Raptors Memories
Helping fans relive game day with exclusive content tied to their tickets.
Timeline:
Jun 2024 - Dec 2024
Interface:
Web App
Team:
Role:
Sr. Product Designer
Background
The SportsX team under MLSE Digital Labs, in partnership with AWS, operates as an incubator and R&D function exploring business gaps using emerging cloud technologies. For this project, the Premium Service & Commercial Initiatives team, who oversee season ticket membership, served as our project champion. Before member renewal season they wanted to increase their offerings for members looking to renew, giving them more value and reasons to be more loyal to the brand.
Role
As Senior Product Designer, I shaped the product strategy for Raptors Memories by uncovering what fans valued most through research and co-creation sessions. I facilitated workshops with multiple business units to generate and prioritize ideas, aligning them with technical feasibility and brand goals. From concept to launch, I prototyped, refined, and delivered both the product experience and supporting marketing materials.
Opportunity
Members are growingly uncertain about the value or find less value in their membership
After reviewing various artifacts such as fan & member surveys, member personas, previous initiatives and conducting our own research; we determined that physical commemorative tickets were the exact value add our members would appreciate. After exploring 50+ ideas we landed on creating a microsite that gave fans exclusive media and let them store theirs!
Outcome
Raptors Memories: Giving fans access to exclusive content and a physical ticket they'd never forget
We brought the Raptors’ 30th anniversary campaign to life by encouraging fans to take home commemorative tickets and experience exclusive photos/videos they couldn’t find anywhere else! Our five-game pilot provided data that shaped the next phase; integrating into MLSE’s Fan Access offering and commemorative ticket sales for the Leafs’ 2024-25 playoff run.
Approach
Similar to the Double Diamond, my approach starts with learning broadly before defining a direction, then testing ideas widely to arrive at the right solution. I break this into four steps: Listen, Frame, Experiment, and Deliver.
Listen
Primary Stakeholders
Team | Role | Influence | Engagement |
|---|---|---|---|
Premium Service & Commercial Initiatives | Primary stakeholder overseeing commercial initiatives and member engagement, managing the relationship between Premium Services and our design/product team. | Shaped how we recruited and tested with members for research, influenced pilot messaging, and ensured the final experience aligned with member expectations and brand standards. | Maintained an active feedback loop through dedicated member reps, weekly alignment meetings, and copy reviews while providing final approval before delivery. |
Business Strategy | Advised on third-party ticketing partnerships, managing vendor relationships, pricing strategy, and alignment between the physical and digital components of the commemorative ticket experience. | Guided roadmap decisions around the integration of the physical ticket experience and vendor logistics, balancing feasibility, budget, and fan experience goals. | Joined bi-weekly update meetings and monthly executive overviews, providing ongoing visibility and coordination across teams and C-suite stakeholders. |
Secondary Stakeholders
In addition to our primary stakeholders, several supporting teams played key roles throughout the project, helping us shape, validate, and deliver the final experience.
Team | Role |
|---|---|
Engineering | Built the product end-to-end (front/back-end, QA, Salesforce), set feasibility boundaries, aligned daily with stakeholders, and delivered a compliant platform with rapid refinements. |
Marketing | Steered creative, push, and email efforts, and aligning the tone with the 30th campaign; through weekly check-ins we resolved content overlaps, and ensured consistent messaging. |
Operations | Ops kept Raptors Memories running by managing all backend processes, ensuring content and highlight videos were delivered. They influenced backend design and set timing expectations, engaged through feedback sessions, weekly launch calls, and constant coordination during the pilot. Ultimately operated the product end-to-end, from push notifications to in-game support. |
Mobile | Informed our presence of the product in the app, ensuring consistency; joined weekly calls and flow planning, supporting on launch day and tracking engagement. |
Venue Tech / Game Pres | Guided in-arena marketing of graphics and presentations, engaged through weekly reviews and coordination through the pilot, and what graphics were built and timed. |
Members
Luckily, our memberships teams had already invested in building personas for our members. That meant we didn’t have to start from scratch, we could jump straight into exploring the world around our fans and how to design a product that fit their needs.
Member Surveys
We dug into previous surveys to better understand what fans and members were saying. The Memberships team focused on how members perceived their value, while the Brand and Marketing team looked at fan sentiment more broadly. Together, these findings helped us see the opportunity. The summary below captures participation and survey responses.
2023 Leafs + Raptors Membership Surveys: Upper-Bowl & Low-Spend, 2,500 responses, ~23% response rate
Key Learnings:
82% of fans and members want tangible keepsakes
6 in 10 Raptors members don't feel valued by the team and brand
60% of Leafs members aren't sold on the benefits they're currently receiving
68% would spend less than $50 on a framed ticket
Previous Commemorative Ticket Survey
Our mobile and commercial team had done some prior initiatives to address what fans have been asking for. Since they ran their own survey we leveraged that info for sentiments around commemorative tickets/items.
2023 Commemorative Ticket Survey: 40 participants, 20 survey questions
Key Learnings:
Less than half the fans were "very interested" in digital tickets
69% would like a high quality print
82% would like a tangible keepsake to remember the game
68% would buy a commemorative ticket as long as it's below $50
Experiment
Workshopping
MLSE is full of folks across the business who love to brainstorm, so we leaned into that. We brought together 20+ people from different teams for workshops, turning the room into a creative jam session to uncover all the ways technology could add value for fans. Big shoutout to Kaitlin Gaerlan another UX Researcher that really impacted the project and for the photos below!
Prototyping
After the workshops, we prioritized ideas as a team based on how quickly we could MVP them, giving us a fast way to test the value for fans. We prototyped multiple concepts, refining through a few revisions, and eventually converged on a strategy we could move forward with for a test run with members.
Deliver
Digital Experience
Alongside the physical ticket, we built a digital companion that extended the experience online. Fans could upload their commemorative ticket, relive game moments, and generate a personalized highlight reel.
Turning every game into a shareable memory.
Operations Portal
On the backend, we designed an operations tool for our internal team, making it easy to upload assets, manage content, and curate memories for every member.
Ensuring a smooth workflow behind the scenes.
Marketing
New to marketing, we jumped in quickly; designing graphics, and gathering copy for multiple channels. Working closely with our social and marketing teams, we made sure everything fit the existing brand voice. With games overlapping with our company-wide holiday, we raced to deliver messaging on time before everyone was off for the holidays, and updating it on the fly as the pilot unfolded to keep fans engaged.
Impact
Although the product itself didn’t hit all our target metrics, the project created significant organizational impact that extended well beyond its initial scope. Below are some key outcomes and pilot results.
Organizational Outcomes
Established a new vendor relationship with Eventshop for commemorative ticketing, piloting their engagement platform ahead of its use in physical commemorative tickets for the Leafs’ playoffs this year.
Laid the foundation for a repurposable digital experience, which became a core feature in MLSE’s new fan loyalty program, Fan Access.
Delivered the first SportsX project to launch as a fan-facing experience, fulfilling our AWS partnership commitments and strengthening the collaboration for future initiatives.
Reflection
Raptors Memories was a surreal project. We took an idea from concept to launch and did it for one of the biggest brands and most loyal fanbases in the NBA. Seeing graphics I designed show up on Raptors social media, inside Scotiabank Arena, and on the big screen during games was an unbelievable feeling.
This project also gave me a new appreciation for what it takes to product + project manage an R&D initiative that pulls together five or more business units across MLSE. Huge shoutout to our superhero PM, Hajra Arif, for keeping everyone aligned and informed; no small task given the moving parts.
And of course, none of this would’ve happened without our amazing developers: Eric Tweedle and Kevin Yap, who translated the AWS P.A.C.E. backend prototype into our alpha build, and Michael Du and William Tran, who built the final version launched at the December 19th game.
Above all, this project showed me how product experimentation in sports can drive meaningful change across teams and ultimately enhance fan experiences.
What Happened Next
After the pilot, we explored ways to extend Raptors Memories beyond the pilot; including special moments like Vince Carter’s iconic Dunkaversary. While those experiments created some fun smaller wins, the effort-to-impact ratio wasn’t quite right for long-term scaling.
At the same time, MLSE’s fan loyalty program was looking for an additional value layer for both their beta and full rollout. The foundation we built with Raptors Memories became the perfect fit and that’s where our focus shifted next.
Re-do's
Every project’s got its highlight reel and a few plays you wish you could run again. If I had a time machine, these are the moments I’d give a little more TLC.