No. 33 · 4 Sep 2025 · 13 min

Clava Sports - amateur sport goes further.

What phenomenon creates Clava Sports?

Hey,

Earlier this year, I mentioned startups that were set to make this summer exciting. Clava Sports wasn’t a new opening for me. I’ve been following their journey for quite some time. Watching the continued growth of amateur sports remains one of my favorite areas within the sports-tech industry. Let’s see what they are doing and what unique approach and combination they are applying to engage amateur athletes and reshape the current landscape.

Welcome to Clava Sports 🎉

What’s inside? 📝

Market Overview
Product idea
Landing page
Application
Storytelling
Ideas
A note from the author

Market Overview 📈

As a starting point for every analysis, I would like to take a look at the market itself in the domain and check what the numbers are telling us. It’s clear that you can’t treat these numbers as a fully reliable reference, but they still provide an indication of a possible scenario for niche development.

The global sports technology market size was valued at USD 17.81 billion in 2024 and is anticipated to reach around USD 117.93 billion by 2034, growing at a solid CAGR of 20.81% over the forecast period 2025 to 2034. (Presedence Research)

The Europe sports technology market size was exhibited at USD 6.06 billion in 2024 and is projected to be worth around USD 40.69 billion by 2034, poised to grow at a CAGR of 20.98% from 2025 to 2034. (Presedence Research)

The Amateur Sports Team and Club Services market size and growth of the $6.3 billion in revenue generated from amateur sports team and club services for 195 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, South America. (Kentley Insights)

Amateur sport, in my view, is still a very underrated niche, and I don’t want products and brands to only commercialize it, because sport at a young age should remain accessible and enjoyable. At the same time, I really love observing the trend of bringing a more professional approach to enjoying your favorite sport.

Product Idea 💡

Clava Sports is focusing on reinventing amateur football. It’s something similar to what PREMATCH is doing, but even at the very start, we can spot a huge difference.

What makes Clava Sports unique so far?

Validating the market through the national interest. (Currently focus on Italy)
Positioning with a focus on football, but even today, you can select another sport. At least I saw Ice Hockey.

I would assume that football is the most popular game, and it can also serve as a starting point for market validation. Having a vision to expand into other sports in the future seems like a really smart move. Honestly, I see hundreds of reasons to pursue this. While I agree that scaling, infrastructure, and operating costs might be higher, providing this kind of gamification experience across more sports is a real benefit for every amateur athlete.

So, they make it clear.

BRINGING THE PRO EXPERIENCE INTO THE WORLD OF AMATEURS

What are the core features?

Real-time match updates
Detailed statistics
Personalized news feed
Insights tailored to amateur football fans
Players and club lineups
Man of the match
Team management tool
Transfer market
Social media graphics

This is just for the start. So, you’ll have the whole ecosystem to track your favorite team and be part of it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a player, a club, or a fan. You are covered anyway.

Landing Page 🖥️

As always, we will take a look at the website and try to determine whether we clearly understand the product’s messaging and positioning. From the start, I should mention that the website is currently available in two languages: Italian and German.

This makes sense, as their main market is Italy and the next one is Austria. Still, in my personal opinion, it would be good to also have an English version.

To make things clearer for everyone, I used a translator to view it in English. 🙂

The app for amateur football.

Once you read the message, you can see some screenshots from the app on the landing page, which immediately give you a sense of what the app is about. There isn’t any additional messaging, and from my perspective, reading the title sparks curiosity: What is this about?

If you scroll further, you can see different pages explaining the main features the application provides to users. You also have the option to explore more details about each feature, which redirects you to a page with additional information about the app, focusing on target groups such as fans, players, and clubs.

Why is this so important? Even before you start, you already know what to expect from each target group. If you’re a player, it’s one thing; if you’re just a fan (like me), you probably don’t need a player profile.

Why am I so interested in this kind of app? Because I want to make sure that every single message is clear, even for people without any prior experience won’t feel confused.

My brother is 36 years old and still plays in an amateur league in Lithuania every weekend. We live in different countries, and I would love to have an app like this in my country to track his performance and even follow live scores.

For me, it’s very important that even after registration, I can remain just a fan without being forced into additional features I don’t need.

Honestly, the overall messaging is very clear, straightforward, and not confusing. I also like the design of the page, as it doesn’t overwhelm the user and provides only valuable information about the product, along with a clear call to action to download the app. In short, if we’re talking about frameworks, this is definitely a good example you could even use as a reference in the future.

Summary layout you can use:

Hero Section: Headline + subheadline + download CTA.
Features: Live Results | News & Insights | Statistics | More features.
Users Target Groups: Fans | Insiders | Players | Clubs.
Community & Engagement: Voting | Social feed | Profiles.
Trust Point: Metrics | Reach Stats.
Footer: Newsletter | Legal Information | Others.

Do you know what surprised me the most? 😉

I opened the page: About Us.

Really, it’s nothing special, just information about the team currently building the app: their vision, how they started, how they see the product, and what their mission is. It might not seem like much, but it actually creates an additional trust point. When I first saw the photo, I was imagining the Avengers! The gap in amateur sport is huge and they arrived to bring the pro experience into the world of amtateurs. 🔥

Application 📱

In general, the overall UX of the application is very clear and intuitive. I didn’t need much time to onboard myself. The main challenge for me as a user is that I don’t belong to any Italian teams, which made it more difficult to test all the features. But let’s take a closer look together at what we can actually find there.

When you enter the application, you can navigate it much like any Livescore app for professional sports. You can check current matches, past results, or add your favorite teams.

Before a match, you can even place a prediction, and by the end, see the voting results from other users. In each section, you’ll find information about lineups, highlights, head-to-head stats, tables, and more. And if you click on a player, you’ll get a full profile with their titles, stats, and even transfers!

Besides the feed of the clubs, or the event itself, you can find all updates and news from the product itself, which I found very useful. You don’t need to follow different sources and actually can have everything in one place.

Based on your profile, you can join a squad, make match updates as an insider, or simply follow the game. It already creates the feeling of a fully functioning ecosystem for players, fans, and coaches.

What makes this current product more unique for now? They recently released in August fantasy game for local football. I already mentioned this case of fan engagement and as a community builder feature in my previous posts, and Clava Sports did that.

Shortly:

Better fan engagement for users
Stronger community effect
Enhanced gamification of the main product inside the product itself.

As a person who like to have a closer look into the features, I’m a bit frustrated I didn’t have a look exactly into this feature as you need to confirm your Italian phone number, which I don’t have of course.

Besides that, if the logic of the fantasy football is the same as for any fantasy game, that’s a way to go and to have more fans.

So, this app isn’t a prototype for sure, but a functional and working application for amateur sport. I’ve noticed small details which I would prefer to improve in terms of images, text placement, or elements, but it’s just minor things to improve a better usability. I’m pretty sure that team will improve this for sure. It’s not the main focus anyway, as it already operates as a full ecosystem for different layers.

Why community effect really matter?

Developing this kind of app comes with one major challenge: data.
It’s not a professional league where scouts track every match, and you can simply check updated scores in your favorite livescore app.

The difference here is that, in order to have this data inside the app, you need to engage users at every level to actually provide it. Clava Sports offers different options:

Insiders (who have the right to enter highlights of the event)
Management Pro (coaches, who are responsible for their teams and can also update data).

I assume that in some cases the data might be incorrect, but I don’t think that’s true for most situations. The beauty of this approach is that the development team is building the app together with its users. It’s not just words, it’s a fact.

Storytelling 💬

I’m very often talking about the importance of storytelling for every product and brand. You can argue that in order to have good storytelling, you should have good numbers. That’s not true. Even if you don’t have huge metrics behind your product, it’s important to build trust between you and your user about what you’re doing.

If we analyze the recent numbers of Clava Sports, I would agree that the growth and momentum if definitely continued, but the key point isn’t about this. The main point is about communication and what kind of information they’re sharing.

What do I mean? Usually, you can find some roadmaps, plans, or numbers in the pitch deck, but with Clava Sports, it seems they have nothing to hide and they are just saying it loud: we are here!

How did I know about the next market for them? They have this information available in one of the press releases, which I found.

How many products can you say with this kind of open roadmap so far? I can say some of them, but only in a different format.

They recently expanded in Italy
launched Fantaclava even earlier
September 2027 new sports

I made my assumption before I found this information, but it was because I have an option inside the app select another sport already.

So, all information is open source, which you can use even for your future pitch deck as an example. Learn, and let’s think about how you can use the approach in your product.

The whole storytelling isn’t just about the pitch deck, but I like how one of the founders Ivan Angerer is using momentum with just pure numbers.

What do we want to know about Clava Sports from the past few months?

From January to June 2025, Clava’s football lovers spent a combined 2,914 days in the app. That’s over 70,000 hours.
120,000+ app downloads
8M+ monthly page views
26,000+ weekly active users
My lovely part: All without a single euro spent on marketing 💰

Recent numbers from 01.09.2025

Top 3 in Italy's App Store
30K new users in the last 7 days
4,6/5 rating on the App Store

You can tell the same story, but with different vision.

Fabrizio confirmed 🔥

Ideas 💡

Let’s move to the part where we can brainstorm ideas or functionalities to add to the app. Adding more sports is already clear to us and is scheduled for 2027 based on the roadmap, but how far can we go?

Wearables Integration

Having a strong player profile with internal data is one thing. Having a profile with external, real data connected via API and combined with Clava Sports data is another, and it could create a real-time database with authentic performance data for scouts.

What do I mean? We already have a couple of devices for football, like Playermaker or Footbar trackers. What if a player could connect their device and automatically showcase real metrics in their profile?

Yes, I understand that playing football with an Apple Watch raises safety concerns, but today, there are already many alternatives, even for football, that track basic metrics and can add an extra layer of engagement. Looking ahead to other sports, this makes even more sense given the rapid growth of the wearables industry.

Scouting Ecosystem

This solution could help scouts worldwide find real talent. How? Through basic performance data and player profiles combined with game highlights, either generated from recorded matches (if available) or uploaded regularly by players themselves.

Partnerships with major scout leagues and federations could unlock huge opportunities for young players to join the academies of their favorite clubs. While this is especially relevant for youth players, it could still serve as a valuable tool for scouts and an additional revenue stream for Clava Sports.

Coaching Platform

The app already includes the Management Pro feature, where managers can set up lineups and access club tools. But what if we took this further?

Provide pre-game lineups with instructions for each player
Add an in-app chat for seamless coach-player communication
Share tactical visual tips before the match
Generate post-game reports based on team performance
Offer visualizations that strengthen the coach-player connection

This would enhance coaching workflows and increase value for teams using the platform.

Enterprise Integration

This is something that could be integrated quickly while delivering high value to end users.

Thousands of companies organize internal football tournaments, sometimes once, sometimes twice a year. Imagine if we provided a ready-made platform where all employees could register, tournaments could be managed by an organizer, and everything from draws to live scores to player profiles was included.

These profiles could even be reused for future tournaments. This approach could enable the creation of internal company leagues. Many companies already offer wellness products and services as employee benefits; why not add sports tournaments as a form of entertainment and team-building?

Collect Points. Get Rewards.

Stay active, score goals, earn points, and redeem them at partner shops. If you know the app Muuvr, the concept will feel familiar.

Complete activities, earn points, and once you have enough, purchase rewards in an internal partner store. Gamification could also extend to earning points directly from in-game achievements, turning real sports activity into tangible rewards.

Livestreaming

This is a more professional feature, but it’s increasingly possible today. Many pitches are already equipped with Veo cameras. What if we enabled livestreaming directly from a mobile phone or a GoPro?

This would bring the live experience closer to fans. With the power of AI, highlights could also be generated automatically. While not everyone needs this feature, the current technology landscape definitely makes it achievable.

Women’s football

I never stop talking about the growth of women’s sports, and football is no exception. I think this is an additional opportunity for growth for this kind of application, especially with some extra focus on the women’s game. I’ve talked about women’s sports before, and seeing more products in that space only confirms the potential. I understand that technically, even women’s teams can have clubs and leagues, but with an additional campaign around it, this could provide a real boost.

A note from the author ✍️

Community momentum effect.

I recently asked my brother, who plays in one of the Sunday soccer leagues in Lithuania. (He is in Red 😅 )

Why is he still playing?

Sometimes he drives up to two hours for away games, while also working a full-time job and having a family with two kids. He simply enjoys it. He loves playing football. He loves competing. It’s about being part of a community and the game you love. You don’t always need to search for meaning; sometimes there isn’t one. It’s pure passion, just like it is for millions of amateur athletes worldwide.

You’re not building a product just for the sake of it; you’re building a community around your product, giving people a tool to connect with the sport they love.