Tickaroo & kicker: Building Germany’s #1 Sports App and Driving Digital Success

Founded in 1920, kicker has grown from a beloved soccer magazine into Germany’s leading digital sports publisher. Their audience-first mindset and innovative content delivery drove a partnership with Tickaroo in 2013, resulting in the relaunch of the kicker app. Today, the app powers 90% of their online traffic, has achieved a 467% increase in monthly visits since launch, and now reaches 16.5 million users, cementing kicker’s position as a digital sports media leader.

Designing and building the most downloaded sports app in Germany 

Tickaroo has found dynamic ways to combine its passion for sports with its cutting-edge digital expertise. That's precisely why the partnership between kicker and Tickaroo has been so productive, as both companies share a reader-first, innovation-driven approach to mobile app development for publishers.  

After joining forces in 2013, Tickaroo quickly got to work conceptualizing, designing, and building kicker's new app. Faced with the challenge of creating a fan-centric, high-performance sports content app, Tickaroo delivered a custom solution that quickly became a benchmark in the sports publishing app industry. Tickaroo has been responsible for the innovation behind designing, building, and maintaining the most downloaded mobile sports news app in Germany ever since. 

What Tickaroo delivered 

• Future driven digital business models in digital sports news to drive revenue
• Ongoing consulting and feature updates via an agile partnership 
• Custom news app development tailored to kicker’s audience needs 

• Mobile-first content delivery architecture 

• Fully branded native app for a legacy sports publisher 

• UX/UI design optimized for scalability and performance 

• Real-time push notification system 

• Modular backend to support editorial flexibility and fast rollout 
  

Finding the balance: accounting for different perspectives leads to product's greatness 

Since the beginning of their partnership, kicker and Tickaroo have forged and maintained a productive balance. Monthly meetings provide a space for interdisciplinary product and stakeholder exchange, fostering a steady dialogue between freedom, structure, and identifying the needs of tomorrow, as well as the stakeholder's expertise.  Balancing user needs with long-term business goals can be challenging, but both companies recognize and respect each other's areas of expertise. Together with fresh perspectives, and a desire to create an exceptional fan-first mobile app, innovation can occur. From kicker's user needs and expertise to Tickaroo's extensive digital excellence and deep understanding of audience engagement design, it's about finding the best solutions not just for both companies, but ultimately, for the readers.  

Workshopping, designing, and developing a fan-favourite sports publishing app

The concepts and designs for the kicker app are done in-house at Tickaroo. As part of its extensive custom app development services for publishers, Tickaroo offers various levels of consulting, including workshops and other tailored solutions. This collaboration with kicker serves as an example of how Tickaroo works closely with leading publishers to conceptualize and develop impactful content delivery apps for large-scale audiences. The overall approach is very holistic and focuses on creating a product that will generate sustainable growth. 

The kicker app project highlights how conceptualization and design are central pillars in audience-facing app development for major publishing brands. It is primarily during this stage that the architectural concept and interdisciplinary approach are hammered out, and when the user-friendly features are strategized. One key advantage of Tickaroo's consult-to-code approach, from ideation workshops to technical implementation, is that any changes or challenges can be quickly addressed, minimizing downtime and easing demands on the client’s internal teams. 

Tickaroo’s internal workflows are designed to optimize each phase of the project lifecycle for efficiency and quality. The ongoing nature of the kicker app project, with its modular app architecture and continuous UX improvements, illustrates Tickaroo’s long-term commitment to collaboration and sustainable growth-focused mobile publishing solutions. 

Future-proofing kicker's audience-first approach by focusing on reach, connection, and monetization 

When Tickaroo designs and builds an app, the needs and wants of the client and their users are paramount. In this, kicker and Tickaroo's goals are completely aligned. kicker doesn't want to present only the newest digital trends for the sake of being trendy - it's about implementing what makes the most sense for their readers. These tenets also guide Tickaroo's approach to bespoke app development for publishing houses like kicker. 

16.5 million monthly readers: high reach demands the most dependable and scalable software 

Historically, kicker has fostered strong relationships with their readers thanks to engaging stories and bi-weekly publications. Instead of relying on cover images at the newsstand, kicker now focuses on mobile-first reach with push notifications and SEO-optimized content. From the beginning, Tickaroo anticipated quick yet sustainable growth. 

Usability, performance, and speed: the delivery system 

No matter how loyal readers might be, if the app is slow, crashes too often, or isn't intuitive enough, they won't keep coming back. kicker identified these points as crucial user needs early and trusts the team at Tickaroo to provide a performant and scalable app to their millions of users. Users can also streamline their app experience by customizing and selecting their favorite teams, allowing their content to be prioritized in their news feeds. 

Connections build brand awareness and power 

Quality editorial content for audience retention 

Several factors contributed to this near-exponential growth of reach, most notably kicker's passion for connecting with its readers, coupled with an app that is intuitive and enjoyable to use. kicker fosters these connections with readers by employing numerous digital fan engagement strategies across multiple layers of interaction. The first level of connection is built via the content itself. Historically, kicker's success was largely dependent upon how good their content was. In many ways, this hasn't changed. 

Historical content meets the social media era 

kicker connects with readers via engaging editorial content. kicker's role as a legacy brand and its access to extensive historical content in its data banks truly sets it apart. Much of what kicker now publishes is tailored to their readers' social media-influenced preferences. Since kicker is the unquestionable leader in sports publishing and a respected legacy brand, it has an invaluable collection of historical sports data. The editorial team continues to utilize this content effectively for relevant stories. 

Video content for audience engagement 

Smartphones and social media have prompted a shift in what mediums are used.
Recently, kicker has been emphasizing the publication of more video content, including timely game updates. The newest video feature is an exciting one for readers – every time there's a goal in a Champions League game, a short video is published. Push notifications are automatically sent to users informing them about the videos, the latter of which are available a few minutes after the goal due to licensing rights. 

User experience: features that develop fan engagement 

The second level of connection is the app features. These backend and frontend app features ensure timely, tailored, and relevant delivery of sports content. The following features are what helps to set the kicker app apart and include: 

• Community engagement via polls and the Tippspiel prediction game 

• Analyzing what users read the most, predicting their favorite team, and subsequently displaying more relevant club news 

• Allowing readers to select their favorite teams for a more tailor-made news feed 

• Providing many different configurations for push notification models 

• Presenting kicker+ for additional content 

It is all these features together that foster a fan community and transform a sports news app into a digital clubhouse experience. 

Connecting with fans wherever they are and on all devices 

Another significant part of connecting with readers is meeting them where they are. That means recognizing that while fans predominantly use the kicker app to watch videos and read articles, optimizing the app for iPad usage is also important. Push notifications also already play a significant role in connecting readers with breaking news and tailored content. However, thanks to Tickaroo’s input about future digital trends, and kicker’s willingness to expand its digital offering to include new devices, push notifications were quickly optimised for Apple watches as well as a version of the app being available. 

Monetization: finding the balance between ads and user experience 

Another level of customization that Tickaroo includes in their designs and builds into the kicker app is the option to decide to what degree a publishing house wants to monetize the content. Through workshops and meetings, kicker and Tickaroo found a balance between including ads to create revenue, monetizing content and maintaining usability for readers. 

The kicker app: always looking forward 

kicker’s success comes from staying ahead of the curve with unique, engaging content, while Tickaroo delivers the cutting-edge app architecture to support it. A major milestone was kicker’s acquisition of Gool, an AI company whose infrastructure has since been integrated into Tickaroo’s tech stack. This collaboration further future-proofs kicker’s brand and products with advanced technology. By keeping readers at the center of content creation and app design, Tickaroo helps publishers build stronger, more popular, and sustainable digital offerings.