Alexa Doiron
communitynews@ourvalley.org
Christiansburg High School Principal, Tony Deibler, came up with a reward app for students and school supporters that allows fans to earn points by attending school-sponsored events. CHS is currently the only school in Southwest Virginia with this kind of program, and Deibler is excited about the community’s reception.
With its launch only a week ago, the app, Blue Demons Reward Program, already has 422 members. The app uses geo-fencing to track where a person is when they sign in at an event. This way, users can’t just sit in the parking lot of the stadium and collect points without actually attending the event.
Deibler came up with the idea when he saw his daughter using a similar app for her school. After doing some research, he discovered that the app was through a company called SuperFan, which creates these types of apps for schools all over the country.
SuperFan is a fan loyalty & engagement company that is primarily focused in college sports, but has begun to break out into the high school demographic. The company was founded in 2011 by Chris Nowak & Kayla Mount who came up with the ideas when they saw schools struggle with attendance at school-wide events, wasting marketing dollars on brand awareness, over-looking potential fans and an overall lack of fan data.
There is a cost associated with app for the school, but Deibler assures that it is affordable and worth the cost because it also helps to get sponsors to help pay for it. Deibler predicts that the school will actually end up with more than simply covering the cost in terms of game attendance and participation. All of this will hopefully add up to even more financial gains for the school as well as giving fans something competitive to feel a part of themselves.
The app creates a user scoreboard for the users with the most points, and while the rewards for points is still being determined, Deibler hopes that fans will be more than excited to take part in this new way in interact in local sports. The way Deibler would like to see the app work is to allow people to redeem awards from businesses that choose to sponsor the app. The ultimate reward, SOMETHING said, would be a Super Demons Fan shirt which would be awarded to those who accumulate the most amount of points.
“I just wanted to create more interest in people coming out to support our teams,” Deibler said. “Not only athletics but our theater and anything else we do. We just want to encourage more support from student and community events.”
The different events hold different point values, however, and those with the app will see that before they start using it. For example, a home football game is worth 10 points, but an away game is worth five points. This allows the administrative to place greater point values on events to which they want to encourage more students to come out.
Blue Demons Rewards is free to download on the app store and Deibler said he hopes to see it grow quickly as the school year begins again.
