The Fan Engagement Pod

In his final pod about the Fan Engagement Index 2026, Kevin Rye tells you five things you should do to get your fan engagement right. Go to fanengagement.net for more.

Full results at https://fanengagement.net/fan-engagement-index-english-football

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Following the publication of the Fan Engagement Index 2026, Kev talks about the need for English National League Premier clubs to prioritise Fan Engagement.

Full results at https://fanengagement.net/fan-engagement-index-english-football

There are also concerns that as football moves towards full regulation by the IFR, many National League Premier clubs are clearly struggling to adapt, even though this is masked by several of their clubs winning bronze & merit awards, including playoff winners Rochdale & Southend. Boston United and Hartlepool both won merit awards for increases of 50 points or more compared to the previous season.

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Following the publication of the Fan Engagement Index 2026, Kev talks about the trends in Fan Engagement in English football.

Full results at https://fanengagement.net/fan-engagement-index-english-football

The key trends in brief:

1. Across the top five divisions of English football covered by the index over the 2025/2026 season, it is obvious that fan engagement has become a significant focus of every football club in the top four divisions and many in the National League Premier.

2. Certain clubs have now established themselves as consistent practitioners. Even after all their struggles on and off the pitch last season, Exeter City still won again, and it is credit to their commitment to the culture of fan engagement. Likewise, Lincoln City, Swansea City, Bradford City, Brighton, Brentford and others.

3. We're seeing a lot of clubs adopt fan advisory boards or shadow boards and overall, I think these are net positive. However, as important and valuable as they are, they are not independent, and are internal mechanisms and need to be treated as very different from independent organisations. I have discussed this recently in another video and you'll find that on our YouTube channel and website.

4. That connects to trend number four, the trend away from independent organisations of supporters, particularly supporters’ trusts.

This is a particular concern because these are proven repeatedly, and over a period of decades, as an excellent external check and balance that I think every club that has them benefits from. Again, I've recorded another video that is on our YouTube channel about this issue, so check our website or You Tube channel for that.

5. To what extent are we seeing long term changes in the actual culture of decision making in football? The trend is still largely negative: ticket prices keep increasing, kick-offs keep changing, significant alterations to stadia are still forced through without proper consultation – all of this often even without proper involvement of key fan engagement staff.

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When it comes to football clubs and independence of mind, it’s always been clear to me that the only way that this position can be held effectively is through an independent body, established under its own aegis, usually through the desire of fans to be represented in some way and to hold the club to account.

Read the full transcript/article at https://fanengagement.net/independent-fans-make-fan-engagement-better-this-is-why/ and watch the video on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thinkengagement

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It's been four years since the Premier League announced that every club in the competition would have to have a Fan Advisory Board. It wasn't long after the collapse of the European Super League, around the time the fan-led review began, so we've had quite a long time to take stock.

I think we need to be much clearer about what they are, what they're not, what they do and why that matters.

Read the full transcript/article at https://fanengagement.net/fan-advisory-boards-have-been-misunderstood-this-is-why-it-matters/

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January 2026 - This is the first ever episode of the pod, and the second most popular episode we've ever recorded. Dan is now at Eleven Sports Media running Global Partnerships Development. Find him on LinkedIn as Daniel McGeachie.

Our guest in Episode One is Dan McGeachie, who most recently led the marketing for one of City Football Group’s new businesses within Manchester City FC (read Dan McGeachie’s full Bio below). These podcasts will bring you insights straight from the experts, and we’ll be publishing them on the second Tuesday of each month.

We talk about Lad Bible and not getting caught up chasing trends, tackle that old cliche 'authenticity', and discuss how important it is to do things for fans that don't always appear on the engagement stats at the end of the week.

Key Insights from Episode One

1. Don’t forget: Social Media is a fundamental tool of communications, not a ‘nice to have’
2. Don’t get caught up chasing trends: Lad Bible isn’t your key demographic, your fans are
3. Be true to your football club. Learn lessons from others, but don’t copy and paste
4. Create a ‘Help’ channel for queries and enquiries by fans (see the Fan Engagement Index for more on this)

Episode Links:

• #ProperBradford (Bradford (Park Avenue)): https://bpafc.com/2019-2020-bradford-park-avenue-season-tickets-are-now-on-sale/
• British Airways Twitter Account: twitter.com/british_airways

Dan McGeachie Full Bio

Dan is a specialist in marketing and communications, and has experience in football from the grassroots to the top of the game, having worked for the West Riding County FA in their marketing team, to recently leading the marketing for one of City Football Group’s new businesses within Manchester City FC. He also had spells in The National League with Harrogate Town and at Bradford City. Whilst at Bradford City, Daniel was a member of the EFL’s Digital Working Group.

He’s also an associate of Fan Insights, and helped us to develop our social media measurement for the Fan Engagement Index

And don’t forget you can join the Fan Engagement Network at faninsights.co.uk/network

Theme music: Future Stuff by Apoxode (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution

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January 2026

Part one

As we head towards a new season (2022/2023), I lay out the position we appear to be in when it comes to Fan Engagement as part of the government’s Fan Led Review. This is after all the context for every discussion about reform of Fan Engagement. I look at where The Premier League are and where The EFL are on this critical issue.

Part two

The main part of this episode is where I try to get my head around a major recommendation of the Fan Led Review’s proposed reforms - and a major plank of the Premier League’s new Fan Engagement Standard. I chat with Shaun Lockwood COO of Doncaster Rovers and Dave Matthews Jones, Fans Elected Director of Cambridge United. This is part of my attempt to create and contribute to the discussion I think we need. Both clubs are at different stages of implementing Shadow Board structures, and I chat with them about where they are, and why they think the structure matters to their clubs - and football more widely. 

I’ll be continuing this theme in the coming months, announcing some exciting news soon about how. Keep an eye out on https://fanengagement.net @thinkengagement or look for us on LinkedIn or Facebook. Email us via [email protected]

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Series 2 Episode 4 is all about our research paper, ‘Establishing Fan Engagement as a core value in the Football Industry during a New Era of Regulation’, with my colleagues Natasha Simms and Andrea Rossi.

It’s a slightly longer episode than normal, so to help you navigate it these are the questions in the order we ask them:

• What makes the research distinct and what are the four pillars?
• What is the key pillar for every club to adopt?
• What are the overlaps between the research and the Fan Engagement Index?
• What are fan engagement challenges are for clubs in crisis?
• How to connect fan engagement with the separate but related areas of fan experience and community engagement.
• We ask how to close the gap between research and practice
• And finally, we discuss what the best practice should be in the growing women’s game.

We’ve provided a breakdown of the questions we ask in the episode description too.

Enjoy the episode.

Don’t forget you can download the full report via fanengagement.net Just click on the research tab at the top of the page and you’ll find it.

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This episode is with James Gibbins, Experience & Engagement Director and part of the senior leadership team at Walsall Football Club.

In it we talk about a wide range of subject, from personalisation to in-person engagement, structured fan engagement’s overlap with community engagement and their success in using this to grow their average attendances, and one of my go-to subjects: how good leadership enables staff, encourages their good instincts and helps develop good practice. 

We also touch on Think Fan Engagement’s upcoming research report on fan engagement which is out very, very soon, and we sing the praises of Huddersfield Town and Blackburn Rovers. Intrigued? Listen on.

Go to fanengagement.net to signup for news about our plans. 

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This week it’s Aarayaman Banerji, Head of Football Governance at LCP. In it we discuss what the impact of the Independent Regulator is likely to be on fan engagement, looking at:

• Overview of what the regulator is likely to focus on
• What could regulation look like in practice
• Minimum standards across the pyramid – different clubs are in different starting positions
• Resources, leadership and culture
• We also give you a sneak preview of some of the content of our soon to be published research paper that was co-authored by Aaryaman before he took up his role at LCP, and which we’re publishing very soon.

Don’t forget we’ve postponed our planned workshop, Life with Football Legislation; preparing for meaningful fan engagement & consultation on the 5th of November. Stay tuned for more on this in the near future. 

Go to fanengagement.net to signup for news about our plans. 

Like, share and subscribe, on all major podcast platforms and at fanengagement.net

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