Oxford Saints
Case Study
British American Football in Oxfordshire
The Oxford Saints is a American Football club based in Oxfordshire, UK. The Saints compete in the Adult National Leagues and is affiliated with the British American Football Association (BAFA).
The club has a amateur status (along with all UK American football teams), being run by volunteers and players pay to play.
The Saints have 3 championship titles (the most recent in 2016) and many playoff appearances. The club has attracted players and staff from a range of backgrounds, including players from America, Canada, Scotland, France, Greece and more.
The senior team is for ages 18+ and in 2016, the Saints launched a separate women’s team who have competed in both flag (non contact) and full contact tournaments.
Refreshing Our Brand Image
I took over management of the clubs media and was looking to modernise our appearance and refresh our brand image. I was using Wix but was seeking a more flexible option with a professional look.
We’ve even had people ask if we are a semi-professional team, due to the appearance of our website thanks to ThemeBoy/SportsPress.
James Dunstan, Oxford Saints
I wanted to develop a club website that could display stats, schedules and set us apart from other teams in our league.
I was originally using Wix but also looked at themes through Squarespace and other sports themes on WordPress.
Bringing Everything Together
My first experience of ThemeBoy/SportsPress was also my first time using WordPress. With only some knowledge to start with, things were surprisingly easy and I was impressed at how fast I was learning. The documentation and video tutorials from ThemeBoy were really helpful, along with professional support staff to help with all my questions.
I knew our website would require constant changes and the ability to maintain schedules, scores and stats. The ThemeBoy/SportsPress solution seemed the ideal way to bring everything in house and have full independence, without relying on a 3rd party web developer to manage our site for us.
The event blocks feature is probably my favourite so far. It gives us a very clearly way to display upcoming games and recent results for our fans.
Professional Results
With SportsPress, we found it was much easier to raise awareness of our team and display information to our fans. It helped make our schedule and results much easier to find, whilst allowing us to present our team more professionally. We’ve even had people ask if we are a semi-professional team, due to the appearance of our website thanks to ThemeBoy/SportsPress.
The new Oxford Saints website is powered by Football Club and SportsPress Pro
A combination of the Football Club theme and SportsPress has allowed us to create a window into our team, making it easy for people to find information about the team and upcoming games.
I recommend ThemeBoy because of their well established set of themes and plugins, which are well documented with great customer support to back it up.
From Eagles to Saints
The team was founded in 1983 originally as the Oxford Eagles, eventually being renamed to the Oxford Saints. The team is one of the first American Football clubs established in the UK when NFL fever was sweeping through Europe. Still going strong today, the Saints are also one of the longest running.