Newcastle Falcons sign Spontly

Newcastle Falcons, the North East’s only professional rugby club, has teamed up with Newcastle tech company Spontly to produce a new interactive experience for fans of the club.

Spontly and the Falcons have created the Newcastle Falcons’ mobile App, which enables fans to take photos and post commentary during a match that will be instantly available online.

The app is available for both iOS and Android devices and allows fans within the Falcons’ Kingston Park stadium, elsewhere across the region and beyond to share every moment of top-flight rugby in the North.

Duncan Edward, commercial director at Newcastle Falcons said: “The club has seen a big increase in fan engagement since we fully embraced social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and since the recent launch of our new website. For us the Newcastle Falcons App is the next phase of that strategy to engage with fans through the use of new technology.

“We’re very excited to be amongst the first businesses to produce our own mobile app using the Spontly product. The technology available through Spontly allows us to interact directly with our fans and opens up many new and exciting ideas to help us provide fans with a top class match day experience. The App also has extra benefits for a wide range of off-field events held at Kingston Park and this is something we look forward to exploring further.”

Jim Mann, CEO at Spontly said: “Our technology enables fans to interact with the club both on and off the pitch, engaging the Falcons community and broadcasting voices that would have previously remained on the terraces. It is a real privilege to be working with the Falcons and we are excited to see the extent to which our interactive application will have on the growth of the club over the coming seasons.”

Spontly is a highly innovative technology business which participated in the inaugural Springboard Accelerator program – a program that is now part of the world leading, US-based Techstars - and which follows a similar model to Newcastle’s own ignite100.

The company is backed by investment from the Finance for Business North East Proof of Concept Fund which is backed by the European Investment Bank and European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures.

Stephen Price, investment manager at Northstar said: “Spontly has developed a unique and highly scalable web and mobile technology platform that allows its clients to dramatically improve engagement with and revenues from their own customer base. It is great to see Spontly working with one of our most prominent regional brands.”

The Newcastle Falcons App (free of charge from the iTunes and Google App stores) was launched officially at the club’s game against Harlequins at Kingston Park on Sunday, 1st December.