Introduction
A city preparing for its biggest ever sporting year
San Jose is one of the most significant sporting cities in the United States – and in 2026, that status takes on a whole new dimension. The city hosts a historic lineup of major events, including NCAA Men’s Basketball Regionals, six FIFA World Cup matches, the USA Table Tennis National Championships, the CrossFit Games, Slam Jose 3on3 Basketball, and the Rock-n-Roll 5K, 10K and Half Marathon.
Overseeing this once-in-a-generation calendar is the San Jose Sports Authority (SJSA), a non-profit organisation whose mission is to increase the city’s economic development, visibility, and civic pride through sport. Founded in 1991, the SJSA has spent more than three decades attracting and hosting major events in San Jose and the South Bay. But for 2026, the ambition went beyond hosting. The SJSA wanted to make residents active participants – not just spectators.
The Challenge
Turning a series of events into a shared civic experience
Host cities have traditionally measured the success of mega-events in ticket sales and hotel bookings. San Jose wanted to do something different. With an unprecedented year of sporting events on the horizon, the SJSA recognised a rare opportunity: to harness the energy of world-class competition and channel it into lasting community engagement.
The challenge was clear. How do you transform passive spectators – residents who may not have tickets to a single event – into stakeholders with a genuine sense of ownership over their city’s landmark year? And how do you sustain that engagement not just across individual events, but across an entire calendar?
The SJSA needed a technology partner that understood how sports organisations build devoted fan communities – and could apply that same thinking at a civic scale. They reached out to Monterosa to explore what was possible.
Selecting a Partner
A proven platform with the speed and flexibility to deliver
With a packed 2026 calendar fast approaching, the SJSA needed a partner that could move quickly and reliably. Selecting the right platform was critical: it had to be proven at scale, flexible enough to span multiple sports and event types, and capable of delivering a unified participation journey for residents throughout the year.
Monterosa’s track record in fan engagement – powering interactive experiences for organisations including Liverpool FC, Fanatics, ITV, and England Rugby – gave the SJSA confidence that the platform could handle the demands of 2026’s unprecedented lineup. Crucially, Monterosa’s Loyalty Layer offered something that no off-the-shelf loyalty solution could: a system built specifically for sports and entertainment, natively connected to the interactive Experiences that bring fans – and residents – back again and again.
The SJSA also valued the speed of deployment. Unlike enterprise loyalty solutions that require months of implementation, Monterosa’s platform could go live in weeks, meaning the partnership could be operational well ahead of the year’s first major event.
Solution
Game On: a city-wide engagement and loyalty programme
The result of the partnership is Game On – believed to be the first city-wide digital engagement and loyalty programme of its kind in the United States. Available as a dedicated app on iOS and Android, Game On serves as a central hub for interactive experiences across all of San Jose’s 2026 sporting events.
Powered by Monterosa’s Interaction Cloud and Loyalty Layer, the app brings together quizzes, predictions, polls, and trivia – all unified within a single platform designed to sustain engagement across the full year. Rather than a one-off activation around a single event, Game On is built to keep residents coming back, with challenges designed to activate neighbourhoods, schools, and community groups throughout 2026.
At the heart of the programme is Monterosa Loyalty Layer: a real-time engine that turns every interaction into a loyalty moment. Residents earn points for completing challenges – whether passive actions they perform naturally, or active sequences they work through deliberately. Points unlock rewards from a flexible catalogue that includes merchandise, ticket access, digital items, and exclusive drops. Long-term milestones give residents a reason to stay engaged across the full year, converting casual participants into habitual returners.
Segmented campaigns allow the SJSA to tailor the experience for different audiences – from casual viewers discovering the World Cup for the first time, to lifelong San Jose sports fans following every event on the calendar. The Loyalty Layer’s no-code rules engine means the SJSA can configure challenges, rewards, and timing without engineering overhead, adapting the programme in real time as the year unfolds.
From an operational perspective, Monterosa’s Studio interface gives the SJSA’s in-house team complete control over the fan experience – before, during, and after each event. The platform’s open webhook layer also means external systems, including ticketing and partner apps, can feed directly into the loyalty engine, making any action a potential loyalty moment.
“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
