This is a sponsored guest post by Simon Ryley, Founder of RightNow Digital.

This week, a new report lauded the use of apps by the leading clubs in Europe’s top five football leagues. It was unrivalled as an exercise in positivity but, to my mind (and please, for legal reasons remember this point throughout), it fell way short of recognizing the status quo as it really is. In brief, most football clubs are getting their app strategies badly wrong.

The main issue is that it measured the success of clubs’ apps by downloads, the majority of which were in the thousands. These clubs have hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of fans, so to have only a fraction of these engaged via the club app proves that no team has got it right just yet. Additionally, in terms of measurement, using downloads as a metric is too linear. In the way we judge the ‘stickiness’ of websites, apps also need to be measured by dwell and return.

In truth there has yet to be a football club that has really worked out its commercial strategy regarding making its app successful long-term.

For my money, where clubs are going wrong is that they offer a single line of content – theirs. This not only has limited interest for end users, it means clubs are fundamentally missing out on owning the wider conversation. For example, how often do fans, after their team’s win, go onto the losing side’s fan platforms to glory in their rivals’ misery? This is well-known fan behaviour so why are clubs letting users disperse in this way? If clubs aggregated rivals’ content as well as their own, fans needn’t digitally roam elsewhere as their needs are being fully met.

With this in mind, expect to see existing club apps replaced by channels which share content rather than simply push the party line. App designers have focussed far too hard on reiterating club or team news content that is available elsewhere – to the detriment of the fans’ interest and the club’s budget.

In truth there has yet to be a football club that has really worked out its commercial strategy regarding making its app successful long-term. Design agencies have been allowed to dictate what is created and have done so on behalf of sponsors. The smart thinking –  which will be here soon – is that apps can facilitate the digital marketing objectives of sponsors and create a better revenue stream for all parties.

As the only EPL team without a dedicated club app, Leicester City isn’t missing out on anything and, in doing so have saved themselves a packet. Well done the Foxes!