StarX: Fan Engagement App
Shawn Borsky
StarX
StarX is an all-in-one mobile fan engagement app, that rewards every interaction a fan has with their favorite sports teams and players by offering a new fan relationship to players, bridging the physical and digital experience and integrating world-class analytics.
Being a sports enthusiast should be more than just cheering from the sidelines
Most sports fandom these days is passive. Fans get scores, watch matches and read news. That's why fantasy sports is so popular, it gives fans some skin in the game. But, what if you could take your fandom and invest it to get real rewards based on the teams and players you love? What if everything fans do already could be invested and bring them closer to the sport itself? That is the mission of StarX.
Not quite fantasy, not quite betting and not simply a glorified loyalty rewards program.
Many point systems aim to be "gamified" but most add up to a loyalty program. We knew that in order to create meaningful engagement, StarX points had to matter and they had to reward player knowledge and skill. StarX isn't fantasy sports and its not betting. We wanted to offer fans a fun meta game that doesn't require money and would earn points that also rewards their knowledge while acting as a compelling way to "invest" in the players and teams they love. Meet, StarX Cards.
Key Challenges
Magic: The Gathering meets sports mixed with live data where leveling up unlocks exclusive merch, discounts, tickets and experiences.
One of the main challenges was to create an engagement experience that was easy to learn and used real player data but did not try to replace fantasy sports, could be done passively but still rewarded passion and knowledge then offered tangible progression and achievement.
Strategy Highlight
Rewards should be relevant. StarX's content and shop adapts based on favorite teams, friend's reactions and trending events.
The excitement of sports fandom comes in many forms - sharing moments with friends, sh*t-talking them, wearing your team's colors and sharing in the feeling of victory. For StarX to be relevant it had to tap into all of these feelings while not trying to replace the current experiences - ESPN, The Athletic, Twitter, Instagram and Fanatics are not competitors but relevant engagement vectors that already exist. That starts with the StarX app being aware of the fan's favorites and prioritizing relevant rewards and content.
Strategy Highlight
Fandom isn't all stats, its also star power of the players. StarX aims to expose fans to sports in culture with familiar content and patterns.
The discovery features intentionally utilize familiar content and patterns such as the Tinder swipe and curated Instagram and other social media content to offer a way for fans to dip into the cultural and visual aspects of sports without the requirements to find and parse it from their other social feeds. These elements also allow StarX to hook fans with their favorite teams and sports but lightly broaden their sports exposure to find other communities they might enjoy.
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Posted Dec 19, 2025
Developed StarX app for rewarding sports fan engagement using real player data.
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Timeline
Feb 15, 2023 - Jun 15, 2024
Clients
Steel Perlot
