AccessFan
About
A platform for sports clubs to manage memberships, ticketing, and venue access, now used by over 130 clubs in Argentina.
Client
AccessFan
Year & duration
2020
-
9 months
Role
Product Designer. Designed the UX/UI for the full club and member experience, working with founders, club managers, and Javier Gonzalez who contributed to research and interface design.
Why this case study
Most sports clubs in Argentina were running operations across spreadsheets, WhatsApp, and paper at the gate. AccessFan was the first platform built to replace all of that. This case study is about designing something that had to work for club administrators, staff, and members simultaneously, and doing it without a playbook.
At a glance
Full platform designed from scratch, sole designer on UX/UI
White-label system built to work for any club across any sport
Preset onboarding model developed after early testing revealed a gap
Now used by 130+ clubs across 14 provinces in Argentina
130+
Clubs in Argentina
20M
Identity validations
250K
Active users on the platform
What were clubs working with?
Before AccessFan, Argentine sports clubs ran on whatever they could patch together, spreadsheets for members, WhatsApp for communication, paper at the gate.
Each club built something that worked for them, but fragmentation became the ceiling. I saw the same pattern repeating across clubs.
Growing meant starting over.
What would replacing it require?
Give clubs one system to run everything — and members a reason to use it.
Clubs needed one system that handled everything without adding complexity. Members needed reliable access without friction. The business needed a platform stable enough to support hundreds of clubs across different sports and regions.
What broke down at scale?
How do you design for every club?
The platform connects memberships, ticketing, payments, and access while letting each club make it feel like their own.
Clubs get direct control over their operations. Members get a real connection to their club, their history, their tickets, all in one place.
One system for the entire club-member relationship.
The guiding principle
Four decisions that shaped it
I designed the platform around four decisions.
White-label customization, logos, colors, themes, gives clubs ownership, though it required building flexible configuration layers instead of a single fixed experience.
Digital member cards with QR entry replace manual verification at the gate, balancing speed against the need for photo verification to confirm ticket holders match registered members.
Fan profile hubs show match history, points, and tickets to deepen engagement, though more features for members meant more complexity to maintain as the platform scaled.
Checkout flows use local payment providers to keep transactions stable, working within their specific requirements rather than building custom systems.
Early testing revealed customization overwhelmed smaller clubs. They wanted branding but lacked ready assets, so we added preset themes clubs could use immediately, shifting the onboarding model from customization-first to ready-to-use. Many still rely on them today.
QR entry worked smoothly, and the split-screen view showing the member photo alongside the code gave gate staff what they needed to verify quickly.
We also added backend content filtering to prevent inappropriate uploads in fan profiles, something we hadn't anticipated but addressed before it became a problem.
Did one system work for all of them?
Clubs across Argentina now manage everything from one place, gaining control they didn't have before.
The platform serves over 130 clubs across 14 provinces, from community teams to professional leagues. As of early 2025, it has processed 3 million tickets and 20 million identity validations, with 250,000 active users.
The platform secured investment and is expanding into Chile. The preset onboarding and white-label system that came out of early testing are what made scaling to new markets possible without rebuilding for each one.
130+
Clubs in Argentina
20M
Identity validations
250K
Active users on the platform
What does scale actually mean?
Most clubs just want something that works right away. This project proved that a platform people actually adopt beats a more complete one they can't figure out how to start.
That changed how I think about scale. Designing for one club and designing for hundreds of them are completely different problems, and you only find that out by shipping to both.
Expansion into other markets will test if the platform holds up with more volume.
At scale, the simplest version that works beats the most complete version that doesn't.
Core insight
Supporting Visuals
Logo presentation
Logo usage
Logo variations
Color palette
Typography
Typography details
Brandmark & icons
Browser icon
Browser tab
Grid system
Extra logo usages (white label)
Extra screenshots (white label)
