MatchDay Digital – the alternative for NPL clubs

Liam Watson

In a time where fans are not guaranteed to be able to attend games due to COVID-19, MatchDay Digital presents as a beneficial way to make programmes accessible to everyone.

MatchDay Digital is the world’s first, football-focussed digital magazine platform that sees premium content made available for everyone no matter where they are, including matchday programmes, popular football magazines, newspapers and high-quality fanzines. Fans will then have access to digital versions of content that may have otherwise been print-only.

Available on Apple iOS with Android and Desktop to follow soon, MatchDay Digital brings all quality football content to the app and sees the development of programmes for football clubs.

By having all football content in the one place, it reaches a bigger audience where fans may find a hidden gem they might not have seen before. MatchDay Digital uses the Intelligent Content Engine (IP) to match material uploaded by clubs, leagues and countries that fans follow on the app, which significantly increases the visibility and reach of each publication that in turn enhances the fan experience.

MatchDay Digital is a free-to-use platform given they work on a revenue share based on the volume sold and a further reinvestment into marketing with each partner. Their strong technology roadmap will allow for more interactivity, dynamic content and translations as they look to extend their reach globally.

English League One side AFC Wimbledon are part of MatchDay Digital’s clients, featuring English Premier League teams Burnley and Crystal Palace, as well as Championship clubs Brentford FC, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest and Watford where digital content is provided.

AFC Wimbledon’s partnership began from the opening day of this season where fans could download the matchday programme for the game against Plymouth Argyle, even without being allowed to attend.

AFC WImbledon CEO Joe Palmer sees this as a step ahead of the curve when factoring in the potential of further reach within the app.

“AFC Wimbledon is a forward-thinking club. We are embracing the future and our new stadium shows that. We’ve not skimped on technology in any way,” Palmer said to FC Business.

“We have to future proof and think ahead as to how fans’ behaviour will change, and digital content is just part of that. We’re not the biggest club, but that doesn’t mean we can’t think like one.

“Digital magazines have been teetering on the edge of full existence for a while now. A lot of people have been talking about them, but it made sense for us to take this step now.

“There’s plenty of research that now shows mobile phone use in stadiums is massive. Practically, people don’t want to hold a physical magazine.

“Digital is a much more cost-effective and time-effective way of operating and clubs need to challenge more fans to move to digital we move into the future, because it’s better for us as businesses, and it’s better for fans as consumers.

“Modern-day football clubs can encourage that change for the good of the fans, and the good of the club.”

In today’s current climate, where the production of printed magazines and distribution would be tricky amid the challenges of COVID-19, the idea of going digital has an even stronger case and big appeal to any football clubs yet to make the switch.

“We knew that fans would only occasionally buy matchday programmes when physically attending football games,” MatchDay Digital founder & CEO Damian Woodward explains.

“Through our research we found out that if it was more convenient, easy to access and offered better value, more fans would purchase programmes. Over 50% of match-goers and 25% of fans watching on TV or through subscription services would be interested in buying a digital programme if it were available to them.

“For clubs, we could see that they were spending time and money on producing, printing and distributing a high-quality publication for each home game, but that the audience for this was so limited.

“You’re only speaking to the people who are attending the game, but if you speak to every club in the country, they’d tell you that their fanbase is much, much bigger than just the people who are able to get to the ground on Saturdays.

“MatchDay Digital allows clubs to access their audience wherever they are. That means greater revenue from increased sales, a better connection to the fanbase and unlimited exposure that can be sold on to sponsors. It’s a no-brainer, for no extra cost.”

You can find more on MatchDay Digital here, where you can get in touch by filling in a contact form.

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Tottenham modernises stadium technology with major IT overhaul

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Image credit: Yau Ming Low / Shutterstock.com

Tottenham Hotspur has completed a major upgrade of the digital infrastructure that underpins its stadium operations, highlighting the growing importance of technology away from the pitch.

The Premier League club has partnered with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to modernise its IT environment, replacing legacy systems while introducing new networking, automation and connectivity capabilities across Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The project also reduced the club’s virtualisation licensing costs by more than 85 per cent following its migration from VMware to HPE Morpheus software.

While cost savings were one outcome, the wider objective was to simplify how the stadium’s technology is managed.

The upgrade brings networking, servers, storage and virtual infrastructure under a single operating platform. Tottenham is also introducing Wi-Fi 7 throughout the venue, supporting everything from digital ticketing and cashless payments to mobile services and high-density fan connectivity on event days.

The investment reflects the changing role of football stadiums.

Modern venues increasingly serve purposes beyond football. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium stages NFL games, concerts and other large-scale events throughout the year, placing increasing pressure on the technology that supports daily operations. Reliable digital infrastructure has become as important as physical infrastructure in delivering those experiences.

Across football, clubs are increasingly viewing technology as an operational asset rather than simply an IT requirement. Investments in automation, connectivity and cloud-based management can improve efficiency behind the scenes while enhancing the experience for supporters inside the stadium.

For Tottenham, the latest upgrade is another step in positioning its stadium as a multi-purpose entertainment venue. It also reflects a broader trend across elite sport, where digital infrastructure is becoming central to matchday operations, commercial activity and long-term venue management.

The Spreadsheet Is Dead: Majestri’s Fix for How Clubs Actually Assess Players

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If you’ve ever sat through a club’s end-of-season review, you’ll know the drill. A coach pulls out a folder of notes, someone half-remembers what a player was like back in Round 3 and a parent quietly wonders what they actually got for their rego fees beyond a team photo. Football club platform Majestri says it has a fix for that, and it’s built directly into its Player Assessment module.

Why clubs bother assessing players in the first place

According to Majestri, clubs run player assessments for one of three reasons – usually more than one at once. Some are chasing genuine development, using the data to lift the level across their high-performance squads. Others are after a fairer way to pick teams, putting every player on the same measurable scale so selection is based on evidence rather than a coach’s gut feel about who “looks the part.” And for clubs operating under a Football Australia or state federation licence, assessments at set intervals often aren’t optional – they’re a compliance requirement, with the paperwork to prove it when asked.

Whatever the motivation, Majestri’s pitch is the same: don’t let that assessment data die in a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop.

Build your own assessment, your way

There’s no one-size-fits-all template here. The Assessment Designer lets technical directors set their own criteria, sort them into whatever categories their coaching staff already use – think core skills, possession, defending, attacking – and decide what each point on the rating scale actually means. Crucially, every criterion also gets a comment field, because a bare number rarely tells the full story of a player’s development.

The Assessment Module Builder for an NPL Juniors assessment
The Assessment Module Builder, showing an NPL Juniors assessment with a 1-10 rating scale banded from under performing through to excelling and role-specific criteria grouped into core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

Build it once and it’s reusable every time that assessment cycle comes around, so every player and every coach – is working off the same yardstick.

Something for the parents to actually take home

One of the more relatable pain points Majestri is targeting: most families never see much tangible return from a season of fees beyond a team photo. Player Assessment addresses that with report cards – colour-coded against the same scale coaches used, grouped by category with averages calculated automatically, and delivered as a PDF or an interactive web page a parent can read without needing a coaching badge themselves.

A player report card for an under-15 player
A report card for an under-15 player, colour-coded from under performing to excelling, with a score for every criterion and a group average across core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

 

Turning the numbers into something useful

The real value, though, sits in what Majestri calls the Player Analysis Lab. This is where clubs can plot a player against their team-mates or an entire age group across two categories at once, spotting clusters and outliers at a glance. Every score gets read against the group average – so a “7” actually means something in context – and clubs can report at the broad category level or drill into individual fields underneath. The results can be filtered down and exported for selection meetings or grading purposes.

The Player Analysis Lab comparing players in an under-15 and under-16 squad
The Player Analysis Lab comparing seven players across under-15 and under-16 squads, with a scatter plot, a sortable table of scores against the player average, and controls for choosing which categories and fields to report on. Source: Majestri.

The admin side nobody enjoys, made easier

Beyond the flashy analytics, there’s a practical layer built for the volunteers actually running the process:

  • Sweep monitoring – a quick view of which assessments are done and which are still outstanding, organised into defined assessment periods so progress can be tracked against peers.
  • Individual development plans – every player gets a personalised plan, and clubs can group common improvement areas to run cross-team training sessions that lift the whole club rather than just one squad.
  • Access control – coaches and technical staff can only see assessments for the teams they’re responsible for, and completed assessments are only visible to people linked to that player’s registration.
“Hard numbers to draw on when you review coaching staff and curriculum – and something tangible for the players and parents who pay the fees.” – Majestri

 

The bigger picture

Majestri frames all of this as sitting on top of the club’s own data – assessment results live on each player’s profile inside the platform rather than in a spreadsheet that walks out the door when a technical director moves on. For committees, it also means hard numbers to lean on when reviewing coaching staff or curriculum, rather than relying on anecdote.

It’s a fairly clear read on where club administration software is heading: less about digitising paperwork for its own sake, and more about making the data clubs already collect actually work for player development, team selection and compliance  without adding to the workload of the volunteers who run the show.

For more information on Majestri’s Player Assessment module, visit majestri.com.au/player-assessment.

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