The Background

Scaling Fast in a Competitive Market

ACFC, founded in 2020, quickly emerged as one of the most exciting new teams in women’s professional soccer. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the club’s mission extends beyond winning games—it strives to champion equity, representation, and sustainability in sports. With a majority-woman ownership group and a deep commitment to community, Angel City set out to challenge the status quo and prove that women-led teams could be both profitable and impactful.

“Angel City was founded to prove that a majority-woman-owned professional team could not only be profitable, but also bring equity to our sport, our industry, and our community,” says Whitney Hallock, Director of Marketing and Experience at Angel City FC.

As a startup entering a competitive market, the team’s ability to scale quickly was crucial. Within just a few years, Angel City grew its fan base significantly, attracted high-profile partnerships, and became the most valuable women’s sports franchise in the world. However, this rapid expansion came with its own set of challenges.

The Challenge

The Duct Tape Approach: Growing Pains of a Startup

At the heart of Angel City's initial fan engagement strategy was the desire to provide their fans with the best possible experience—a truly personalized, engaging, and seamless experience that made them feel like part of the team. However, as a new franchise entering a crowded sports market, they faced significant growing pains.



Fans in Los Angeles wanted more than just a seat at the game—they wanted connection. They craved exclusive content, special events, and communications that spoke to their passion for both soccer and community. In a city full of options, Angel City had to act fast to stand out and build lasting loyalty.

Rapid Growth, Scrappy Tools

To meet these expectations, Angel City adopted a “duct tape and hard work” approach. The team was growing fast, but their tools and systems weren’t built to scale. Data and communications were fragmented, and the small but determined team had limited resources to deliver highly personalized experiences to a growing fan base.

Initially, they relied on manual processes and pieced together whatever tools were available to get the job done. While this allowed them to deliver some fan engagement, it came at a cost—time, consistency, and scalability.

Manual Work, Missed Opportunities

With fans wanting personalized communication, real-time updates, and easy access to tickets and merchandise, the team began to feel the strain. Their approach was functional—but far from sustainable.

The lack of centralized data made it difficult to act on key behaviors or time-sensitive opportunities. As Whitney explains:

"Without having data in a centralized system, we were not able to take advantage of the fact that a fan is more likely to purchase their next ticket to a game or merchandise within 48 hours of a game. So without that centralized data, we were not necessarily able to give our fans what they were looking for."

A Critical Moment—and a Clear Choice

Just as Angel City's fan engagement efforts were reaching a critical point, disaster struck. "During one of the most business-critical  and biggest revenue moments of the year, our website crashed, and there was a scramble like no other," explains Whitney.

With no time to spare and no reliable solution in place, Angel City had to act quickly. Whitney shares, "A very trusted friend in the industry had recommended HubSpot for their easy to use tools, robust capabilities, and exceptional customer service. And it was a no brainer."

As Whitney recalls, the results were immediate:

"Within a matter of hours, we were able to set up a basic website to launch our schedule. Within two weeks, we went on sale with tickets. This is huge for any team - it's one of the biggest days of your year revenue-wise. To have a partner like HubSpot there in a time of need, and with their exceptional customer service, they are vital to our continued growth in this area."

The Solution

Streamlining Data and Automating Engagement

After seeing the power of HubSpot's platform in action during their moment of crisis, Angel City’s marketing team recognized that HubSpot was more than just a solution for website management—it was the foundation for greater efficiency and better fan engagement. 

By adopting HubSpot’s Marketing Hub Enterprise, the team was able to:

• Centralize all fan data in one place
• Automate and personalize email campaigns
• Track engagement across every fan touchpoint—from ticket sales to merchandise to events
• Clean and manage their database to improve deliverability and targeting

What had once required hours of manual effort was now streamlined, freeing the team to focus on creating meaningful experiences for fans. Instead of working reactively, they could now operate proactively—with data guiding their decisions.

“We could finally start delivering the kind of experiences our fans were asking for, without burning out our team,” says Whitney.

This transformation extended beyond basic campaign execution—it also addressed the core pain points of fragmented workflows, which had made it nearly impossible to track performance or understand which efforts were driving results.

Designing Smarter Journey, at Scale

As Angel City FC’s fan base rapidly expanded, the marketing team knew they needed more than just automation—they needed intelligent, connected journeys that reflected how fans actually engaged.

“We were piece-mealing everything together based on different single automations,” says Whitney. “Tracking conversion rates and revenue impact was nearly impossible.”

If a fan engaged with an email about season tickets and later visited the website, the team couldn’t connect those interactions. “It made it really difficult to optimize our marketing spend and understand what was moving fans through our funnel,” Whitney explains.

All that changed with HubSpot’s Journey Automation.

“Each fan’s journey with Angel City is unique,” Whitney shares. “We needed to design nurturing experiences that reflect that—and Journey Automation made that possible.”

Getting campaigns to market, faster 

With real-time visibility into each journey step, the team can now instantly identify drop-offs, test new messaging, and make in-the-moment adjustments to improve performance.

“We can instantly spot where fans are dropping off or converting and make adjustments on the fly. It’s significantly reduced our analysis time and improved campaign performance,” she says.

Features like On Canvas Metrics, and Sankey diagrams provide a clear view of what’s working - and what needs to be tweaked. . “Being able to track how fans move through each journey stage at a glance helps us move fast and stay focused,” Whitney adds.

Pre-built templates also helped the team launch campaigns faster.

“The pre-built journey templates gave us a strong foundation, especially for things like welcome series and event follow-ups,” she says. “We could customize them instead of starting from scratch—so we got campaigns to market faster.”

The Transformation

Turning Engagement into Long-Term Loyalty

With Journey Automation in place and fan data centralized, Angel City FC can now deliver timely, personalized engagement at scale—without sacrificing the human connection that defines their brand.

Since implementing HubSpot:

• Their fan database has grown over 300% in just two years
• They now average 300–350 new sign-ups per week
• Fans spend an average of 6–7 minutes engaging with content, far exceeding typical engagement benchmarks
• The team has shifted from reactive execution to proactive, data-driven marketing

“We’re no longer guessing—we can see what’s working and act on it fast,” Whitney notes.

With real-time visibility into how fans are engaging across channels, the team can continuously optimize campaigns and ensure fans receive relevant, meaningful content—when it matters most.

But beyond the numbers, this transformation supports something even bigger: Angel City’s mission.

By building stronger connections with fans, they’re not only growing the club—they’re also fueling their vision for community impact, equity in sports, and ending pay-to-play barriers for the next generation of athletes.