LSU Athletics Announce Blockchain Enabled Loyalty Programme

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LSU Partnership Launch 🐅

UpTop have announced their first collegiate partnership with LSU Athletics, launching Geaux Rewards—a comprehensive fan engagement programme that spans all LSU Athletics programmes. This marks a significant addition to their roster of clients beyond their existing partnerships with NBA franchises, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons.

The programme allows fans to earn points through everyday purchases at participating merchants, which can then be redeemed for exclusive experiences, signed memorabilia, and official merchandise. Geaux Rewards covers the full spectrum of LSU Athletics, not just a singular sport.

Fans simply link their existing debit or credit cards to automatically earn points when shopping at eligible locations, with additional points available through special promotions, referrals, and game-day prediction challenges.

Success of the Cleveland Cavs Rewards Program 📱 

UpTop’s in-market example is the successful ‘Cavs Rewards’ program.

It is a free-to-join program where fans can earn ‘Cavs points’.

These points can be earned by connecting a debit or credit card of your choice and using that connected card in the following ways:

• In-Store Purchases: Fans can shop at any participating partner location.

• Online Purchases: Fans can shop online at partner websites.

• Select In-Venue Purchases: Purchases made at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (Cavaliers Home Arena). This includes concessions and bars in the arena and Centre Court, the Cavaliers team shop. 

• Specific Products: Fans can earn points by purchasing eligible consumer packaged goods.

Fans can then redeem these points for rewards such as game day tickets, exclusive VIP experiences, team merchandise, memorabilia and digital badges.

The sign-up flow is simple and standalone from the rest of the Cavs ecosystem (for now).

After signing up with an email and creating a ‘Cavs ID’, the onboarding flow for Cavs Rewards is very straightforward and is seamless on a mobile browser.

1. After clicking ‘Get Started’ users are walked through what they need to do to accrue points.

2. Fans are told they need to connect a card to earn points on purchases at Cavs Rewards locations, and they can also earn additional points by scanning receipts showing proof of purchase of eligible products such as Coca-Cola, Michelob Ultra, and more. 

3. Fans are then shown how business owners in the local area can connect with the Cavs Rewards program.

4. Finally, it is outlined how those points can be redeemed and what the rewards could be.

After the onboarding process, users are then prompted to connect a debit or credit card.

This is done easily through the fintech company Plaid, and after linking a card, fans are directed to the home screen.

From there, fans can click on ‘Add Points’ (1), ‘Earn Points’ (2), ‘Rewards’ (3) or (4) ‘Join as a Business’.

• (1) Add Points: Allows fans to purchase points with fiat currency.

• (2) Earn Points: Shows fans the different ways in which they can earn points, such as referrals, purchases and challenges.

• (3) Rewards: Showcases the types of rewards fans can redeem.

• (4) Join as a Business: Rerouted to a landing page from Uptop with a form to be filled out by businesses.

It’s very straightforward and has led to some fantastic results for UpTop and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Here’s the data since their launch:

• 21,000+ members

• $8.5m spent at partners

• > $1m in incremental spend

• 21% sponsor spend lift

• 1600 rewards redeemed

• 4.2m enrolled transactions

• 51% boost in team shop sales from enrolled members

[Pssst. — UpTop CEO John Timoney was on the Sporting Crypto Podcast a month ago!]

In the interview on Sporting Crypto’s podcast, he said:

"We're seeing double digit, sometimes north of 20% increases in fealty to the brand that is an earning brand. If you're earning points towards your favourite team and they're on either side of the street, which one are you going to go to?"

Timoney went on to say the crux of their strategy is to “make the pie of value bigger for reaching your fans in an owned way", adding that "The Cavs are excited about it. They expect it to be a seven-figure revenue channel."

Not only has this been a commercial success, but a data and marketing one as well.

The Cavaliers' consented user base has grown by 50% through the programme, expanding from approximately 40,000 to 60,000 fans available for direct marketing communications.

Indeed, Timoney told me that "when they [UpTop] shared the metrics of the Cavs program with LSU, it immediately clicked for them that a bunch of the brands that they're already partnered with would have a strong appetite"

Analysis 🧠

The UpTop model has so far succeeded because it meets fans where they already are rather than forcing them into unfamiliar blockchain-enabled experiences.

By integrating with existing spending patterns through connected payment cards, the platform removes the friction that has plagued countless Web3 fan engagement initiatives.

This proves the thesis that successful onchain adoption often requires hiding the complexity rather than celebrating it and making it obtrusive.

The approach stands in contrast to projects that require fans to purchase crypto, manage private keys, or understand token economics before participating.

Instead, UpTop leverages blockchain infrastructure to enhance familiar loyalty programme mechanics whilst maintaining traditional payment experiences that fans already trust and understand.

But there are two key differences here for UpTop.

(1) College Athletics
(2) Multi-sports

College sports are famous for their rabid fanbases. The fandom is intrinsic to one’s identity in the formative years of their adulthood.

And there is something very unique to American College Sports in that… there is a conveyor belt of fandom.

As Timoney said to me in an interview for this piece:

"You get a new batch of fans every year. New fans are minted when they show up at the school every year, and the alumni base is incredibly loyal, and they become fans for life”

The multi-sports approach is interesting, also. There are nuances, rituals, and specifics to fandom for different sports that are not fungible to one another. An avid Basketball fan may have a totally different fan experience, journey and relationship with that team than they do with LSU’s Volleyball team. How UpTop conquer that challenge will be very fascinating to track. My feeling is that there will be hurdles they do not anticipate, such is the specificity of a fan’s relationship with specific sports. It’s difficult to know unless you’re at the heart of it.

Concluding Thoughts 💭

(1) Fan loyalty programmes don't need to exist, but they can increase revenue for teams and partners. 

The Cleveland metrics prove that well-designed loyalty programmes create genuine commercial value through increased partner spending, fan database growth, and merchandise sales. The Pistons and LSU have seen these numbers, and want some of the same.

(2) Partnership Activation is at the Centre of it

The biggest driver for the interest in UpTop’s business model is that they are showing IP that they drive more revenue, whilst making their partners who are paying them happier.

That’s a pretty strong value proposition.

(3) That Value Proposition means they’re not Selling Blockchain

As Timoney put it: "What's happening to our business, though, is that we're completely leaving behind architecture choice as the selling point, because we're building a real business"

(4) People Spend More on Things They Care About Less

The average spend per fan across the board is low outside of ticketing. But fans care so deeply about their teams. They are willing to spend more on auxiliary things to express that fandom. They are willing to alter or double down on spending habits for their teams.

(5) Today’s Fan loyalty programmes need to plug into existing behaviours. 

Simultaneously, UpTop's success comes from enhancing familiar spending patterns rather than requiring fans to learn new technologies or change fundamental behaviours. By connecting existing payment methods to team-specific rewards, the platform creates value without friction.

(6) With that in mind, UpTop do plan to go more ‘onchain’.

Right now, UpTop are using a smattering of the attributes that make blockchain technology unique.

But Timoney sees that changing as they develop:

"I think, further down the line, (we could create) a real fan graph that's more open, rather than permissioned, maybe we open things up to other developers who can leverage our data, or reach our fans with different offers and just make it a completely modular solution.”

For UpTop, the balance between closed-loop systems for their partners like the Cavs, Pistons and LSU — and opening up their stack and infrastructure to create something more open-source and powerful will be pivotal going forward.

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• Sports Illustrated Tickets named official NFL international fan experience partner (Read more here)

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