Case Study: Driving Centennial Success with FEVO Flex Plans

Maximizing Revenue and Fan Engagement through Personalized Choice

Client Profile: The Chicago Blackhawks are one of the "Original Six" professional ice hockey teams in the NHL. As they approached their 100th-anniversary milestone, the organization sought innovative ways to celebrate its storied history while driving significant ticket volume for the 2025-26 season.

Objective: The Blackhawks aimed to capitalize on the massive demand for their cornerstone Centennial Celebration game by anchoring it to a flexible multi-game ticket package. The goal was to move inventory for secondary January matchups and lower the barrier of entry through a personalized, high-value offering.

The Challenge: Overcoming Operational Heavy-Lifting and Fan Friction

Building a high-impact milestone campaign required the Blackhawks to solve for two distinct sets of challenges:

I. The Operational Bottleneck

The process of launching unique ticket packages can often be hindered by technical and administrative hurdles that slow down campaign momentum:

• Heavy Cross-Team Reliance: Bringing a specialized Offer to life typically requires high-touch collaboration between marketing, ticket operations, and sales teams to coordinate complex backend and frontend setups.
• No Self-Service Options: Many platforms restrict a team’s ability to create and modify unique packages on the fly, making it difficult to react quickly to shifting narratives, inventory demand or narrow sales windows.
• Inflexible Builds: It is often challenging to find an operational workflow that can handle creating unique rules, such as enforcing a mandatory event, while providing a rotating list of secondary options, or enforcing ticket limits for specific games.

II. The Fan Communication Gap

Even a high-value deal can fail if the presentation is confusing or the purchase journey is high-friction for the fan:

• Complex Builds: Creating a seamless journey for multi-game packs that fans can digest in seconds is traditionally difficult.
• Marketing Restrictions: A lack of flexibility in imagery, descriptive copy, and checkout tooltips can make it hard to explain exactly how a flex plan works, leading to abandoned carts.
• Pricing Displays: When ticket packages show fluctuating costs for each game, fans often get bogged down in individual prices rather than seeing the total value.

The Strategy: Curating a Fan-First Discovery Journey

To solve for operational bottlenecks and fan friction, the Blackhawks shifted their approach from a standard ticket sale to a high-intent discovery journey. By leveraging FEVO Flex Plans, the strategy focused on three core pillars:

I. Creating a Fun, Themed Experience

The Blackhawks didn't just offer a discount; they curated a branded "anniversary gift" experience.

• Main Event Discovery: Fans started with purchasing a "must-have" event—the high-energy Centennial Celebration game—ensuring maximum attendance for the milestone night.
• Freedom of Choice: Once this anchor was selected, fans were given the flexibility to choose a second January game that fit their personal schedule, making the package feel custom-tailored rather than prescribed.

II. Simplifying Value through Package Psychology

FEVO Flex Plans enabled the Blackhawks to display their Archtics inventory and ticket types as a single, simple package price. This eliminated the need for fans to analyze individual game costs, making it easy to display the deal's total value at a glance and driving immediate recognition of the Offer's worth.

• Unified Price Points: Instead of breaking down costs by game (e.g., a marquee vs. a weekday matchup), the Offer utilized a clear "Starting at $100" package price.
• User-Driven Pricing: Fans were empowered to dictate their own price point by selecting the Inventory Type that fit their budget, with the system automatically updating the package total.

III. Native Integration & Self-Service Speed

The Blackhawks eliminated the need for complex, cross-team web builds by keeping the entire journey in-house and native.

• Natively Embedded Checkout: The Offer was prominently featured on the Blackhawks’ dedicated Centennial microsite, using FEVO’s Social Checkout™ as an embedded widget that allowed fans to shop and check out without ever leaving the Blackhawks' branded environment.
• Operational Agility: Using FEVO’s self-service tools, the ticket operations team could independently build, adjust, and launch the campaign in record time. This eliminated the need to rely on external design or development resources for tiered logic, imagery, and custom descriptions.

The Results: A Milestone Win for Revenue and Efficiency

By prioritizing fan choice and operational agility, the Chicago Blackhawks Centennial Two-Pack achieved exceptional performance across both sales and database growth:

• Conversion That Defied Standards: The Offer achieved a massive 46.8% conversion rate, proving that a fun, themed, and low-barrier purchase journey resonates deeply with high-intent fans.
• Significant Revenue Generation: The campaign generated $378K in gross revenue from the sale of 4.2K tickets across 1,478 orders.
• High-Impact Audience Growth: The initiative successfully reached beyond the core fan base, with 29% of buyers (423 new emails) new to the Blackhawks' database.
• Operation Savings: By using self-service tools (FEVO) to build, adjust, and launch the campaign in-house, the Blackhawks bypassed the often-traditional weeks-long lead times and cross-departmental bottlenecks typically associated with the launch of traditional flex plans.

Key Takeaways for Professional Sports Organizations

• Anchor with Your Best Event: Use marquee events to guarantee base attendance while strategically moving inventory for secondary dates.
• Leverage Bundle Psychology: Presenting unified "Package" price points simplifies the value proposition and makes the deal feel cohesive rather than a list of separate ticket prices.
• Empower User Choice: Give fans agency over their purchase by allowing them to dictate their own price through Inventory Type selection.
• Stop the Redirects: Utilizing an embedded widget like FEVO’s Social Checkout keeps fans in your brand environment, significantly reducing cart abandonment.
• Master Operational Agility: Adopting self-service tools allows teams to build, adjust, and launch complex campaigns instantly.

"The ability to sell multiple games natively on our site through FEVO’s Flex Plan and Social Checkout was a major enhancement for our Centennial campaign. The self-service platform made it incredibly easy to create tiered logic and custom pricing rules on the fly, allowing us to independently build, adjust, and launch without relying on multiple external teams. It allowed us to offer our fans a fun, personalized experience where they could make their own choices and see the value instantly, resulting in a 46.8% conversion rate—one of our most successful digital promotions to date."
- Jack Brennan, Director of Ticket Operations @ Chicago Blackhawks