Piing: Revolutionising Fan Engagement at Live Sports and Events

Piing: Revolutionising Fan Engagement at Live Sports and Events

Piing is changing the way fans experience live events, offering powerful tools for sports clubs and organisations to turn passive spectators into active participants through large-scale, mobile-powered games.

Piing is a UK-based tech company that’s transforming fan engagement at live events by using smartphones to power huge, interactive games that bring crowds together in real-time.

The company was founded back in 2020 in Manchester, England.

Piing creates fun, interactive experiences that let crowds—from 30 to over 100,000 people—join in and play together using just their mobile phones, with no app downloads needed.

Their collection of easy-to-play, arcade-style games is built for big audiences and designed to spark energy and excitement.

These games are shown on giant screens at stadiums, festivals, and corporate events, turning fans into active participants in real-time competitions.

Some of Piing’s standout games include Pen-Kick and Quiiz.

Pen-Kick is a virtual penalty shootout that’s been played by fans in stadiums around the world.

Pen-kick was used in front of 53,000 fans at Ajax’s iconic Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam where more than 4,000 fans joined in the virtual penalty shootout during halftime at the Ajax vs NEC match in 2023.

Quiiz is Piing’s massive multiplayer quiz game, which has even set Guinness World Records.

Piing also offers an innovative way to advertise at sports and live events around the world, connecting with fans through fun, memorable moments that stick with them long after the event is over.

One major milestone was becoming the Official Crowd Games Supplier for Manchester City, giving fans at both the Etihad and Joie Stadiums the chance to take part in interactive games before kick-off and during half-time.

Beyond the big screen, supporters can also enjoy Piing games in fan zones, hospitality suites, and even as part of the club’s Blue Carpet experience.

Back in December 2020, Everton FC teamed up with Piing for the first time to boost matchday engagement at Goodison Park where they used games and quizzes to encourage fans to stay in their seats and get involved during the action.

This activation ran across two Premier League matches and a Carabao Cup quarter-final.

These two collaborations highlight Piing’s role in transforming traditional fan experiences into interactive, community-driven events.

So how can Piing benefit Australian football clubs and organisations?

To start with, it’s a great way to boost fan engagement on match day.

Clubs in the A-League and across Australian football are always looking for new ways to connect with supporters beyond the 90 minutes on the pitch.

Piing brings the crowd together with fun, interactive games that happen live in the stadium—before the match, during half-time, or even after full-time.

For example, at a Melbourne Victory or Sydney FC game, fans could join in a virtual penalty shootout shown on the big screen, playing along in real-time using their phones and sharing the excitement with everyone in the stadium.

Another big advantage is that fans don’t need to download any apps to join in, making the whole experience super easy and hassle-free.

Piing works entirely through a web browser—fans just scan a QR code and they’re in instantly.

With so many people tired of downloading apps, and not everyone having the latest phones, this simple, no-fuss approach is perfect for the wide range of Australian sports fans.

One more reason Piing is especially valuable for organisations is the sponsorship potential it offers.

Australian clubs are always on the lookout for fresh ways to give sponsors new opportunities to connect with fans and Piing delivers this with branded in-game spaces and real-time data on how fans are engaging.

That makes it a powerful tool for local and national sponsors who want more than just passive ads—they want to actively reach and engage their audience.

In short, Piing offers Australian football clubs a fun, easy-to-use way to boost fan engagement, create new sponsorship opportunities, and enhance the overall matchday experience.

As live sports continue to evolve, Piing stands out as a smart, scalable solution that brings fans closer to the action, offering clubs and organisations a powerful way to modernise matchdays and build deeper connections with their audiences.

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Arncliffe Aurora’s Riverine Park investment creates a platform for growth

Arncliffe Aurora Football Club has started a new chapter with the launch of Riverine Park, creating a larger platform for football, community engagement and long-term growth in Sydney’s St George region. More than 2,500 people attended the community opening on 8 August, marking the club’s first matches at its new home and showcasing a significant upgrade in its operating capacity.

Riverine Park provides two full-size natural turf football fields, modern player and community amenities, and a new clubhouse. The additional capacity responds to strong growth in Arncliffe Aurora’s football programs, particularly at junior level. The club has also highlighted a $2.5 million investment in facility upgrades. Together with its existing Arncliffe Park base, Riverine Park gives Aurora two homes and a stronger physical platform for its football operations.

More capacity allows the club to accommodate more teams, players and programs, while updated facilities can support stronger member retention and recruitment. They create more opportunities for coaching, development programs, events and community activities. The new site can also strengthen the club’s commercial proposition; a modern facility gives sponsors greater visibility and provides more opportunities to activate partnerships around football and community events. It can also help the club build relationships with schools, community organisations and football bodies. That matters as grassroots clubs increasingly operate as community hubs rather than simply sporting organisations.

Riverine Park also creates opportunities for the wider football ecosystem. Football St George has identified the facility as a platform to grow participation and provide opportunities for players of different ages, abilities and backgrounds. Bayside Council’s project includes upgraded change rooms, toilets, canteen facilities, lighting, seating and solar panels, adding further functionality to the precinct.

For Arncliffe Aurora, the investment is therefore about more than adding fields. It creates infrastructure that can support participation, player development, community programs and commercial activity over the long term. The challenge now shifts from construction to utilisation. The club must maximise the new capacity, maintain the assets and convert greater participation into a sustainable operating model to benefit the community long-term.

‘Wunderbar’ – FC Bayern turns to enterprise AI with Wonderful partnership

FC Bayern Munich is taking another step into the world of artificial intelligence after agreeing to a three-year global partnership with enterprise AI company Wonderful. The deal makes Wonderful the German club’s Official Enterprise AI Partner until 2029. The partnership will focus on putting AI into real-world use across Bayern’s operations, rather than limiting it to experiments or demonstrations.

AI to assists Matchday Fan Services

Wonderful’s first project will target one of the busiest and most varied areas of the club: matchday fan support. Specifically, initial implementation will be an AI agent designed to provide digital ticket support. Matchdays create a huge spike in demand for customer service for all manner of reasons: fans may struggle to access tickets, encounter account problems or need help with time-sensitive issues shortly before kick-off.

Bayern plans to use Wonderful’s technology to handle these requests faster than previously. Instead of each individual case entering a traditional support queue, the AI agent can process requests instantaneously, interacting with the club’s existing systems to hopefully resolve it. The aim is simple: get fans answers in moments, and into their seats!

The system will be integrated into Bayern’s existing technology environment – important as the AI will not operate as a separate chatbot disconnected from the club’s data and systems. It is being designed to work within the infrastructure Bayern already uses.

How Wonderful AI works

Wonderful describes its platform as an ‘enterprise AI system built to create, operate and improve AI agents.’ Those agents can perform tasks rather than simply generate text. They can work with company data, access connected systems and complete multi-step processes. The platform uses a system of reusable “skills”. Each skill can contain the instructions, tools, information and checks needed to complete a particular task. An agent can then use the appropriate skills depending on what a user needs.

For Bayern, that could mean an agent identifying that a fan has a ticket-access problem, retrieving the relevant information from the club’s systems and helping resolve the issue. Wonderful also connects its agents to existing enterprise systems. Its platform is designed to work with data platforms, customer relationship systems and other systems of record. This allows an agent to act on current information instead of relying solely on a static database.

More than a ticketing tool

Bayern and Wonderful have indicated further enterprise AI use cases will be introduced during the partnership. While customer support is an obvious starting point, AI agents could theoretically assist internal teams, automate administrative workflows or help employees find and process information.

Wonderful’s platform is designed to support customer-facing agents as well as internal and back-office workflows. It can operate across channels including chat, email and voice, giving the partnership room to expand beyond the first use case. The company also uses a deployment model built around teams working directly with organisations to put AI into production.

Bayern’s AI Strategy Enters a New Phase

The partnership signals a broader shift in how football clubs can use AI. Rather than focusing solely on analytics, Bayern is looking at AI as part of its everyday operations.

The first test will come through fan service. If the ticketing agent can reliably solve problems during the pressure of matchdays, the club will have a practical foundation for expanding AI into other areas. For the club, the biggest opportunity is therefore not one chatbot, but the creation of AI infrastructure that can support multiple parts of its organisation.

The three-year partnership gives the club and Wonderful time to develop that infrastructure. The first use case is focused and practical. The longer-term ambition is considerably broader. The next phase will be about proving that technology can make the experience better for fans while also making the organisation more efficient behind the scenes.

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