What started as resolving initial IT challenges to a full modernisation project that quadrupled matchday turnover, commited has grown it’s support for Barrow AFC and the local community as Club sponsor.
For football clubs operating outside the Premier League spotlight, every pound matters. Matchday operations, fan experience, commercial revenue and cyber security are all critical to keeping the club competitive both on and off the pitch.
At Barrow AFC, a club with deep roots in English football and a growing commercial operation, outdated and fragmented IT systems were beginning to hold the organisation back. That changed when the club partnered with IT support and managed service provider (MSP) commited and adopted Acronis cyber protection solutions along with it.
The result has been a complete transformation in how the club manages technology, from faster matchday transactions to centralised cyber security and backup protection. Read the full case study here
A club held back by fragmented technology
Barrow AFC, a member of the National League, the fifth tier of English football, will celebrate its 125th anniversary in 2026-2027. In 2024, a major issue the club identified was the state of its IT infrastructure.
“Everything was everywhere,” says Frazer Stewart, Director, Barrow AFC. “I wanted a one-stop shop. Who do you go to for passwords, printing, cyber security, CCTV or the scoreboard? It was a car crash.”
Technology services were spread across multiple vendors and providers, making troubleshooting difficult and creating operational inefficiencies throughout the club. Systems were slow, internet performance was poor and even basic matchday processes were affecting the fan experience.
“Our turnover at half-time was suffering because transactions were taking too long,” Stewart explains. “The staff were getting abused because fans were frustrated asking, ‘What’s taking so long?’”
For a club like Barrow, where secondary spending on food, drinks and merchandise is an important revenue stream, those delays directly affected commercial performance.
Finding the right MSP partner
As Stewart began the process of consolidating vendors and evaluating technology providers, he turned again to commited, which had already started working with the club on telecommunications.
“They were one of the companies I spoke to while trying to pull everything together,” Stewart says. “Every query was answered with, ‘We can do that.’”
That responsiveness and breadth of expertise quickly stood out.
commited worked closely with the club to centralise IT operations and modernise infrastructure across both the stadium and a separate training facility. Today, the club operates with a far more connected and efficient environment that supports approximately 20–30 users across office staff, training ground personnel and matchday operations.
Modernising matchday operations
One of the most immediate improvements came through upgrading the club’s connectivity and point-of-sale systems. commited implemented high-speed fibre connectivity and introduced tablet-based point-of-sale systems to improve concession and hospitality operations on matchdays.
“We put cyber-fast fibre in and introduced tablets to do POS onsite,” says Will Gardner-Brennand, commercial director at commited. “Technology was slowing them down as a club.”
The impact was dramatic.
“Our turnover quadrupled,” says Stewart. “Secondary spend is massive to a club like Barrow.”
Beyond improving revenue generation, the new environment also simplified day-to-day support.
“No task is too big, and no task is too small for commited,” Stewart adds. “Every member of staff has their support line. It’s made my life so much easier. It’s brought us up to the 21st century.”
How Acronis became part of the journey
commited’s relationship with Acronis began through a need to improve Microsoft 365 backup and reduce reliance on costly on-premises infrastructure. The MSP had also been evaluating how to simplify its own technology stack and reduce vendor sprawl. Acronis offered an immediate advantage.
“We liked the flexibility Acronis has with billing and how that supports customers,” Gardner-Brennand says. “There was no flexibility with the previous vendor.”
The relationship deepened after commited attended an Acronis event at the Silverstone racing circuit, where discussions around sports partnerships and the Acronis #TeamUp programme helped demonstrate the value of closer collaboration. commited ultimately decided not only to participate in Acronis #TeamUp by working with Barrow but also to sponsor the club along with Acronis.
“It sat in the back of my head,” Gardner-Brennand explains. “Then we started talking about sponsorship opportunities and things developed from there.”
Today, Acronis and commited branding is visible at Barrow AFC’s away stand, and commited will be the sponsor on the front of Barrow’s special edition 125th anniversary shirts for 2026-2027.
Building a unified cyber protection strategy
As commited modernised Barrow AFC’s environment, Acronis solutions became central to the club’s cyber protection strategy. According to Gardner-Brennand, the club’s IT environment was relatively straightforward but lacked centralised management and protection.
“Barrow is a pretty flat network,” he says. “There’s local data on laptops and Microsoft 365.”
commited deployed multiple Acronis solutions to consolidate cyber security, backup and endpoint management into a single integrated platform, including:
- Endpoint protection and antivirus.
- Microsoft 365 backup.
- Security awareness training.
- Centralised backup protection for local and cloud-based data.
- SharePoint-based collaboration and data management support.
“One product naturally leads into another,” Gardner-Brennand says. “We’d previously had a huge sporadic mass of products. Acronis has become our one-stop shop.”
That consolidation has helped commited reduce complexity while improving service delivery for Barrow AFC.
Seamless protection with real business value
For Stewart, one of the most important outcomes has been confidence that the club’s systems and data are protected without disrupting operations.
“The transition was really smooth,” he says. “It happened seamlessly. No hiccups.”
That protection has already proven valuable.
“We have had to recover a bit of data,” Stewart notes. “Would we have had that possibility if we hadn’t entered into this deal? No.”
As cyber threats continue to evolve, commited sees the partnership with Acronis as an ongoing journey rather than a one-time deployment.
“New threats will come in and at that point we’ll act accordingly,” Gardner-Brennand says.
Preparing for the future
With a stable IT foundation now in place, Barrow AFC and commited are already looking ahead to future innovation. Gardner-Brennand expects emerging technologies such as pitch-side analytics and expanded operational data collection to play a larger role in football operations moving forward.
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