8 Reasons Why You Should Run A Kids Club Membership Program on Plus.Fan

In today’s competitive sports landscape, building a strong, loyal fan base is more important than ever. While many teams focus on cultivating adult fans, creating a dedicated fan club for kids can offer unique, long-term benefits. From fostering early team loyalty to expanding community engagement, a kids’ fan club is an investment in both current and future success.

Learn more about the basics of a kids club program on Plus.Fan

Here are 8 reasons why sports teams should seriously consider creating a fan club tailored specifically for children:

1. Building Future Fan Loyalty

One of the most powerful reasons to create a kids’ fan club is the opportunity to cultivate future loyal fans. Children are impressionable, and their experiences with a team in their early years can shape their long-term support. By engaging them with team-related activities, merchandise, and events, teams can create lasting memories that translate into decades of fan loyalty. Think of it as planting the seeds for future season ticket holders, merchandise buyers, and social media followers.

2. Growing the Team’s Brand from the Ground Up

When kids feel a personal connection to a team, it goes beyond simply cheering from the stands. A fan club provides a platform to deepen that bond through exclusive access to players, behind-the-scenes content, and special events. These experiences allow children to form an emotional connection with the team that can last a lifetime, often influencing family dynamics as kids encourage their parents to support the team as well.

By engaging with children at a young age, a team has the chance to make their brand synonymous with fun, excitement, and community, fostering a sense of ownership and pride among the youngest generation of fans.

3. Increasing Game-Day Attendance and Merchandise Sales

A kids’ fan club can serve as a gateway to increased attendance and merchandise sales. When children are members of a fan club, they’re more likely to attend games and events with their families. The excitement generated through fan club activities-whether it’s a special meet-and-greet with players, a tour of the stadium, or a fan event-encourages repeat attendance, often resulting in higher ticket sales and long-term engagement.

Additionally, exclusive team merchandise designed specifically for kids can be a big draw. A fan club opens up opportunities for selling apparel, accessories, and even toys that resonate with younger fans. Teams can create exclusive merchandise that only fan club members have access to, turning the experience into something even more special for the kids and their families.

4. Fostering a Sense of Community

Sports have always been about more than just the game – they bring people together. By creating a kids’ fan club, teams can give young fans a sense of belonging and identity. These fan clubs can host social events like watch parties, local meetups, and even sports camps that create a tight-knit community of like-minded kids who share a love for the team. As they form friendships and bonds through the fan club, it solidifies the team as a key part of their social lives.

This community-driven approach also fosters positive relationships between the team and local families, helping the team become an integral part of the neighborhood and region it represents. It’s not just about watching games-it’s about forming memories, sharing experiences, and developing a lifelong connection to the team.

5. Developing Young Ambassadors for the Team

Children who are deeply connected to a team become some of the team’s most enthusiastic and vocal advocates. A kids’ fan club provides opportunities for young fans to feel like “ambassadors” for the team-whether it’s through sharing social media posts, wearing team gear, or recruiting their friends and family to become fans as well. In this way, the kids’ fan club can help amplify the team’s presence in the local community and beyond, especially as kids’ social media activity increasingly plays a role in brand promotion.

6. Engaging with Parents and Families

Creating a fan club for kids is a smart way to engage not only with young fans but also with their families. Families are often the key decision-makers when it comes to purchasing tickets, merchandise, and making plans for game days. When kids are part of an exclusive fan club, parents are more likely to get involved, whether it’s bringing their child to a game or joining in on special fan club events. The fan club becomes a family experience, which can increase team loyalty across all age groups.

7. Nurturing Future Players and Supporters

A kids’ fan club also serves as a valuable tool for community outreach. Many future athletes and sports professionals start as fans of the game. By engaging children early on, teams are not just creating fans-they’re creating the next generation of players, coaches, and team staff. Some of today’s young fans could be tomorrow’s rising stars, and a team that invests in kids’ fan clubs may even be cultivating future talent both on and off the field.

8. Creating Positive Role Models

Creating more opportunity for families and teams / athletes to connect builds more community and build an relationship with positive role models. Showing examples where good sportsmanship, health behaviors and hard work can show benefits.

Wrapping Up

Use Plus.Fan to power your kids fan club program and allow for the member management, safe environment and single-provider benefits from the platform solution.

Learn more about how a kids club on Plus.Fan works, the features and how to overcome the challenges of managing a program.