Update: Promo video

Renew football-supply to match demand

Over the years, the popularity of swimming, indoor sports and field sports decreased. Although more stable than other field or team sports, the same goes for football. Market research shows that it’s not the love for the game that vanishes over time. Much more, the traditional supply of football in the Netherlands doesn’t match the changing preferences of people preferring to play sports individually, based on their own schedule.

The Dutch football-landscape is uniquely organized with over 3,000 football-clubs, bringing together over 1,000,000 football players (male and female) every weekend. But the structure also inhabits several rigid features in the way it is distributed and organized - yearly memberships (as opposed to pay-per-plays), weekend leagues (as opposed to working day leagues), old-fashioned facilities and service-models and traditional (official) football forms and games.

Sprint to first prototype

In a five-day-sprint with the core members of KNVB’s marketing and football operations, we moved quickly from user research through wireframes, design and development to a testable mock-up and prototype.

The process resulted in a new and flexible alternative for football players in the Netherlands. A concept that lets you choose when, where and in what form you want to practice your favorite sport in close partnership with existing, local football clubs. We introduced playing football according to the model of a gym, powered by self-educated trainers and premium football necessities. Still, we worked with the original name of the project (“Free Football Players”).

In a subsequent two-day-sprint we developed the first directions for marketing, branding and positioning of the concept, eventually renaming it to kicks.

Launch in Utrecht en Amsterdam

Based on the two sprints, we designed and developed a first version of the platform of kicks. Showcasing the new forms of supply (individual trainings and small 6-weekly leagues for both men and women), enabling football lovers to smoothly pick and book their personal, weekly football moment. We focused on the city of Utrecht first. In the meantime, the KNVB partnered with local football clubs in Utrecht and recruited and educated dedicated kicks football trainers.

Founded on the learnings in Utrecht, we expanded our reach to Amsterdam, while at the same time strongly optimizing the onboarding of users, the booking process and contents of our offerings (on the pitch). Moreover, we made the decision to increase focus on the individual propositions (instead of team propositions) - and to start building our growth-engine around local clubs.

First results

Currently kicks offers individual trainings on 4-5 locations (clubs) in Utrecht and on 4-5 in Amsterdam. Users are repeatedly paying for kicks and approximately 60% of the users return for more. Meanwhile, we’re continuously optimizing the onboarding and activation of users. Next steps include the introduction of on-pitch and online gamification features for the users and the roll-out of a more diversified portfolio of individual offerings.

Promo video:

kicks - playing football on-demand.
Visit playkicks.nl