The South African Hockey Association today announced the first phase of its digital transformation journey, with the release of the new SA Hockey Association Mobile Application that will aim to unlock more value for its members, clubs and affiliates and most importantly SA Hockey Fans. The App can be downloaded from the iOS and Google Play stores.
The SAHA FanApp provides a range of features including the ability to renew or purchase the required SAHA Affiliation Membership for Junior, Senior and Social Players. Other fan engagement features include: an aggregated social media (combining all its Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and News) into one easy-to-find Newsfeed and Social Media Wall; an online Fan Shop where players, umpires and Fans can purchase replica merchandise as well as tickets; view all upcoming and past games, including scores and statistics (where available); view highlights of games (as these become available); the ability to follow National Team players (across Men’s and Women’s Teams) for Outdoor, Indoor and 5s Hockey.
Fans can unlock more value by undertaking various FANAPP Missions, focussed on rewarding engagement and interaction with SA Hockey. Get rewarded with points, once a task or mission is completed and earn Badges, which are automatically added to the User Profile and increasing their fan ranking in our official Leader board. Fans with the highest rankings qualify to benefit from EVEN MORE VALUE! Soon SA Hockey Fans will be able to start collecting Digital Team Player Cards and Fan Tokens to support our National Team Players, these will provide the foundation for fundraising for the future stars.
The implementation of a Member Affiliation Registration and Payment Process has also been added to make it easy for players who are required to purchase / renew their annual membership in order to participate in matches and representation of a South African National Team”, commented Shaune Baaitjies – CEO of SA Hockey Association
“This is just the first step on our digital transformation journey to unify and take Hockey in South Africa to International standards. This will mean ease of use for our players, unprecedented access to incredible content (both local and global), epic deals and much more”, added Baaitjies. “We are extremely excited about the opportunity of engaging more with our Fans and finding new ways to unlock value for our players, sponsors and fans of SA Hockey”.
This new digital transformation journey, together with the launch of the Fan Engagement Platform developed by Swiss-based Blocksport, has been driven by ProTouch Africa a South African-based SportsTech business. “We are very proud to see the SAHA FanApp launched this week as part of SA Hockey’s digital transformation strategy which will drive fan engagement and provide new revenue streams that can be used to fund South Africa’s top performing players – something that we are very passionate about”, commented Rebecca Eliot – Founder of ProTouch Africa.
Blocksport understands the need for digitalisation and monetisation of sports, that don’t only fall into the mainstream categories which already attract a great deal of investment. “We feel that other sports such as Hockey need this even more, as they are massively underinvested and SAHA and its CEO have understood what this can mean to SA Hockey and sport across South Africa. Because of this decision, today they are innovators and drivers of digital transformation, not only in SA but globally too”, commented Samir Ceric, Chief Operating Officer of Blocksport.
“And the timing for the launch of the SAHA FanApp platform could not have been more perfect, with the 6th annual Indoor Hockey World Cup taking place in South Africa this week. On the 5 February 2023, twenty four teams from fourteen different countries will compete to be crowned the Indoor Hockey World Champions. As a big fan of hockey, living in London that has produced some of the best hockey players of recent times, I’m thrilled that we as a company are involved as SAHA’s exclusive blockchain partner“ Ceric added.
If you have a brand that is interested in joining the South African Hockey Association on this incredible journey from the beginning and to unlock more value, get in touch with us at marketing@sahockey.co.za. There are a number of new rights opportunities we can provide to organisations wishing to leverage this new platform.
DOWNLOAD THE SA HOCKEY ASSOCIATION APP HERE:
App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sa-hockey-association/id6444644890
Google Play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.saha.app