STUDIO / REFERENCE
The integration map
A venue-led club is not one business, it is twenty or more sharing a postcode: matchday, concerts, hospitality, retail across three territories, membership, a streaming service, tours. Each one keeps its own record of the same person. This is the inventory, with the thing that actually matters in the last column.
Read the last column first. A system without a data contract has no agreed schema, no named owner and no freshness commitment, which means it breaks quietly. The platform decision gets all the attention, and almost every stalled fan data programme actually died in that column.
33
source systems
12
have a data contract
13
have none
5
move by hand
33 systems, 15 owning departments, 12 with a contract. The replatforming conversation is almost always about the 12. The programme actually fails on the 13, because an integration without a contract breaks silently and nobody finds out until a campaign goes to the wrong people.
33 of 33 shown
| System | Sync | Latency | Owner | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary ticketingTicketing and access | near real-time | ~5 min | Ticketing | yes |
| Access control and turnstilesTicketing and accessScan events arrive fast but carry no stable person key | real-time | < 2 s | Operations | partial |
| Secondary and resaleTicketing and accessThe attendee is often not the buyer. Nobody owns that mapping | nightly batch | 24 h | Ticketing | none |
| Hospitality and premiumTicketing and accessUsually a spreadsheet, and usually the highest-value supporters in the building | manual | days | Commercial | none |
| Parking and travelTicketing and access | nightly batch | 24 h | Operations | none |
| Ecommerce storeRetail and commerce | near real-time | ~15 min | Retail | yes |
| In-venue retail POSRetail and commerceCard-present transactions rarely resolve to a known supporter | nightly batch | 24 h | Retail | partial |
| Food and beverage POSRetail and commerce | nightly batch | 24 h | Operations | none |
| International store or licenseeRetail and commerceOften the only evidence of an overseas supporter, and the weakest feed | weekly batch | 7 days | Commercial | none |
| Fulfilment and returnsRetail and commerce | nightly batch | 24 h | Retail | partial |
| WebsiteDigital | real-time | < 1 min | Digital | yes |
| Mobile appDigital | real-time | < 1 min | Digital | yes |
| OTT and streamingDigital | near real-time | ~10 min | Media | partial |
| Fantasy, games and predictorsDigitalHigh-engagement, low-governance. Frequently a separate login estate | nightly batch | 24 h | Digital | none |
| Email and messaging platformDigital | near real-time | ~15 min | Marketing | yes |
| Social and communityDigitalNot person-level, and should not be pretended otherwise | manual | ad hoc | Content | none |
| Membership and loyaltyMembership | near real-time | ~15 min | Membership | yes |
| Season ticket renewalsMembership | nightly batch | 24 h | Ticketing | yes |
| Junior and academy programmesMembershipChildren's data. Needs its own lawful basis before it needs an integration | manual | weeks | Foundation | none |
| Supporter groups and branchesMembership | manual | ad hoc | Supporter services | none |
| Sponsorship and partnership CRMCommercial | nightly batch | 24 h | Commercial | partial |
| Ad sales and inventoryCommercial | nightly batch | 24 h | Media | none |
| B2B hospitality salesCommercial | manual | days | Commercial | none |
| Non-matchday eventsVenueConcert and conference attendees are a supporter adjacency nobody claims | weekly batch | 7 days | Venue | none |
| Tours and attractionsVenue | nightly batch | 24 h | Venue | partial |
| Identity provider and SSOFoundation | real-time | < 1 s | Technology | yes |
| Integration layerFoundation | real-time | < 2 s | Technology | yes |
| Data warehouseFoundation | nightly batch | 24 h | Data | yes |
| Profile or CDP layerFoundation | near real-time | ~5 min | Data | yes |
| Finance and ERPFoundation | nightly batch | 24 h | Finance | partial |
| PaymentsFoundationNever a source of personal data into the profile. Tokens only | real-time | < 2 s | Finance | yes |
| Contact centreService | near real-time | ~5 min | Supporter services | partial |
| Case managementService | nightly batch | 24 h | Supporter services | none |
What a data contract has to say
- The schema, and who is allowed to change it
- A named owner on the source side, a person not a team
- A freshness commitment, and what happens when it is missed
- The person key it carries, or an explicit statement that it carries none
- A breaking-change notice period
Where to start, if you only fix three
Hospitality and premium, because it is usually manual and usually holds the highest-value supporters in the building. Secondary and resale, because the attendee is not the buyer and nobody owns that mapping. And the international store, because it is often the only evidence an overseas supporter exists at all.
A composite venue-led club, drawn from the public record and from patterns common across clubs of this shape. Generic system categories only: no club, vendor or platform is named, and nothing here describes any one organisation's architecture.