While sports continue to gain global appeal and attract fans all over the world, there remains a sizeable opportunity to engage with fans, regardless of their geography, in more meaningful ways—consequently generating greater business value.
The largest leagues maintain wide and exclusive economic moats that have grown substantially in the last decade. The average return from 2002-2021 was 761% (vs. 485 for S&P 500). Source: Buyouts Insider
Next year, broadcast rights in North America could surpass $60B. Sports boast some of the largest broadcast rights contracts, while newer distribution formats create greater competition and revenue for the leagues and teams. Source: Front Office Sports
Several private equity firms have established sports funds that are over-subscribed and can’t spend their capital fast enough in sports teams and sports-related ventures.
Today’s Dynamic Sports Scene: Evolving Now and Into the Future
Live sporting events are no longer the only way for fans to engage with their favorite teams, leagues, players, public figures or organizations. With innovative online and virtual tools—including digital gamification, streaming, social media, and more—industry leaders are now able to blend physical and digital experiences, delighting fans beyond and between the events they attend in-person.
The Opportunity: Transform from a media-centric business model to an engagement model.
From ticket sales and demand generation to boosts in loyalty, brand relevance and more, there are many benefits to unifying fan experiences across disconnected ecosystems. But it can be challenging to identify the best starting point for your brand. Begin by asking yourself which of these questions or issues you’d like to solve for first.
“I want to be able to identify fans and target them with relevant offers.”
“How do we efficiently expand the volume of our communications while maintaining a ‘wide net?’”
“Fans today have widely disparate needs and desires. How do I meet them where they are?”
The Opportunity
Teams have access to fan data, but it’s often siloed, with no singular record of truth. Fans expect you to know them, especially younger fans who hold every brand to the standard of the best experiences they have today.
How We Can Help
Deliver measurable business value by enabling personalized experiences and predicting your fans’ preferences with our CDP offerings. We can help select the right product, collect disparate data sources, uncover actionable insights and unlock value rapidly.
“We want to better connect the physical in-venue experience with digital.”
“How do I attract younger fans who are not just satisfied with attending a game?”
“Younger fans want more than just access to the venue. How do we meet this need?”
“We are about to and already have invested in a new venue and want to consider how the experience will attract more fans.”
The Opportunity
Half of Gen Z have never attended a professional sporting event. Younger fans are not satisfied with venue access alone and increasingly expect their digital-first desires be met.
How We Can Help
Taking a service design-led approach, we focus on customer need states, build out strategy to support the customer journey and create mutual value for all stakeholders.
“We want to elevate the fan experience and measure what worked and what did not.”
“Digitally empowered fans expect more than a one-size-fits-all experience. How do we deliver this?”
“How do we remove friction from the fan experience so they can immerse themselves in the game?”
The Opportunity
Digitally empowered fans expect more than a one-size-fits-all experience. On the other hand, casual fans may encounter choice overload and unnecessary clutter, which can impact engagement.
How We Can Help
We work with sports organizations to improve experiences and increase fan engagement by understanding people’s desires and orchestrating messaging in relevant, targeted ways. Deploying state-of-the-art AI, we can help suggest next-best actions and use data signals generated over time to iterate and optimize.
“Our game is truly global, but we are unable to activate these fans to the benefit of the team.”
“I do not have a good idea of who our fans are or where they are located. How do I engage and monetize them?”
The Opportunity
The way sports are consumed today is changing. Shifts in privacy policy have increased the value of 1st-party data, allowing teams to generate new and measurable economic benefit from all available data sources.
How We Can Help
Data monetization opportunities allow teams access to media networks and data marketplaces at a marginal cost. By delivering heightened experiences, teams create greater engagement for their members, partners and affiliates.
“We have done little to innovate and capture the fandom around our team for younger audiences.”
“A majority of our fans will likely never attend a live event.”
“We have little to offer younger fans beyond the on-field product.”
The Opportunity
With fans accessing content from a variety of sources, sports brands have many new tools at their disposal to help create value-driving interactive experiences.
How We Can Help
With Web3 capabilities, we can create engagement and additional revenue by considering each fan’s experience, geography and needs. Then, we’ll help define the right use cases to invest against and track data points that will help measure your success.
“Where in the organization should Generative AI be used?”
“Do we have the right data for establishing Generative AI models?”
“What are the risks associated with using Generative AI?”
“Should we build our own Generative AI strategy, roadmap and plan?”
The Opportunity
AI has been powering consumer applications for several years, even within the sports world. Teams can employ AI as a value driver to enhance fan experiences and create operational efficiency across a multitude of use cases.
How We Can Help
Our disciplined approach starts with understanding business problems that AI can address. Then we build thoughtful solutions against potentially valuable use cases, all while balancing risks, costs and speed.
“We have invested in technology, but are not seeing the results we expected.”
“We need to take a closer look at our tech stack and understand how it may be inhibiting our ability to optimize the experience for fans and generate revenue for the team.”
“We have data coming in and stored in a multitude of places. It is impossible to create meaningful actions in our current state.”
The Opportunity
Siloed data and tech-stack limitations can inhibit teams from creating and delivering revenue-generating activities and heightened experiences.
How We Can Help
We make it easy for sports fans to engage, buy and interact—first by understanding your brand’s current state, and then by introducing fluidity, flexibility and connectivity.
“I want to be able to identify fans and target them with relevant offers.”
“How do we efficiently expand the volume of our communications while maintaining a ‘wide net?’”
“Fans today have widely disparate needs and desires. How do I meet them where they are?”
The Opportunity
Teams have access to fan data, but it’s often siloed, with no singular record of truth. Fans expect you to know them, especially younger fans who hold every brand to the standard of the best experiences they have today.
How We Can Help
Deliver measurable business value by enabling personalized experiences and predicting your fans’ preferences with our CDP offerings. We can help select the right product, collect disparate data sources, uncover actionable insights and unlock value rapidly.
“We want to better connect the physical in-venue experience with digital.”
“How do I attract younger fans who are not just satisfied with attending a game?”
“Younger fans want more than just access to the venue. How do we meet this need?”
“We are about to and already have invested in a new venue and want to consider how the experience will attract more fans.”
The Opportunity
Half of Gen Z have never attended a professional sporting event. Younger fans are not satisfied with venue access alone and increasingly expect their digital-first desires be met.
How We Can Help
Taking a service design-led approach, we focus on customer need states, build out strategy to support the customer journey and create mutual value for all stakeholders.
“We want to elevate the fan experience and measure what worked and what did not.”
“Digitally empowered fans expect more than a one-size-fits-all experience. How do we deliver this?”
“How do we remove friction from the fan experience so they can immerse themselves in the game?”
The Opportunity
Digitally empowered fans expect more than a one-size-fits-all experience. On the other hand, casual fans may encounter choice overload and unnecessary clutter, which can impact engagement.
How We Can Help
We work with sports organizations to improve experiences and increase fan engagement by understanding people’s desires and orchestrating messaging in relevant, targeted ways. Deploying state-of-the-art AI, we can help suggest next-best actions and use data signals generated over time to iterate and optimize.
“Our game is truly global, but we are unable to activate these fans to the benefit of the team.”
“I do not have a good idea of who our fans are or where they are located. How do I engage and monetize them?”
The Opportunity
The way sports are consumed today is changing. Shifts in privacy policy have increased the value of 1st-party data, allowing teams to generate new and measurable economic benefit from all available data sources.
How We Can Help
Data monetization opportunities allow teams access to media networks and data marketplaces at a marginal cost. By delivering heightened experiences, teams create greater engagement for their members, partners and affiliates.
“We have done little to innovate and capture the fandom around our team for younger audiences.”
“A majority of our fans will likely never attend a live event.”
“We have little to offer younger fans beyond the on-field product.”
The Opportunity
With fans accessing content from a variety of sources, sports brands have many new tools at their disposal to help create value-driving interactive experiences.
How We Can Help
With Web3 capabilities, we can create engagement and additional revenue by considering each fan’s experience, geography and needs. Then, we’ll help define the right use cases to invest against and track data points that will help measure your success.
“Where in the organization should Generative AI be used?”
“Do we have the right data for establishing Generative AI models?”
“What are the risks associated with using Generative AI?”
“Should we build our own Generative AI strategy, roadmap and plan?”
The Opportunity
AI has been powering consumer applications for several years, even within the sports world. Teams can employ AI as a value driver to enhance fan experiences and create operational efficiency across a multitude of use cases.
How We Can Help
Our disciplined approach starts with understanding business problems that AI can address. Then we build thoughtful solutions against potentially valuable use cases, all while balancing risks, costs and speed.
“We have invested in technology, but are not seeing the results we expected.”
“We need to take a closer look at our tech stack and understand how it may be inhibiting our ability to optimize the experience for fans and generate revenue for the team.”
“We have data coming in and stored in a multitude of places. It is impossible to create meaningful actions in our current state.”
The Opportunity
Siloed data and tech-stack limitations can inhibit teams from creating and delivering revenue-generating activities and heightened experiences.
How We Can Help
We make it easy for sports fans to engage, buy and interact—first by understanding your brand’s current state, and then by introducing fluidity, flexibility and connectivity.
Professional sports teams must better understand today’s fans in order to drive growth in the future. They can do this by becoming engagement-centric rather than focusing on media.
Discover new ways to connect, create efficiency and grow your top line with proven solutions like CDPs, data monetization and digital identity.
Deliver exceptional digital commerce experiences through omnichannel commerce, digital sales and order management.
Modernize your IT systems with solutions that include software delivery, digital engineering and cloud infrastructure and strategy.
Transform the way your brand and your customers interact with exceptional customer, employee and partner-centered offerings and services.
Build the type of momentum that only comes with scalable optimization strategies, cross-channel communication and value-generating data visibility.
Discover new ways to connect, create efficiency and grow your top line with proven solutions like CDPs, data monetization and digital identity.
Deliver exceptional digital commerce experiences through omnichannel commerce, digital sales and order management.
Modernize your IT systems with solutions that include software delivery, digital engineering and cloud infrastructure and strategy.
Transform the way your brand and your customers interact with exceptional customer, employee and partner-centered offerings and services.
Build the type of momentum that only comes with scalable optimization strategies, cross-channel communication and value-generating data visibility.
