Building Stadiums, Building Dreams
- Tori Boykins
- Oct 5, 2023
- 1 min read
Updated: Apr 30
A deep dive into the career of Maria Gonzales, the architect behind the newest sustainable sports complex.
top of page
.jpg)
01
The Project
WHAT IS A LIMITED DROP?
A Limited Drop is a live, time-limited prize event that lives exclusively inside the Denver Broncos app.
Fans enter through in-app chat, a countdown runs, and when it hits zero winners are revealed
instantly. Autographed jerseys. Game tickets. Exclusive merchandise. Prizes worth staying up for,
available only to fans who show up in the app when the moment is happening.
The Denver Broncos app is the central platform for fans to stay connected with their team throughout the season. For most fans, that connection was transactional. Manage your tickets, check the schedule, catch a highlight.
The goal was to establish a new value proposition — to position the app as an interactive engagement platform where fans could participate and win, not just consume content and manage tickets. We wanted to create experiences that felt personal and exclusive, foster a genuine connection between fans and the team, and transform the app into something fans talked about. Not just a destination for information. A conversation starter.
But beyond the fan experience, we were also thinking about sustainability. We wanted to build an engagement model with measurable value on both sides — for fans and for the business. Something that could grow, evolve, and eventually open doors to sponsorship and brand activation.
"We knew there were a lot of unknowns. We went for it anyway and internally tested our way to confidence before we ever went public."
TIMELINE
3 live Drop events across the 2025 NFL season, each built around a distinct fan moment and theme
BIGGEST UNKNOWN
This was a new feature. Would fans understand how to participate? And if they did, at what volume?
There was no precedent inside the organization to
draw from.
COLLABORATORS
Internal: Partnerships, Creative, Marketing, Content and Legal. External: YinzCam. This was a true cross-functional effort to get the rules, experience, and execution right
PRIZE SCOPE
Prizes needed to feel worth showing up for and without requiring a significant lift to execute on the back end every time
02
Strategy & Execution
The first strategic decision was one of the most important ones: don't create energy from scratch. Build on
top of moments where energy already exists.
Each Drop was centered around high engagement inflection points that were already on the calendar during the 2025 season, like Midnight Navy, Throwback, Fan Appreciation. These were moments when Broncos Country was already paying attention, already emotionally engaged, already looking for ways to be part of something. We gave them a new reason to open the app in that moment and stay.
Three pillars drove the execution strategy across all three drops:
Fan education first
This was a brand new experience with no precedent. We had to make sure fans understood exactly how to participate, what they needed to do, when, and through which part of the app. Clear, consistent communication about the mechanics was as important as the prizes themselves.
Every channel, working together
We used every communication channel available — email, SMS, social, and push notifications — in a coordinated cadence to build awareness before each drop. The message was consistent: something new is coming, here's how it works, here's when to show up. We drove that message home across every touchpoint.
Make winning feel possible
We didn't want fans to feel like the odds of winning were out of reach. Every drop included at least one round with a large number of winners to keep participation high and maintain the sense that this was genuinely winnable. Paired with prizes that felt meaningful — autographed jerseys, game tickets, exclusive merchandise — we gave fans a real reason to stay in the chat until the very last round.
.png)
.png)
_edited.png)
03
The Impact
Across three live drops, the numbers told us what we needed to know. Fans showed up. They stayed. And they came back.
20.8K
UNIQUE ENTRANTS
Across 3 drops
13.3K
APP DOWNLOADS
New + re-downloads
15.3K
NEW ACCOUNTS
Directly attributed
2.87M
IMPRESSION
All channels combined
"January 2026 became the highest app download month since
August 2019 — 17,112 downloads, a 275% increase year over
year. We gave fans something genuinely worth showing up for,
and they responded."
— Tori Boykins, Manager UX & Digital Design, Denver Broncos
THREE THINGS WE'LL CARRY FORWARD
Urgency is the feature. Lean into it.
Our shortest promotion window was three days. That wasn't a constraint but an asset. Short notice, a
countdown, prizes that only existed in this moment, and that combination created genuine urgency and a sense of surprise and delight that fans responded to. The app became the place where something could happen to you. That's a completely different relationship than checking your schedule or managing tickets.
1
2
3
The prize has to bring fans closer to the team.
Autographed items consistently drove the highest engagement of any round across all three drops along with tickets to a game. The through-line: the best prizes weren't just valuable, they were connective. They brought
fans closer to the players, to the team, to football itself. Limited Drops proved you can build a feature around that idea and fans will show up for it if it is executed well.
This is a sponsorable asset and that changes what it can become.
By the Fan Appreciation drop (#3), Limited Drops had demonstrated real sponsorship potential. A format with 20K+ engaged fans, documented growth, and premium engagement metrics is something a brand partner can activate around. That opens a path to continuing to build this — not just as a fan engagement tool, but as a revenue-generating platform that serves both a business goal and a fandom goal at the same time.
WHAT'S NEXT
We built something that worked. The next phase is making it repeatable, scalable, and integrated into the broader app experience year-round. That means:
Building a sponsorable framework that makes Limited Drops a recurring revenue opportunity
Exploring ways to create anticipation and awareness within the app itself, not just through external channels
Testing new prize formats and drop structures to keep the experience fresh and engagement high
CONNECT WITH TORI
HERizon Connect App
Already a member? Find Tori in the app and connect directly.
Tori Boykins
Manager, UX & Digital Design · Denver Broncos
HAVE A QUESTION FOR TORI?
Curious about the execution, the process, or what you'd do
differently with more runway? Submit your question and we’ll get the top 3 answered for you on social.
bottom of page