It started with a paper ban.
A rule from the ACT Government stopped paper changing hands at Canberra Stadium, and the match-day program went with it. What replaced it became Tiparra.
- Client
- ACT Brumbies Rugby
- Industry
- Professional sport · Super Rugby Pacific and Super Rugby Women's
- Location
- Canberra, Australia
- Partner since
- 2021
- App
- ACT Brumbies Rugby, live on the App Store and Google Play
The constraint
The ACT Government made a rule that changed match day at Canberra Stadium: no paper changes hands.
If you have spent any time at professional sport you know the program ritual. Walk through the gates. A volunteer hands you the glossy match-day booklet. Read the team list while you find your seat. That booklet is the only thing tying the people in the stands to what is happening on the field: jersey numbers, sponsor messages, who is making their debut.
The ritual stopped overnight. High-touch handouts were a public health risk, and the information disappeared with the paper.
Thousands of fans in the stands. Sponsors who had paid for visibility. Safety information that had to reach the person in Row L, Seat 42. All of it was supposed to travel by paper, and paper was no longer an option.
Nobody was pitching a platform. The brief was small: get the team list onto people's phones before kick-off.
What shipped
What went live for the 2021 season was a digital handout. A QR code on a sign at the gate. Fans scanned it, a mobile page loaded, and the match-day program was on their phone instead of in their hand.
It did what the printed program used to do, and nothing else. Four jobs, now living on a phone.
Team lists
Who is on the field today. Jersey numbers, positions and late changes, updated live rather than at the printer.
Match details
Kick-off, venue, ladder. The information fans looked up on their phone anyway.
Sponsor messages
The visibility partners were promised, delivered to the fan's screen with no print run and no hand-to-hand contact.
Live updates
Stadium information and health protocols, to the person in Row L, Seat 42.
The thing nobody planned for
Fans found the team list, then kept scrolling. They stayed on the page well past kick-off, and they came back at half-time.
Paper was a thing fans glanced at. The phone was a thing fans returned to.
What got built next
A printed program is a finished object. Once it is printed it is static. A typo in a sponsor URL stays put, a late injury change never makes the page, and the information travels one way. Paper also cannot tell you who is reading it.
If a fan was already holding their phone to check the team list, the same screen could take their Player of the Match vote, enter them in a half-time competition, or surface a partner offer they could use from their seat.
Polls and voting
Real-time voting that turned spectators into participants, and gave the club its first identified, opted-in fan data.
Predictions and games
Engagement that started before the whistle and carried on after full-time.
Real-time rewards
Recognition for loyal supporters, delivered in the moment and in the place the fan already was.
A direct channel
One the club controls end to end, with no algorithm in the middle deciding which fans see which message.
Where it is now
The web program became a native app. The ACT Brumbies Rugby app is live on the App Store and on Google Play, published by Tiparra Group Pty Ltd. It carries team news, Super Rugby Pacific and Super Rugby Women's fixtures, ladder and statistics, fan voting, partner offers, membership sign-up and merchandise.
What started as a workaround for a paper ban became the Tiparra platform. Every branded app Tiparra runs today traces back to a QR code on a sign at a Canberra gate.
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