, an esports academy was founded in which more than 100 kids are trained in both games. The most talented players have the chance to become part of Eintracht’s professional esports teams. Additionally EintrachtTech is responsible for all start-up and tech cooperations of Eintracht Frankfurt.

EintrachtTech accordingly consists of software developers, data analysts, Internet of Things experts, esports experts, etc. to generate new revenue streams for the club and offer Eintracht’s fans (on the B2C side) new services but also create additional value for corporate partners (B2B side) – both generates new ‘non-traditional forms of revenues’ compared to traditional revenue streams for professional sports organisations.

All EintrachtTech business areas are showing strong growth and additional future business areas are already being analysed.

Since its foundation, EintrachtTech has been recognised as one of Germany’s 100 most innovative SMEs for the second time in a row in 2022, won the German Innovation Award 2022, and was awarded for the ‘Best Digital Transformation’ at the World Football Awards in Seville in September 2022. The projects not only created a new revenue stream for the club but have also led to the foundation of totally new business areas that contribute to the diversification of Eintracht Frankfurt. EintrachtTech now contributes with significant revenues to the club’s business success.

How has this enabled you to improve the fan experience?

The ownership of the software development of all essential club services by EintrachtTech (ticketing, ecommerce, app, analytics, content management system, etc.) ensures a state-of-the-art digital fan experience and enhances customer insights through advanced analytics on EintrachtTech’s own digital platform. All digital touchpoints – besides external social media platforms – are technically owned by the club and all fan interactions are executed in coherent systems. This ensures that all data – no matter from which touchpoint – is organised in one database/data lake and can be analysed accordingly. Because of this technological independence, the club can ensure its fans that all fan data is only collected and analysed by EintrachtTech and no external parties have access to it. The club additionally created a ‘data council’ consisting of fans to be transparent about the usage of fan data and to create trust in the innovative work of EintrachtTech that complies with the highest data protection standards.

A recent development has been the digital stadium and Arena of IoT. Can you explain what this is?

The digital hub ‘Arena of IoT’ was founded by EintrachtTech in 2020 and focuses on ‘Internet of Things (IoT)’ projects within Eintracht Frankfurt’s stadium Deutsche Bank Park. More than 50 IoT use cases had been identified and set the ‘playing field’ for EintrachtTech in this business area. These projects cover areas and projects such as smart building, smart energy management, automated visitor flow control, autonomous driving. For example at the end of 2021, €11m in research support was received from the German Ministry of Mobility as part of a group of companies to explore logistics-driven autonomous driving use.

The establishment of the digital hub ‘Arena of IoT’ generates new B2B revenue streams through the development of internet of things projects, reduces stadium operation costs and – very importantly – helps Eintracht Frankfurt to become more sustainable. As an effect of the projects Eintracht’s stadium has become one of the most innovative and digitised stadiums in Europe.

How important is knowledge transfer in your pursuit of digital and technological advancement?

Knowledge transfer and the buildup of new know-how is very important – technology and market trends are changing fast these days so a constant exchange of ideas is very important – not only within the sports industry but also on cross-industrial level.

How do you work with partners in this area?

In several ways – we work closely together with start-ups and universities. One good example of cross-industrial knowledge exchange is within the business area ‘Arena of IoT’: EintrachtTech’s IoT experts work closely together with IoT experts from national and international tech companies to create new and innovative solutions for Germany’s most successful sports and concert arena.

Additionally, since 2017, EintrachtTech has collaborated with Frankfurt’s biggest start-up and tech hub, TechQuartier, to ensure a steady exchange of knowhow in digital business areas and technology. At this time in 2017, Eintracht Frankfurt with EintrachtTech was the first German Bundesliga club with its own start-up program.

You launched the Eintracht Mainaqila App in 2021. What is it and how does it work?

One of EintrachtTech’s key business areas is ‘platform & app’ with the app ‘mainaqila’ being the main fan interface. With its own tech experts and software developers, EintrachtTech has designed and developed a digital platform that serves as the basis for all digital customer orientated services of the club. On this platform – the user/fan interface is the app ‘mainaqila’ and the Eintracht website – EintrachtTech integrated a self-developed ticketing system for football matches and concerts, a self-developed ecommerce shop and marketplace solution as well as other digital services around the club and the stadium such as the integration of club media, a mobile payment solution that was developed together with Deutsche Bank and Mastercard and integrated in mainaqila. All fan service offerings are strongly data driven – this data is derived from the self-developed analytics tools integrated into the platform.

Besides having developed our own technical solutions for all fan facing B2C services of Eintracht Frankfurt, a big value driver is the integration of external club partners into the digital platform and app. This approach goes far beyond sponsoring; in Eintracht’s digital platform partner companies are integrated via standardised interfaces (APIs). For partner companies this delivers a significant value-add – the integration into Eintracht Frankfurt’s platform gives them a new emotional sales channel with a strong reach for partner products such as; train tickets, energy tariffs, pay-TV bundles and parking services in the Frankfurt metropolitan region. These products and services are sold within the mainaqila app. From a technical perspective, illustratively it can be said that the EintrachtTech platform works like a small Amazon marketplace.

This approach gives the club technological independence from third-party companies and also ensures complete ownership of data.

How do you think digital transformation will impact the game in the coming years?

The importance of data will become even more evident in the near future. Football and sports clubs have to ensure that their systems are state-of-the-art to be able to ensure consistent data to deliver a perfect fan experience across all digital touchpoints.

Next on the agenda for EintrachtTech is to extend the platform and B2C marketplace and the introduction of new digital fan services. Within the ‘Arena of IoT’ more IoT-related infrastructure will be deployed. Web 3.0 projects are also on the agenda as well as investments in tech start-ups.

To find out more, visit: club.eintracht.de/eintrachttech/