Matchday Traffic Spikes: How to Run In-App Fan Chat Reliably (SLOs, Backpressure, Incident Playbooks)
Traffic in sports apps is rarely steady. There are long periods of quiet, followed by short bursts - for example during a VAR decision at the end of a game, when everyone wants to post their reaction at once. If chat doesn't work in those moments, fans stop trusting the app. Successful app community features and fan chat start by accepting this traffic pattern and designing the "digital stadium" around it.