The Charlotte Checkers and Charlotte Crown are two sports teams under the same organization, sharing the same marketing team. The Charlotte Checkers, AHL affiliate of the Florida Panthers, and the Charlotte Crown, a first year team in the brand new Upshot women's basketball league, had completely different audiences but wanted the same result: drive fan engagement through personalization. That's what led them to Community's messaging platform.
While one team skates through the winter and the other competes through the summer, both face a common challenge: maintaining year-round engagement with plenty of other events competing for fans' attention. To stay top-of-mind, they rely on text marketing to engage with their ticket and merch buyers.
Challenge
Both sports teams used email and social media to stay connected with their fans. But reaching their audience at time-sensitive moments, either for a game-day announcement, or for addressing a question from a season-ticket holder, wasn't effective using the traditional channels. What they needed was the flexibility to respond to inquiries quickly. For a new league like the Crown, that kind of responsiveness and human interaction matter even more, since the team is still building its brand and earning its audience's trust.
The teams sell tickets through a third party platform and wanted to integrate new buyers' data with their text messaging system to provide an even more personalized experience. A buyer who came to a Star Wars Night and a season ticket holder are different fans with different reasons to come back and need to be treated differently.
Solution
The clubs launched their text program with Community and integrated with their ticketing platform via Zapier to save time and improve fan experience.
Every ticket sold now feeds their text subscriber base automatically. Within minutes, those buyers land in the right segment, based on purchase behavior: Star Wars night, single game buyers, season ticket holders, whatever the case might be. Buyers' preferences seamlessly travel across systems and enable the team to be much more tailored when communicating with them.
Community also enables the teams to get more personal with their fans. Ticket buyers get a text on game day: a thank you for the purchase, the game time, when doors open, parking details, and an invitation to text back with questions. Fans' inquiries are typically answered by a team member within 5 to 10 minutes.
Fans take notice and appreciate the quick response from a real person.
Impact
Special offers sent through Community have generated over $25,000 in ticket sales, from discounted rates, complimentary upgrades, and add-on offers exclusive to text subscribers.
Click-through rates keep climbing month over month, and the member base has grown every single month, to a total of 23,000 opt-ins as of Q2 2026.
“Community has allowed us to get so much time back and also reach a much bigger audience, which is awesome.”
For a fan services team running two franchises with two very different audiences, the ability to sort fans into the right conversation, then to show up authentically and add a personal touch, is what turns a one-time buyer into a loyal fan.
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