Wisła Kraków: Lucky Fan Index
Following relegation, Wisła Kraków faced an existential financial crisis requiring a significant boost in stadium attendance. The club tasked VML Warsaw with developing a strategy to re-engage the fan base and drive ticket sales. The goal was to transform passive spectators into active participants by leveraging existing club data to create a compelling, measurable reason for fans to attend matches regularly.
Creative Idea
AI turned fan attendance into a personal luck score, gamifying match-day superstitions.
Wisła Kraków transformed mandatory stadium attendance data into a personalized 'Lucky Fan Index' using AI, turning superstitious fan beliefs into a measurable, gamified experience that rewarded supporters for their perceived contribution to the team's match-day success.
Turning Superstition Into A Data Science
The Tech Behind The Luck
The project was spearheaded by Jarosław Królewski, the club’s owner and a prominent tech entrepreneur, who insisted on a solution that treated fan attendance as a quantifiable asset. The agency utilized a proprietary algorithm that cross-referenced 246,095 individual fan profiles against the outcomes of 81 home matches. By analyzing four seasons of historical data, the AI identified specific correlations between individual presence in the stands and the team’s win-loss ratio, effectively quantifying the "luck" each supporter brought to the stadium.
Gamifying The Match Day
To drive adoption, the agency built a digital platform where fans could log in to view their personal Lucky Fan Index. This score was not static; it updated in real-time based on the team's performance and the fan's physical attendance at the stadium. By framing attendance as a direct contribution to the club's success, the campaign tapped into the deep-seated superstitions prevalent in football culture. This shift transformed the act of buying a ticket from a passive purchase into an active, gamified ritual where the fan felt personally responsible for the team's victory.
Scaling The Impact
The initiative proved that data-driven personalization could solve existential financial threats for sports clubs. By the time the campaign reached its peak in 2026, it had generated over 20,000 personalized indexes within the first few weeks. The resulting 42% increase in average attendance allowed Wisła Kraków to secure the highest stadium turnout in the Betclic 1. Liga. This success demonstrated that when clubs treat their database as a community rather than just a mailing list, they can turn historical attendance records into a powerful engine for commercial growth and fan loyalty.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Wisła Kraków possessed mandatory, high-fidelity attendance records and years of detailed match performance statistics.
Category
Football clubs typically treat fan data as a boring administrative compliance burden rather than an engagement tool.
Customer
Fans desperately wanted to feel that their presence in the stadium directly influenced the team's performance.
Culture
The intersection of deep-seated sports superstition and the increasing public appetite for personalized, data-driven digital experiences.
Company
Wisła Kraków possessed mandatory, high-fidelity attendance records and years of detailed match performance statistics.
Category
Football clubs typically treat fan data as a boring administrative compliance burden rather than an engagement tool.
Strategy:
Gamify administrative data to validate fan superstitions and incentivize active participation in club success.
Customer
Fans desperately wanted to feel that their presence in the stadium directly influenced the team's performance.
Culture
The intersection of deep-seated sports superstition and the increasing public appetite for personalized, data-driven digital experiences.
Strategy:
Gamify administrative data to validate fan superstitions and incentivize active participation in club success.
Results
The campaign was featured in 228 publications and reached 7.7M people. The average stadium attendance increased by 42.2% (from 18,419 to 26,183), making Wisła Kraków F.C. #1 in attendance in the entire league.
+42.2%
increase in average attendance
7.7M
people reached
#1
in league attendance
Strategy Technique
Turn Data Into Drama
The campaign converts cold, analytical attendance and match statistics into an emotional narrative about luck. It forces fans to care about data by making it personal, superstitious, and directly tied to their identity as supporters.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Customize and personalize
The campaign takes dry, legally required attendance data and transforms it into a unique, personalized score for every individual fan. This turns a passive administrative requirement into an engaging, ego-boosting digital asset.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
This campaign brilliantly leverages data technology to turn a mandatory legal requirement into an engaging, gamified fan experience. The seamless integration of complex data visualization with passionate football culture elevates the work.
The innovative use of historical attendance databases and match statistics to create a personalized fan metric is a brilliant technical execution.
The complex data overlays and app interfaces are designed cleanly, making statistical information look exciting and easy to understand.
