During COVID, mobile slipped to a supporting channel. I made the case for it as a strategic lever for fan experience and revenue, then led the rebuild. Four team apps shipped in the same year, on a reliability-first foundation.
Four launches, and not one of the dates was ours to move.
Each app had to be live before its own team's first home game. TFC in March, the Argonauts in June, the Leafs and Raptors in the same October. Two-month design and build cycles, four times over.
TFC · Mar
Argos · Jun
Leafs · Oct
Raptors · OctStrong traffic, shallow trust.
MLSE's team apps had evolved independently, each solving the same problems in slightly different ways. That left fragmented fan experiences, duplicated internal effort, and no shared read on why engagement fell off after the final score. Fans opened an app for tickets or scores, then left.
Worse, the apps failed at the exact moments they existed for. tickets not loading at the gate, freezes during game moments, forced reinstalls. If mobile was going to matter, it had to work as one ecosystem, and it had to be trusted first.
Security score, FY23 baseline
a failing grade on game day
Crashes per season
across the four apps
Revenue at risk
sponsorship value eroding with fan trust
Reliability as the growth thesis.
Nine pillars across three areas, with reliability underneath all of them. Fans who trust the app at the gate open it earlier and use it more.
Clear navigation and content discovery
Fans needed to find scores, highlights, tickets, and news without friction. The new structure prioritized intent-driven navigation, moving between live content, team updates, and ticketing in a few taps.
Deeper engagement beyond scores and tickets
The app evolved from a utility into a daily destination. Personalized content, richer video, and interactive features brought fans back between games and kept them connected year-round.
Real-time experiences that respect attention
Live Activities and in-app updates delivered real-time scores and moments without drowning fans in notifications. Informed, with control over how and when they engaged.
Seamless continuity across revenue channels
Ticketing, retail, and partnership integrations stayed stable through launch. The transition was invisible to fans and partners, protecting critical revenue streams while opening room to optimize.
Sustained growth in engagement and retention
Month-over-month increases in active users, dwell time, and content consumption showed the new experience driving measurable business value and stronger fan loyalty.
Actionable insight into fan behavior
Unified analytics gave a clear view of what fans were doing, when, and why, so marketing and partnership teams could make data-informed decisions and refine campaigns in real time.
Shared architecture and design system
A single foundation supported multiple team apps, reducing duplication and ensuring consistent quality. Build once, deploy across brands with minimal rework.
Standardized analytics and instrumentation
Every app captured data the same way, enabling cross-team comparison and faster learning. Consistency turned analytics into a strategic asset instead of a maintenance burden.
Scalable operating model for future seasons
Repeatable processes for design, development, and release. New features ship faster and at lower cost, season after season, across all team apps.
Four apps, ahead of four opening nights.
Each app shipped on a two-month design and development cycle, on a vendor platform pushed well past its out-of-the-box feature set.
Seasonal launches at scale
4 seasons, 4 apps, shipped ahead of opening nights on tight 2-month design and dev cycles.
Partner-ready inventory
Repeatable placements with attribution reporting, built for sponsorship scaling.
Segmentation foundation
20+ segments, CDP integration, event and location-based targeting.
Vendor strategy
Vendor platform as baseline, evolved beyond its included feature sets to execute the vision.
Engagement + utility features
Live Activities, PiP video, interactive ads, personalization surfaces.
Governance + quality gates
Release-readiness discipline for live events.
It performed on game day, when it mattered.
Stability and security rebuilt fan trust, cut support load, and removed friction at entry. The shared foundation protected core revenue streams and unlocked new ones.
Leafs
Jul 2023 to Jun 2024Raptors
Jul 2023 to Jun 2024Reliability is a growth lever
In live-event contexts, trust is the funnel. When fans believe the app won't fail at the gate, they open it earlier and use it more.
Governance is speed
A centralized design system and shared patterns cut development time across four apps at once. Consistency wasn't the tax; it was the accelerant.
Vendor platforms are baselines
Out-of-the-box is a starting position. The vision came from pushing the platform's APIs past their included feature set.