Your borough has hundreds of sports clubs.
Do you know who shows up?
Game Set Engage connects grassroots clubs, local businesses, and fans into one ecosystem. Clubs run campaigns. Fans earn points. Businesses get foot traffic. And community sport finally generates real participation data. It costs your authority nothing.
The Challenge
Community sport is thriving. The evidence isn’t.
Your borough has youth football clubs training three nights a week. A cricket club that pulls 200 people to summer fixtures. A women’s rugby team that just started and already has a waitlist.
You know this because you live here. But when budget season comes, you need more than anecdotes. You need numbers: participation rates, demographic reach, economic impact on local businesses. The kind of evidence that survives a committee paper.
Right now most of that data does not exist. Clubs track attendance on paper or not at all. Businesses near sports grounds have no way to know whether match days bring them customers. And the council has no centralised picture of community sport across the borough.
This is not a technology problem. The clubs do not need an app built for them. They need access to one that already exists.
How It Works
One platform. Three stakeholders. Zero council spend.
Game Set Engage was built over 10 seasons of running fan engagement campaigns in stadiums and sports communities. It is free for any club with up to 1,000 fans. The council does not pay for it, procure it, or manage it.
What the council does is introduce it.
Clubs sign up (15 minutes)
Any grassroots club in the borough creates a free account. Football, cricket, rugby, netball, athletics. They set up a profile and launch their first campaign the same day.
Fans engage all week
Fans download the free app and start earning points. Check in at a match. Complete a survey. Claim a deal code at a local café. Every interaction is tracked and attributed.
Local businesses partner
Pubs, cafés, restaurants, and shops near sports grounds register as partner venues. Fans who check in there earn bonus points, the venue gets foot traffic, and the club earns a small contribution per check-in.
The data finally exists
Each club captures its own engagement numbers, participation rates, venue partnerships, and demographic patterns — and can share them with the council. Measurable, reportable, and ready for your next committee paper.
Three Stakeholders
One platform. Three groups. Everyone benefits.
For clubs in your borough
Every club gets the tools. No budget required.
- Free for up to 1,000 fans, which covers the vast majority of grassroots clubs
- Match day check-ins, deal codes, surveys, points auctions, and more
- Real fan data: who shows up, how often, and what they engage with
- Points and leaderboards that give fans a reason to come back next week
- 500+ campaign scenarios, from Saturday check-ins to midweek deals at local shops
A youth football club can launch a check-in campaign on Monday and have fans earning points at Saturday’s match. No IT support. Just a phone and 15 minutes.
For local businesses
Match day foot traffic, every day of the week.
- Pubs, restaurants, cinemas, cafés, and shops register as partner venues
- Fans earn more points for checking in at a venue than for watching at home — clubs set the values
- Per-check-in contribution model: venues pay a small fee per fan check-in, and the club earns from it
- No upfront cost. Venues only pay when fans actually show up
A restaurant partners with a local netball league and gets midweek diners. A pub runs an away-day watch party and fills a slow night. Fans earn bonus points for checking in either way, and the club earns from every check-in.
For the council
Measurable outcomes. No line item.
- Participation data from every club that joins — across sport, venue, and season, shared with you as clubs opt in
- Economic impact evidence: venue partnership data shows how sport drives high street footfall
- Youth engagement metrics: track which demographics are engaging, and where
- Participation evidence you can use in Active Lives–style reporting
- Community cohesion indicators: cross-club participation, venue patterns, campaign reach
You do not manage the platform. You do not pay for it. You introduce it to your clubs, and the participation data starts to build.
What You Can Measure
Data that survives a committee paper.
| What you measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Fan engagement by club, sport, and location | Evidence base for participation reporting |
| Venue check-ins and partnership contributions | High street economic impact evidence |
| Campaign engagement rates | Community programme effectiveness |
| Demographic engagement patterns | Equalities and inclusion reporting |
| Cross-club fan activity | Community cohesion indicators |
| Youth engagement frequency | Youth services outcome measurement |
| Seasonal trends and growth | Long-term strategy planning |
Every data point comes from a real fan interaction, not a survey sent six months later.
What This Looks Like
A Saturday in Barnet.
A picture of what the borough could look like. Imagine 30 of its grassroots clubs on Game Set Engage by next season.
A junior athletics club in East Barnet runs a Saturday morning check-in campaign. 84 families check in through the app.
A women’s netball league in Finchley pushes a sponsor survey to its 400 fans. 210 complete it by lunchtime. Fans who grab lunch at a partner venue afterwards earn bonus points.
Barnet FC supporters check in at the stadium. Others watch the away game at a partner pub, earning bonus points for checking in at a partner venue.
A rugby club in Hendon launches a deal code campaign. Fans claim discounts at three local businesses, then head to a partner cinema where checking in earns another round of points.
AM
The council’s sports development officer has the weekend’s numbers in hand. 1,847 fan interactions across 12 clubs. Venue check-ins at 9 local businesses. Three new club-venue partnerships formed.
That goes into the next community strategy update. Into the annual participation report. Into the cabinet paper that justifies the next round of facility investment.
None of it existed before. All of it is free.
FAQ
Common questions from councils.
No. Game Set Engage is free for clubs with up to 1,000 fans. The council does not pay licence fees, hosting costs, or setup charges. There is nothing to procure.
No. The council is not buying software. Individual clubs adopt a free platform. The council’s role is awareness and introduction, similar to signposting a Sport England programme. No tender, no framework agreement, no contract.
Game Set Engage is built to be GDPR compliant. Fan data is collected with consent through the mobile app, and clubs control their own data. The council does not become a data controller unless it chooses to. If your authority needs to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment, we’ll support you with the details you need.
Each club manages its own account, so there is no central management burden on the council. Clubs create campaigns, fans participate, venues register. The system is self-service by design.
The platform was built for volunteer-run grassroots clubs. Setup takes 15 minutes and a campaign takes about 5. If a coach can post to a WhatsApp group, they can run a Game Set Engage campaign.
We’ll help you introduce it: a short brief for sports development officers, a template email for club contacts, and a plain-language explainer for cabinet members. We’re also happy to present at a borough sports forum or council meeting.
Each club owns its own data, so borough-wide reporting isn’t an automatic feature. But clubs can choose to share their numbers with the council, and we can work with you on aggregated reporting across the clubs that take part. Individual club data stays private unless they opt in.
Any sport with fans. Football, cricket, rugby, netball, athletics, swimming, basketball, tennis, hockey. If people turn up to watch or take part, they can check in and earn points.
The clubs, fans, and businesses are already here
They just need connecting.
Game Set Engage is free for grassroots clubs. You introduce it, and the ecosystem builds itself. No cost, no procurement, no IT involvement.