Introduction
Fan engagement across Europe and South Africa's two premier club rugby competitions
European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) runs the Investec Champions Cup and the EPCR Challenge Cup - the two most prestigious competitions in the club game. Teams compete from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Georgia and South Africa, with a fanbase spread across those territories and beyond, following the action in multiple languages across a season that runs from October through to the final in Bilbao in May.
EPCR selected Monterosa / Interaction Cloud as their fan engagement platform for the 2025/26 season. Together they are running a structured programme of interactive experiences across both competitions - predictors, voting, bracket games, and end-of-season awards that gives fans a reason to engage at every round, in their own language, throughout the season.
The Challenge
Sustaining engagement across a long and fragmented competition calendar
EPCR's competition structure creates natural gaps in fan attention. Rounds are spaced across the season, fixtures spread across multiple countries, and the knockout format progressively removes clubs from the competition.
EPCR needed a programme that gave fans a reason to stay involved beyond their own club's fortunes, captured data from a geographically dispersed audience, and worked across the multiple languages of a fanbase spread across Europe, South Africa and beyond.
EPCR selected Monterosa / Interaction Cloud to build and run that programme. FanKit – Monterosa's fan engagement toolkit – provided the component foundation: predictors, voting formats, bracket, and awards, all configurable per round and localisable for each market.
Solution
A round-by-round engagement programme across both competitions
The programme is structured to follow the competition calendar. Each round brings a new set of prediction and voting experiences; the knockout stages introduce the bracket; the season closes with player and team awards.
Match Predictor
A Match Predictor runs across every round of both the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup, giving fans the chance to predict outcomes across all fixtures. Leaderboards track performance through the season, giving fans a reason to return each round regardless of how their club is faring.
Top 4 Predictor
Before the knockout rounds begin, fans predict which four clubs will progress from the group stage. The format brings fans onto EPCR's platform at a point of high competition interest, ahead of the bracket phase.
Try of the Round
After each Champions Cup round, fans vote for the best try. The format surfaces standout moments from across the competition to fans who may not have watched every game, and gives the content team a reason to bring fans back to the platform after each round.
Player of the Month and Player of the Year
Recurring voting experiences that track individual performance across the Champions Cup season. Player of the Month runs throughout; Player of the Year draws fans back to the platform as the final approaches and closes the season with a verdict on its standout performer.
The Bracket
From the round of 16, a bracket game lets fans predict the knockout path through to the Bilbao final. Each subsequent round either validates or eliminates their predictions, keeping fans invested in fixtures beyond their own club's games.
Team of the Tournament
A season-closing format where fans select their Champions Cup team of the tournament, giving fans a final point of participation before the off-season.
Multi-Lingual Delivery
All experiences are delivered in multiple languages through the Interaction Cloud's localisation capabilities. A single Experience serves English and French audiences without separate builds - relevant to a competition whose clubs and fans span six countries.
“The new LFC Match Centre has been fantastic in enabling our global fanbase to celebrate the climax to an amazing season in the club's history. Having the flexibility and speed to manage content in real-time has delivered another level of matchday experience, both for our in-house teams and, most importantly, for the fans. The new Match Centre has quickly become an important driver in the club's long-term fan registration strategy.”
Andy Fletcher
VP Product
