Olympique de Marseille

Strategic design and product framing for a fan ecosystem connecting content, matchday services, ticketing and commerce.

Role

Lead · Product strategy · Service design

Challenge

Passionate fans. Fragmented touchpoints.

Scope

Strategy · Content · Matchday · Commerce

Impact

5 touchpoints. 1 ecosystem strategy.

01 · Situation

One of France's most passionate fan bases. No digital ecosystem to match it.

One of France's most passionate fan communities with no digital ecosystem designed around how fans actually live their relationship with the club. Five touchpoints, zero connecting logic.

✕ Fragmented touchpoints

Content, ticketing, matchday and commerce operated as separate channels with no connecting experience logic

✕ Community vs platform

One of France's most passionate fan communities had no digital home that reflected that intensity

✕ Matchday gap

The matchday experience, the peak emotional moment for fans, had no coherent digital support layer

✕ No fan journey

The fan relationship with the club was not mapped or designed. It was left to chance across touchpoints.

The design challenge

02 · Approach

Map the fan. Then frame the system.

Map the fan relationship first. Understand the emotional calendar before making product decisions.

Fan journey mapping

Tension

A passionate community whose digital relationship had never been designed.

No one had mapped the fan relationship as a designed experience. Digital decisions were made without a shared understanding of the fan journey.

Call

Map the fan relationship across its full emotional and temporal arc.

Full season cycle mapped: pre-season, matchweek, matchday, post-match, between-game. Emotional intensity and touchpoint expectations documented per phase.

Result

A fan journey map that became the strategic foundation for all experience decisions.

A fan journey framework that became the strategic foundation. Features evaluated against emotional moments, not platform capability.

Ecosystem strategy

Tension

Five disconnected touchpoints. No governing ecosystem logic.

Content, ticketing, matchday, merchandise and community operated as separate platforms with separate roadmaps.

Call

Define the ecosystem architecture before the product decisions.

Defined how the five touchpoints should relate: shared data layer, experience continuity, strategic coherence across the fan journey.

Result

A coherent ecosystem strategy connecting content, matchday, ticketing and commerce.

A coherent ecosystem strategy replacing disconnected feature decisions with an integrated view of the fan experience.

Matchday experience

Tension

The peak emotional moment for fans had the weakest digital support.

The most emotionally significant moment in the fan relationship had the weakest digital support.

Call

Design the matchday digital layer around the fan's actual experience.

Matchday framework designed around fan needs: journey planning, gate access, in-stadium services, real-time content, post-match community.

Result

A matchday experience framework designed for the fan, not for the platform.

A product vision for the peak fan moment, digital services connected to the physical and emotional reality of matchday.

Take away

03 · Outcomes

What the strategy produced.

A structural foundation for OM's digital fan experience, grounded in how fans actually live their relationship with the club.

Before→After

5 disconnected digital touchpoints

→

1 ecosystem strategy

Fan relationship left to chance

→

Designed across the full season cycle

Matchday with no digital support

→

Matchday experience framework

touchpoints mapped

content, matchday, ticketing, commerce and community

journey framework

Fan

full season cycle mapped across emotional phases

architecture

Ecosystem

strategic framework connecting all digital touchpoints

experience

Matchday

designed framework for the peak fan moment

04 · Takeaways

Three things this confirmed.

Sports digital is about emotional timing, not features. Which touchpoints to connect at which moments matters more than feature completeness.

An ecosystem strategy is a governance tool. How touchpoints relate to each other outlasts any individual product delivery.

The fan relationship is the product. Design for how fans live their connection, not for platform capabilities.

Closing

The ecosystem was designed around the fan relationship, not the platform.

A fan ecosystem is not connected features. It is a designed experience of belonging, over time, across every touchpoint where the club and community meet.

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