Italian Serie A club AS Roma has partnered with digital consulting firm Omnigon to unveil what it claims to be the world’s first crowdsourced official football club website.
The new asroma.com website was designed and built based on feedback and ideas put forward by the club’s supporters. In a first for a professional sports team, Roma used Reddit, the social network news site, and independent fan forums to directly involve supporters in the development of the club’s new official website.
The new enhanced mobile-responsive website, available initially in Italian and English with other languages to follow in 2016, features Roma TV Plus, a new platform that gives fans extensive access to Roma videos.
It also includes in-game player and team statistics for every game powered by Corebine, Omnigon’s proprietary real-time data delivery network, as well as curated social feeds intended to make the platform a one-stop shop for everything connected to Roma. Additionally, the site features an all-new lifestyle travel section celebrating the best of Rome and its culture to be leveraged by residents, visiting fans and tourists.
The new site is already utilising fans as photographers, graphic designers, writers and columnists and aims to provide further opportunities and training to allow supporters to develop and showcase their skills to a global audience.
Roma has a vision to become the most connected club in football. Paul Rogers, head of digital at the club, said: “Based on the feedback we received from fans, we have created a site that attempts to serve as a bridge between how people use social media and what they expect of an official club website.
“From a content perspective, this is much more than a football site. From food and drink to music, style, shopping and sightseeing, the site celebrates everything that makes Rome such a unique and aspirational city.”