Rewards4 is delighted to be working alongside Everton Football Club to provide a rewards programme dedicated to helping fans save money on their Season Tickets, match tickets and matchday experiences.

Rewards4Football, operated by the UK’s largest operator of sports-based rewards programmes (Rewards4), enables supporters to collect points when they make purchases with or engage with Everton, as well as on their everyday spending with over 4,000 other Rewards4Football partners.

​Supporters will be able to spend their points on a variety of products including match tickets, memberships and matchday experiences, plus Season Tickets from the 2021/22 season onwards.

​This year’s Leaders Week took a long hard look at the future of sport.  From broadcasting rights to marketing, technological innovation and governance to commercial growth.  The organisers reported 2,000 executives joined the event as it made its Twickenham debut.  As well as private meetings, masterclasses, corridor encounters, and power huddles, Leaders ran a series of panel sessions on the technology and innovation stage

​Joining the NFL, Real Madrid, Tottenham Hotspurs and Olympique Lyonnais, Rewards4 attended its first panel joined by Paul Fisher, Managing Director, Jockey Club and Tom Rowell, Head of Marketing & Ticketing at Everton Football Club.  And it was the subject of how to boost fan loyalty through its innovative rewards programme which was the focus of discussion.

With just a week to go, Rewards4 is delighted to announce that we will be featured in this year’s Leaders in Sport London summit hosting a panel discussion, ‘Using Innovative Reward Platforms To Boost Fan Loyalty’ on the Tech & Innovation stage at Twickenham stadium.  Rewards4’s co-founder and Director, Tom Cowgill, with be joined by Paul Fisher, Managing Director, Jockey Club Racecourses, and Tom Rowell, Head of Marketing & Ticketing, Everton FC to discuss the impact of rewards in delivering results for fans, clubs and their commercial partners.

This year’s flagship Leaders conference will welcome 3,000 director level sports executives from over 70 countries, with an overarching theme of ‘The Future of Sport’.  Rewards4 will be looking to debate the role that both technology and rewards will have in the sector.

Tom Cowgill, director and co-founder of Rewards4, has successfully completed the National Three Peaks Challenge and has helped to raise over £4,000 for Target Ovarian Cancer.

The National Three Peaks Challenge is a battle of endurance that requires you to take on the three highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales within 24 hours. Starting up in Scotland, the 26-mile trek includes the dizzy heights of Ben Nevis (1,344m), Scafell Pike (978m) and Snowdon (1,085m).

We are delighted to announce that one of Rugby League’s most successful clubs, Leeds Rhinos, have teamed up with Reward4Rugby League, and will join the likes of the Rugby Football League, St Helens, Wigan Warriors, Warrington Wolves and Hull FC already on the programme.

Lancashire Cricket is pleased to announce it has teamed up with Rewards4Cricket, a rewards programme dedicated to cricket fans, ahead of the 2019 season as the Club continues to strengthen fan engagement and benefit programmes for Members and supporters of the Red Rose.

The Rewards4Cricket programme, operated by the UK’s largest operator of sports-based rewards programmes (Rewards4), is initially focused on providing new ways to reward supporters for their loyalty when purchasing tickets and Memberships at Emirates Old Trafford. 

It is no secret that die-hard sports fans are some of the most passionate and engaged people when their team is on the pitch. However, what happens when they’re at home or at work? Does that loyalty filter through to every day life? Often not and as a result, clubs continue to seek ways to maintain that engagement and infiltrate the day-to-day lives of their fans

There is a clear appetite for fan currency as a means to extend engagement beyond the pitch, with links being made between fan engagement and fan currency. For example, soccer giants Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus are turning to digital coins or tokens (also known as cryptocurrency) to raise funds and deliver unprecedented levels of fan engagement. This is a growing area for sport, but one that is likely to attract the attention of world-leading clubs as well as fans looking to redeem their tokens for voting rights on how a club is run. However, currency in the form of fan tokens is arguably risky due to a notable lack of regulation.

​So what other options exist for those clubs that want to turn their fans into year-round supporters without the associated risk of token offerings?

​Thanks to the combination of fast internet, smartphones and social media, today’s fans are always connected and even, some have argued, “hyper digitalised”, voicing their passion on Twitter, Facebook and every other social network out there.  As a result, many of us now watch games while bantering with other fans on our mobile phones – the so-called “second screen – and Facebook reports that of the 1.3 billion-plus people on Facebook, 500 million are “hardcore football fans”.

Sports clubs have long recognised they can’t rest on their laurels when it comes to engaging with their fans. Gone are the days when your dad and grandad’s favourite club becomes, by default, yours. The younger generation are much harder to reach and win over as loyal fans – they have been granted easy access to a global playing field, with local football teams now competing for fans against the likes of Barcelona and Manchester United.

Not that it’s an easy win. Today’s sports fans are more on the ball than ever when it comes to sponsors; a recent global survey found that while most don't object to sponsorship, more than eight in ten believe that fans are not front of mind when sponsors make deals with players or teams.