Building the Flyers App — The Most Robust NHL Team App Today
Services
Product strategy
Mobile App Design
Data & Analytics
User Research & Testing
iOS & Android Development
Every time the Philadelphia Flyers take the ice, the passionate fans at Xfinity Mobile Arena are there to cheer on their team. Like many teams, the Flyers strategically deploy promotional offers and discounts to fill the last few seats before the puck drops. For the Flyers, this process was highly manual and resource-intensive, requiring significant team intervention to execute. Additionally, the limited fan data they were collecting made it difficult to determine which discounts or promotional programs would resonate, leaving them without the necessary insights to drive a personalized fan experience.
While many teams launch cookie-cutter apps powered by app platforms, the Flyers trusted Code and Theory to develop deeper integration with their marketing stack, arena technology and sponsorship program. Together with Comcast Technology Services, we built the Flyers' first-ever mobile app (launched just ahead of the 2025-26 season), going from strategic inception to launch in 6 months.
The app is the most robust in the NHL today, providing fans with centralized access to ticketing, loyalty rewards, live scores and stats, arena navigation and exclusive content.
Impact
- The app transforms the Flyers’ relationship with fans into a data-rich growth channel, reducing discounting and boosting lifetime value.
- Unified fan data powers precise, automated targeting, turning single-game buyers into loyal, repeat fans.
- Deep technical integration across ticketing, CRM and arena systems creates a flexible digital foundation for future innovation.
An NHL Leader in Stats and Scores
The Flyers app features real-time scores, stats and standings powered directly by the NHL. The Flyers are the first team to integrate NHL Edge advanced analytics into their mobile app, letting users see detailed shot and skating zone heat maps, and interactive goal visualizers.
A Full-Arena Native Ticketing Experience
Speed-to-market was non-negotiable. To meet the deadline without compromising quality, Code and Theory engineered a solution that balanced creative ambition with technical precision: a native app architecture routed through a custom middleware layer (Backend for Frontend, or BFF).
This BFF became the heartbeat of the build. It centralized and normalized data from multiple APIs — Ticketmaster, Comcast Video Platform (CVP) for streaming, CrowdPlay for loyalty, NHL’s Edge for real-time stats — while offering a flexible framework for new integrations down the line. By leveraging the Ticketmaster Discovery API, we were able to build a native event browsing frontend that seamlessly blends Flyers games with other arena events (concerts, comedy, family shows, and more) to deliver an all-in-one arena ticket purchase experience that will drive fan engagement and conversion.
Building the Tools For Speed and Scale
Expanded fan profiles (combining ticketing, purchases, rewards and app engagement, location, etc.) will unlock deeper fan insights and enable automated micro-targeting of personalized offers through app push notifications, enabling the Flyers to more effectively turn single-game fans into multi-game fans, and die-hard fans into season ticket holders.
This first launch established a foundation for future integrations and feature rollouts, positioning the Flyers at the forefront of digital fan engagement in advance of the new South Philly Arena opening in 2031.
The new Flyers app isn’t just a digital experience — it’s a platform for reinvention. It gives the team complete ownership of its fan data, the freedom to innovate on its own terms and a foundation to expand into new fan experiences across digital touchpoints.