Building a data-driven ecosystem to strengthen fan engagement and revenue

Rugby Club Toulonnais (RCT) is one of the most iconic institutions in French rugby. With four national titles and an exceptional run in the early 2010s — including three consecutive European championships (2013, 2014, 2015) — the club achieved a level of dominance rarely seen in European rugby.

But while RCT remains a key Top 14 competitor, recent seasons have been less spectacular. Without a dedicated marketing and data infrastructure, the momentum of the “golden years” had not translated into long-term fan engagement or commercial assets. Even the legendary Stade Mayol had become more challenging to fill.

To address this, RCT launched an ambitious digital transformation project.

The goal: build a structured, high-performance ecosystem to better understand supporters, deliver more relevant communication, and strengthen long-term engagement — while providing a seamless experience across all digital touchpoints.

This is the context in which RCT chose Arenametrix to support and accelerate this transformation.

A large fanbase, but difficult to activate

The first phase was to assess the existing situation and define the priority areas for transformation. Several challenges quickly became clear:

• The club had a large fan database, but it was difficult to exploit: fragmented across multiple systems, with a high proportion of inactive contacts.
  
  
• Communication relied heavily on generic, one-size-fits-all messaging, resulting in limited engagement.
  
  
• Marketing, communication and ticketing teams lacked visibility on the impact of their actions and on key commercial indicators.
  
  
• Fans had to navigate several disconnected digital services (ticketing, shop, mobile app…), each requiring its own login — creating a fragmented experience and preventing unified data management.
  
  

The challenge was therefore to establish a clean and scalable data infrastructure that could support CRM activation, fan engagement and revenue growth.

RCT structured its transformation around three key pillars:

1. Deploying a unified platform to centralize all fan data.
   
   
2. Implementing Single Sign-On (SSO) to unify the digital ecosystem and simplify the fan journey.
   
   
3. Activating the data through segmented marketing and automated fan journeys.
   
   

Step 1 - Centralizing and unifying data

Building a high-performing data strategy starts with consolidating all sources into one controlled environment.

The first step was to develop connectors to automatically ingest every relevant data source into Arenametrix:

• Ticketing (Datasport)
• Online shop (Prestashop)
• Mobile app (Bfan)
• Website
  

Historical datasets were also imported manually:

• OTT platform (Sportall)
• Gamification tools (Qalifio)
• Satisfaction surveys
• Legacy Excel files

By consolidating everything into a single platform, RCT became the full owner of its first-party data, with a precise understanding of who each fan is, what they purchase, what they engage with and what brings them back to the stadium.

Step 2 - Streamlining the fan journey with SSO

Arenametrix’s SSO enables fans to access all club services with a single account.

One account, one login, one unified experience:

• For fans: a smoother journey with fewer drop-offs and faster conversion.
  
  
• For the club: cleaner, more reliable data and deeper segmentation capabilities.

SO has become a cornerstone of the club’s digital ecosystem and its CRM strategy.

“SSO will allow us to move toward a true supporter account, which will be a major step forward in the fan experience. Ultimately, fans could access their entire purchase history from a single interface. It will also greatly help us with segmentation. For example, students could upload their student ID and automatically receive relevant offers. SSO will be key to enhancing the fan experience and improving the relevance of all our marketing and communication channels.”
Baudouin Caron - Digital Marketing & Fan Engagement Manager at Rugby Club Toulonnais

Step 3 - Activating data and structuring the fan journey

With data flows connected and SSO in place, the marketing team gained access to a powerful foundation for CRM activation.

Centralized data enabled a detailed understanding of each fan: purchase behavior, consumption patterns, demographics (age, gender, location…), ticketing profile, and more.

The club can now segment its audience intelligently and deliver personalized communications to each fan profile (season ticket holder, student, occasional fan, etc.) — while accurately measuring performance.

This approach takes place within a full fan lifecycle, starting from the first interaction (ticket purchase, newsletter signup, contest participation) and continuing throughout:

• Post-purchase communications
• Pre-match reminders
• Post-match debrief
• Automated scenarios (birthday, satisfaction, reactivation of inactive fans, etc)

A large fanbase, but difficult to activate

Thanks to these three pillars, RCT can now measure the tangible impact of CRM on its revenue and engagement levels — and the results speak for themselves.