Rugby Football Union, IBM delivering a refreshed digital experience
16 August, 2019 | Written by: John Kaduthodil
Staying relevant, maintaining and exceeding expectations for fans and players: for any sporting organisation this is a continual challenge but also critical for the success of the sport. Ultimately fans and players are the lifeblood of the organisation and with the importance of digital channels as a primary access point and expectations of service quality continuing to increase, it is crucial to get the experience right the first time. For the Rugby Football Union (RFU) with over 100 years of heritage and a target engaged audience of more than 10 million their challenge is substantial.
When IBM and the RFU extended their partnership in 2018 digital experience was one of the key focus areas. The RFU realised that with multiple web sites, varying digital experiences and a need to refresh and update their main digital property www.englandrugby.com a new approach was needed. They also needed to capture the opportunity presented by interest in the growth of the women's game and the Rugby World Cup. So in conjunction with IBM iX, IBM's world-leading digital agency, we started on a strategic programme to transform the fan experience with a target to successfully launch a refreshed on englandrugby.com on 1stJuly 2019.
This wasn't just a new web site project. It was also a way of demonstrating how new delivery techniques could deliver better outcomes. Fast paced, agile and user experience lead approaches drove how we worked as one team. Considering the strategic nature of the programme, we started with an 8-week discovery phase to define the key design and user experience principles, keeping the user at the heart of the solution. This covered the evaluation of the RFU's existing digital landscape, as well as understanding complex data sets for match data, from community to elite levels, to inform and drive new experience. We used IBM Design Thinking workshops and extensive fan research to help develop numerous design prototypes in conjunction with the RFU digital and content teams.
The discovery phase delivered the key programme principles of cross pollination of experience and data across the site, alignment to RFU brand guidelines and providing consistent experience across community and elite games. The objective was simple but also ambitious: to deliver a differentiated fan experience and drive growth in Rugby participate in all forms of the game.
Numerous immovable dates such as the need to migrate from the old site, the start of the rugby season and 2019 rugby world cup dictated a very tight delivery timeline of just over 5 months from start to finish. To ensure we kept pace and control we adopted Agile scrum delivery method with 3 sprint teams: design, build and test. Each sprint team providing the input for the other I.e. Design team feeding the build followed by test.
The IBM delivery team was truly global with governance and design executed from the UK, build from Belarus, test from India and technical SMEs based in Germany and the United States. The use of communication tools such a slack and webex and collaboration tools such as Jira and envision were key enablers for effective collaboration between the teams. In addition, the strict adoption of Agile ceremonies and effective programme governance principles ensured speedy decision making and delivery dependency, risk and issue mitigation.
Designing a solution fully hosted on IBM cloud using a mixture of Software as a Service and Platform as a Service technologies ensured that the build team could hit the ground very quickly. The highly available, secure and scalable nature of IBM cloud ensured that the new solution met the key performance requirements. The solution was also designed with the future in mind. By adopting an API led architecture the solution has set the foundations for all future RFU digital channels to consume the same data delivering a uniform experience. It has also allowed integration with numerous complex data sources to deliver rugby match and player stats in a reliable and consistent manner.
In addition to visual design, data is at the heart of the new Englandrugby.com experience. With the further roll out of electronic match card data across all levels of the rugby, the importance of the new website is set to grow further and support the drive to grow in the game.
And this is just the start. The digital platform with its API led architecture will drive further opportunities for innovation and fuel the growth of new digital channels from the RFU and potentially other organisations who want to access their data. So, watch this space for more to come in the future.
Trade marks owned and/or registered by parties other than IBM are acknowledged.
John Kaduthodil
Senior Managing Consultant, IBM iX
This originally appeared in the IBM UK THINK Blogs
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Liberty University on why broadcast technology isn't just a technical invest...
08/05/2026
COW Jobs: UGC, On-Camera Video Content
Brie Clayton May 7, 2026
0 Comments
UGC, On-Camera Video Content
April 17, 2026Documentary Editor - US,......
07/05/2026
Journalists reporting on Sudan are working in one of the most complex and fast-m...
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Seit dem Start im Jahr 2023 hat DJ (Beta) das personalisierte H rerlebnis von 94...
07/05/2026
Da quando stata presentata nel 2023, DJ (beta) ha aiutato a definire un'esperienza d'ascolto pi personalizzata per 94 milioni di utenti Spotify Premi...
07/05/2026
Since launching in 2023, DJ (beta) has helped shape a more personalized listenin...
07/05/2026
Desde o lan amento em 2023, o DJ (beta) j ajudou a deixar a experi ncia de ouvi...
07/05/2026
From our earliest days, Spotify has been built on a simple principle: Great audio should be easy to reach. It's what's driven us to expand from music to...
07/05/2026
Asian and Pacific Islander artists continue to shape the global soundscape, pushing creative boundaries and connecting with fans worldwide. This Asian & Pacific...
07/05/2026
Company announce long-requested choir instrument
In the latest expansion of their Symphonic Elements series, UJAM have introduced an all-new vocal instrumen...
07/05/2026
Modular-inspired sound generation with digital control
Buchla have introduced Ziggy, a new compact synthesizer built around the company's complex oscill...
07/05/2026
Combines analogue voices with digital synthesis and sequencing
Polyend have announced Drums, a new hybrid analogue and digital drum machine that combines sy...
07/05/2026
Control surface now officially supports four DAWs
When Nektar launched the Panorama CS12 control surface, it worked exclusively with Apple's Logic Pro, ...
07/05/2026
In the first quarter 2026, SGL Carbon generated consolidated sales of 184.5 million, which was 49.8 million, or 21.3%, lower than in the prior year (Q1 2025: ...
07/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Greenerwave achieve precise and fast ESA antenna characteriz...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
Rugby Football Union, IBM delivering a refreshed digital experience 
