Superfan apps are ‘a safe environment for brands to trial and incubate ideas,’ says James Kirkham, chief business officer of direct-to-fan sports platform, Cleats Club.
Cleats, which launched in October, is a mobile-first platform that offers fans direct access to athletes. Footballer Harry Kane was the first to join, sharing moments from his life with fans through videos, voice notes and text updates. Brands are getting on board, too: Cleats has signed its first sponsor deal, with Just Eat.
Superfan apps are springing up in music, sport and gaming, as businesses look to monetise the relationships between enthusiasts and talent. In 2023 Goldman Sachs estimated the market opportunity of superfans in music to be over $4.2bn. And in 2024 the CEOs of both Universal Music and Warner Music said their focus would be on monetising superfans.
At its most basic, a superfan app or platform is designed to foster stronger connections between talent and their most devoted fans. These apps offer exclusive content and interaction opportunities for fans, and enhanced monetisation opportunities for talent — and by extension, associated brands.
These kinds of spaces have been evolving for a few years now. SMS platform Community launched in 2019, with Fast Company calling it ‘the future of how celebrities will interact with their fans online.’ Video-sharing site Cameo began in 2017, and hit a high in 2020. In 2023, Formula 1 launched a platform called F1 Unlocked, which has seen success. And ‘fan apps like The Dojo are growing in popularity around the esports scene,’ says Christian Perrins, head of strategy at fan-first agency Waste Creative.
South Korean platform Weverse launched in 2019, and now has over 10 million monthly active users. In February Variety reported that Weverse is ‘proving to be just the ticket for UMG [Universal Music] to court superfans as part of its “Streaming 2.0” vision for the industry.’ Both Warner Music’s superfan app and Spotify’s superfan tier could also launch this year.
Brand activity in superfan spaces
Food is a common topic of conversation between Kane and his fans on Cleats, and Andrew Cocker, Just Eat’s UK&I marketing director, told Cleats’ James Kirkham the brand wanted to ‘simply be part of that and facilitate more of that.’ Just Eat’s Cleats deal complements its existing UEFA Champions League sponsorship, and is one where the brand invites fans to ask food-related questions. Those that Kane replies to can win prizes, including merchandise and vouchers.
Fan questions and Kane’s replies will be used for content on Just Eat’s social channels. ‘We’re not interrupting what the audience is interested in,’ says Kirkham. ‘You could ask Harry a food question, and if he answers, Just Eat could use that on their socials as a simple piece of branded content.’
‘The best community comes from this notion of co-creation and co-existence,’ added Kirkham. ‘Look at what happened in music with Charli XCX and what eventually became Brat.’ When asked about other partnerships with Cleats, Kirkham said brands in the travel space, in and around football, could be a good fit, stressing ‘how easy it is to connect the dots and talk about match travel and give fans money off, get them [to matches] quicker and all that stuff,’ he said.
These communities aren’t for every brand, acknowledges Kirkham, particularly those after ‘a million impressions’. Cleats is large enough to provide legitimate content, he says, so a brand like Just Eat can ‘leverage a tier-one talent like the England football captain in their own comms […] that they could never do for, frankly, the size of the budget we’ve done it for.’
AliExpress sponsored last year’s Weverse Con festival, which attracted 22,000 fans in person and 18,000 online. Cameo for Business launched in 2020, allowing brands to tap into the relationships artists have with fans, and has worked with Ferrero Rocher and singer Mandy Moore, and brands like Chipotle and luxury car maker Infiniti. Community for Businesses has run campaigns for brands like Verizon, American football team Minnesota Vikings and publisher Skybound Entertainment to drive sign-ups, sales and fan engagement.
SaaS platform FanCircles has a unique model of one app per artist or brand, and integrates with existing merchandise stores, allowing clients to manage exclusive content drops, connect with free and premium subscribers, and control audience data and fan relationships. Singer Robbie Williams has used the platform, but FanCircles could also be a good direct fit for fashion and tech brands.
Waste Creative’s Perrins believes that, when it comes to engaging fans in gaming, the more connections brands overtly facilitate, the more equity they will build. ‘Give fans quests and challenges that speak to their skills and motivations,’ he says. ‘Make your products tangible rewards for fan activity. And use the data you harvest to better understand who your superfans are.’
The purity of fan spaces and evolution of social
Writing in Forbes last year, Nate Llorando, the founder of fan app Joolt argued that we’re now in an era where direct fan engagement is essential for athletes, entertainers and music artists, and that ‘the landscape of fan interaction is undergoing a profound transformation through dedicated sport and entertainment apps. These platforms are not only reshaping how fans connect with their favorite personalities,’ he says, ‘but also offering a more authentic and immersive experience compared to traditional social media channels.’
Kirkham tells MediaCat that Cleats is passionately anti-algorithm, and that he’s not trying to keep people on the app, endlessly scrolling. One of Cleats’ driving forces is that it’s ‘a social safe haven’, he says, and part of the appeal for Just Eat was the ‘purity of this fan space interaction.’
Reflecting on today’s broadcast-focused landscape, Kirkham thinks the context of the social media environment is driving superfan spaces more than ever — for artists and fans. ‘Whoever the talent […], the likes of Dua Lipa, pop stars, athletes, footballers… They are increasingly aware of the passive followings that millions of people might enable. Their reach is strangled at a moment’s notice. They have very little power,’ he adds. Kirkham thinks a lot of social media metrics are now somewhat meaningless: ‘There’s this acceptance that the numbers are nonsense. […] Every brand I speak to, from JD Sports to Adidas, it’s a bit of a shrug. Like, what does it even mean?’
Kirkham likes the idea that these emerging apps facilitate ‘pure interactions between you and your hero’, and thinks that in the not-too-distant future it will feel archaic that we’re only accessing our idols through an intermediary like social media. ‘You know, the word social is a misnomer, right?’ he says. ‘[Social media platforms] started off as a discourse of reply, comment and interaction. Now [social media] is dominated by broadcast: Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Stories. And of course, the apex predator of it all, TikTok,’ he adds.
His comments have merit. In 2023 The Wall Street Journal reported that we’re not sharing on social media as much anymore, and that ads, bots and misinformation have sucked the fun out of it all. Around one in five consumers say their social media use has decreased in the last year, says GWI’s trends manager, Shauna Moran.
‘Community-driven consumers are more likely to turn toward niche apps, often using them to fill any gaps left by major networks, which don’t always cater to niche fandoms as effectively,’ thinks Moran. ‘Ten per cent of consumers say they’ve been using new or different apps in the last year, rising to 17% among people who buy things to access the community around them, and 15% among people with distinctive interests, like esports and adventure sports,’ she adds. ‘Frustrations with social media are clearly pushing people toward emerging or superfan apps, and incentivising the [social media] giants to adapt,’ she concludes.
Looking forward, one of Sprout Social’s trends for 2025 is that niche communities will continue to grow, citing networks like Lapse, which focuses on friends over followers, and 222, which aims to build third places and deepen real-life experiences.
This could also partially explain Reddit’s user engagement outperforming its rivals last year, as the platform is, by definition, a collection of niche groups and subcultures.
Correction (2.5.25): A previous version of this article stated that almost half of consumers had reported using less social media in the past year. This has been corrected to one in five.
