For University of Charleston athletic director Bren Stevens, necessity became the mother of innovation.
Searching for an effective way to communicate with and build the Golden Eagles fan base, UC will implement a new smartphone app. It's one that mainly has been the tool of NCAA Division I schools, but Charleston will see if it can be effective on the Division II level.
The Golden Eagles athletic department had sought a way to ensure its students and fans would know where and when UC's sports teams would play. On-campus construction of the university's Russell and Martha Wehrle Innovation Center, which will house much of UC's athletic department, had spread those contests around the city.
"We're really going to have a tough year this year being able to communicate," she said. "We're going to be at a lot of venues. We're already playing at quite a few different venues anyway."
Because of construction, UC's volleyball team has been playing its matches at the Charleston Catholic Athletic Complex. Men's and women's basketball will play their games between the Charleston Civic Center and the Charleston Catholic Athletic Complex. And UC's football and men's and women's soccer teams already are spread out, football at UC Stadium, men's soccer at Schoenbaum Stadium in Coonskin Park and women's soccer at the Trace Fork Soccer Complex.
Assistant athletic director Travis Chandler approached Stevens with a possible answer, an app from SuperFanU, a fan loyalty and engagement company based in Louisville, Kentucky. Many of the company's clients are larger universities - Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, Clemson and Penn State among them. Yet a handful of Division II schools like North Alabama and Seton Hill use it as well.
After looking at the app, Stevens liked how all of her communication needs were consolidated into one place, and decided to give it a shot.
The UC Eagles Nest app not only offers an all-sports event calendar, it includes a social media aggregator, where users can keep up with UC's happenings on Twitter and other social media sites, and a fan cam, where app users can upload photos they take at various UC athletic events.
It also provides a check-in function that Stevens hopes will provide incentive for fans to attend events across all sports. A geo-locator program in the app allows users to earn points when they arrive at different games. For instance, a user could check in and earn 10 points at UC's women's tennis match this past Friday at the Charleston Tennis Club. The top point totals at the end of the school year will win prizes.
Stevens already sees opportunities to branch out the app's use to other UC events.
"It's nice because it's all in one place," she said. "You have the schedules, and other events going on. It can be used for things other than athletics. If we have a speaker, why not use it for that?"
The app had been available in the iTunes Store for a couple of weeks and came to Google Play this past week. Stevens already is thinking of ways to expand its use for the athletic department.
"The next thing we're really going to try is to push it out to the parents," Stevens said. "We have 550 student-athletes on campus. How do we get their parents involved? We find this can be another tool to say, hey, these are the games. And they can still go to our mobile site to stream video and audio of the games, but this is a great communication tool."
Stevens hopes that UC Eagle's Nest not only will enhance the athletic department's ability to reach the fans it already has, but to grow the base as well. Division II schools rarely see the spotlight that their Division I counterparts often enjoy. This, she said, could be a crucial tool in being able to step closer to that spotlight.
"We're competing with WVU and Marshall and we're always trying to get fans into the seats," she said. "I don't know if there's a Division II athletic director that's not worried about getting more fans into the seats. I think there are some Division I schools that worry about that. Anytime you can enhance your communication, it's going to be a win-win."