In Focus: Behind An Unprecedented Summer For Urban Zoo
The summer of 2024 has seen sports technology provider Urban Zoo launch an unprecedented 40+ new projects as they continue to reshape the digital landscape in sport.
Urban Zoo’s proprietary Gamechanger platform unifies web, apps, SSO, streaming and retail under one digital roof.
The Warrington-based company work with more half a dozen Premier League clubs, a further 10 in the EFL Championship and more across football and sport more generally.
Early 2024 also saw Urban Zoo selected by the EFL to build and run EFL Digital’s new websites and apps, integrating with third-party providers in areas such as streaming and ad serving. More than 20 clubs launched on that platform this summer, representing the next step for the company’s true PaaS (Platform as a Service) model.
CEO Chris Grannell, explained: “As a business we have transitioned from an agency into a rounded sports technology company that not only understands the intricacies of football but how to deliver for all types of sports efficiently and on a global scale.
“Our unique approach to football, in creating a wider platform (Gamechanger) that clubs could utilise and engage with their fans in new ways at a sensible price point, allowed us to disrupt the market somewhat and move away from the traditional cycle of paying a high capex price every 24 months or so.
“As Urban Zoo continues to grow and we support our client base with new and innovative products, it’s only natural for us to take what we have learnt working in football and deliver the same robust model into other sports, not only in our home UK market but also in Europe and the US.”
“Value for money is hugely important to customers and the days of paying over the odds for vastly expensive websites and apps should be long gone,” added Rob Moore, Urban Zoo’s Chief Commercial Officer.
“We have always focused on ensuring the financial fit makes sense both in terms of our pricing, and our ability to help clubs get the most out of their investment both from a content and commercial standpoint.
“We have people on board who have worked at a high level within football clubs, people who have founded other sports businesses and worked in and around the game for a long time.
“That experience bleeds into the way we interact with our existing clients and support them. Clubs have all kinds of unique challenges and they like the fact that they can pick up the phone and speak to people who have been there and done it.”
Listening to both new and existing clients is key to the platform’s development, explains Chief Operating Officer, Matt McKiernan. “The way we build and progress our feature set is focused squarely on the needs of modern-day sports content and comms teams,” he said.
“We see clubs of all sizes and at all levels having to do more with less as the importance of digital continues to grow. We can help with that by continually listening to our clubs and presenting the features they want at pace and in an intuitive way.
“When we are bringing new features into the new platform we can build once and deploy to everyone, meaning a constantly developing roadmap rather than individual sites which all need to be updated independently and typically lead to a big site refresh every three years or so.
“The new platform is revolutionary in that we can now spin up services in a matter of a couple of weeks but maintain an extremely high level of quality and powerful functionality.”
Page Builder is one of the centrepieces of the new Gamechanger 2.0 platform and offers clients the ability to control the look and feel of pages and layouts, and push up the changes immediately rather than having to go through developers.
Hayden Evans, Urban Zoo’s Chief Creative Officer, said: “Page Builder allows us to hand creative control and power over to clients and allow them to change the look and feel and layout of their site on the fly.
“The likes of Sunderland, for example, have really wowed us with how they’ve styled their site and changed the entire look and feel above the fold for their summer kit launches.
“We set the general design principles in terms of how elements work and the UX, but clubs are able to have a large degree of control and they love that freedom.”
The platform is augmented by a large range of integrations with market leaders in areas such as ticketing and all built on a solid serverless core.
“With such a broad client base we are now able to offer pre-baked integrations with all the main players across the likes of sports data, ticketing, retail and CRM,” explained Martin Dunford, Urban Zoo’s Chief Technology Officer.
“The more the platform expands, the more integrations are built in.
“Streaming has also long been a part of that mix, and where possible we offer our own products so that clubs don’t need to go to third parties. The StreamLine video platform is a good example of that, as well as retail, which is an area that is growing quickly. Our TeamStore offering has really resonated with clubs and we expect further significant growth in this area over the next 12 months.”
Chief Information Officer, James Campbell, added: “As usage of the platform grows, along with the functionality it offers, we have a constant focus on ensuring the fundamentals are rock solid in terms of scalability and infrastructure using the latest technologies.
“It is very gratifying for us as a team to see the platform constantly rising to the challenge and providing customers with the reliability and stability that customers expect, whether that be for a kit launch, new summer signing or high-profile streaming event.”
The StreamLine video platform exemplifies Urban Zoo’s ability to take the needs of the market and deliver functionality tailor-made for busy sports clubs. The live and video-on-demand service, baked into the Gamechanger CMS, rolled out ahead of the 2022-23 season with Middlesbrough, Everton and Hull the first clubs on board. Growth has accelerated considerably in 2024 with more than a dozen clubs joining the platform.
Matt Joyce, Communications & Content Manager at AFC Bournemouth, said: “Our experience of working with the Streamline platform has been excellent so far. We’ve been able to provide a seamless streaming option for our supporters as well as a brand new video front-end platform making videos easier to access in a far more presentable way.
“We had two complicated friendlies in America this summer, and the levels of support we received for those games from Urban Zoo was superb – they have truly best-in-class knowledge of streaming and video platforms and have been a pleasure to deal with.” Derby County also joined the Streamline fold, relaunching RamsTV in addition to launching new club iOS and Android apps on Gamechanger.
Martin Coleman, Head of IT Services at Derby County, explained: “Urban Zoo have integrated the app and streaming service with our existing website and SSO for a seamless fan experience and we’ve been delighted with the new look and feel of the app, as well as the simplified back of house flow between the app and streaming service and our existing website.
“From the scoping stage to the launch and now the season is under way, they’ve been great to deal with and we’re looking forward to utilising new features and services to continually improve the fan experience.”
Wycombe Wanderers’ Head of Media & Communications, Matt Cecil, added: “Urban Zoo’s first-class delivery of our website and app since early 2021 inspired confidence that their Streamline product would achieve the same high standards, and it does not disappoint.
“Managing all content from one centralised CMS – the excellent Gamechanger suite – enables us to publish videos and articles more effectively than ever before, even from the back of the car late at night on the M4, with simple Live-to-VOD functionality.
“The Urban Zoo team are on hand around the clock to offer not just troubleshooting advice but also best practice guidance from other clubs, and their rapid growth as a business – coupled with the impressive development of their digital products – matches our aspirations to become a highly innovative, digital-first and data-led football club.”
