Keeping up with the Millennial and Gen-Z Tech-Savvy Sports Fan

The world is changing, and it’s changing so fast that many businesses, big and small, can hardly keep up. The same thing can be said about sports leagues and teams who are finding it increasingly hard to engage with their fans in today’s times.

The world is changing, and it’s changing so fast that many businesses, big and small, can hardly keep up. The same thing can be said about sports leagues and teams who are finding it increasingly hard to engage with their fans in today’s times.

It was not that long ago when broadcast and cable television dominated sports viewership. This made it somewhat easy for sports leagues to track their fans’ likes, dislikes, habits, and preferences since TV acted as a sort of “funnel” where most supporters gathered to consume their product. But those days are fast disappearing and TV’s monopoly on entertainment is now over.

Statistics show that traditional TV viewership is in decline among all demographics below the age of 49. Teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 are showing the greatest decrease, with their viewership dropping by a whopping 11% year after year. Sports also seems to take an extra hit as people between the ages of 18 to 24 show the least interest in it among all other entertainment shows.

From TV to Social Media

Despite these facts, there is still some hope. While traditional TV viewership may be declining, digital usage is on the rise. What’s more, 86% of Americans still consider themselves sports fans. Even more hopeful is the fact that the majority of these fans, especially those between the ages of 15 and 36, are willing to pay for quality sports content.

Among millennials, the most commonly used outlets from where they get their sports content are Facebook and YouTube, and a total of 92% of sports fans between the ages of 18 and 24 use social media as their main source for sports information.

What really draws millennials and the so-called Generation Z (those born after 2000) to these digital outlets is the convenience of having access to all sorts of highlights, bloopers, or behind-the-scenes perspectives that keep the entertainment going long after the game is over.

Enter Fanisko Engage

Sports teams have tried to get ahead of the game here by creating their own digital apps in an attempt at keeping their fans entertained. But while fans are consistently engaged with their teams, they are doing it in all sorts of digital places except within the team’s app.

What Fanisko Engage does here is to bring both the benefits of social media and traditional TV viewing into one platform. Fans no longer need to change from Facebook to YouTube to Instagram to Twitter and then back again since all they need is within this one-stop engagement platform. It also offers live play-by-play predictions, AR/VR games, engagement rewards, and personalized content to keep the fanbase “under the same roof.”

Fans are sure to respond to this sort of diversity as well as the convenience of having everything they need on one single platform. It increases their engagement time, it keeps them on the team’s page for longer, and because of the integrated analytics system, it helps the marketing department better understand their wants and needs for a better overall experience.

Fanisko offers a one-stop fan engagement platform, Fanisko|Engage, that helps sports and entertainment brands increase mobile fan retention, digital engagement and revenue opportunities. Today’s fans want more from their leagues and teams. We help leagues and teams embrace today’s “SmartFan” demand while maximizing fan potential for sponsors. Our mobile first, one-stop platform targeting millennials with a combination of unique content strategy, product offering including gaming, predictive and behavioral analytics and AR/VR technologies will target and engage the right audience.

An Inside Look at Manchester United’s Staggering Revenue Through Fan Engagement

With a breathtaking number of 659 million supporters, it is safe to say that the fanbase of EPL giant Manchester United (https://www.manutd.com/) is nothing short of colossal. Let me explain you the significance of this number – this is twice the population of the United States of America and almost half the population of China. Constituting to 8% of the world population, the fan base of  Premier league’s most successful could hold its own ground to become the fourth largest practiced religion after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

With a breathtaking number of 659 million supporters, it is safe to say that the fanbase of EPL giant Manchester United (https://www.manutd.com/) is nothing short of colossal. Let me explain you the significance of this number – this is twice the population of the United States of America and almost half the population of China. Constituting to 8% of the world population, the fan base of  Premier league’s most successful could hold its own ground to become the fourth largest practiced religion after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

The club is engaged in fan interaction with over 100 million followers digitally, with over 70 million followers on Facebook, 20 million on Instagram and 17 million on Twitter. Furthermore, they have over a million subscribers to their official app and close to 175,000 subscribers to their MUTV app and digital cable channel which is available to 165 countries.

Revenue Through Fan Engagement

It’s one thing to create a massive fan base but it’s a whole different game to metamorphose it into an effective revenue model and that’s exactly what Manchester United have been successful at. The revenue generated through fan engagement has contributed effectively helping the club to post a record-breaking overall revenue of  £581 million ($817 million) last year. Manchester United converts only 1% of its 659 million fans to MUTV subscription at an average of just £1 per month (the pricing will vary by country, taking fans’ respective purchasing power into account and is as low as around £1.60 per month in India to around £6.30 per month in Finland). This helps the club to generate nearly £80 million ($102 million)  per year in additional revenues apart from their primary revenue via broadcasting rights, brand endorsements, and sponsorships.

Now let’s see how this £80 million transcends on to the pitch. This money can fund the signing of as many as two to three top players with five-year contracts or could contribute to one-third of the club’s overall annual wage budget of the entire squad which, is around £232 million ($256 million). That’s in addition to the usual business Manchester United conducts during the transfer windows, which tends to be quite substantial already.Moving on to the most amusing factor about their fanbase is that close to 85% live in developing economies around the world, with more than half in Asia and only close to 7% of the fanbase turns up to their stadium through the course of their soccer season. This makes the club to keep fans engaged between matches through social media and their dedicated apps. The fans are provided with the right and robust content including gamification and mixed reality at the right time in as many as 27 languages, through various mediums. This creates more interaction, greater advertising and merchandising opportunities among its predominantly young fanbase.

In summary, Manchester United’s staggering revenue generated through fan engagement include the following:

  • Robust content
  • Gamification
  • Mixed Reality
  • Fan loyalty
  • Sponsorships
  • MUTV subscription

About Fanisko:

Fanisko (www.fanisko.com) offers a one-stop fan engagement platform, Fanisko|Engage, that helps sports and entertainment brands increase mobile fan retention, digital engagement and revenue opportunities. Today’s fans want more from their leagues and teams. We help leagues and teams embrace today’s “SmartFan” demand while maximizing fan potential for sponsors. Our mobile first, one-stop platform targeting millennials with a combination of unique content strategy, product offering including gaming, predictive and behavioral analytics and AR/VR technologies will target and engage the right audience.

So, if you are any sports association, league or a club planning to deliver an amazing mobile based fan engagement platform to build your fanbase, we would like to hear from you.

*Revenue and fan base statistics were taken from BBC, Independent, MUFC’s social media accounts, and official website respectively*

 

 

 

Fanisko – Just What A Marketing Agency And Its Clients Need!

Our years of experience having worked with sports teams that we have come up with our fan engagement platform – Fanisko.

Why is fan engagement so important?

Over the years, engagement with fans has acquired a new level of importance altogether for sports teams. Various revenue generation streams such as merchandise sales, sponsorship’s and media largely depend on the level of engagement with fans. In other words, fan engagement has evolved into a wholesale growth strategy used by elite sports team for profit maximization.

An important aspect of fan engagement is to get as many viewers in the seats as possible. Common opinion states that an empty stadium represents poor fan engagement. An empty seat is a missed commercial opportunity. Therefore, sports organizations and marketers always look for ways to fill their stadiums as close to maximum capacity as possible, further maximizing revenue.

We understand this need and importance associated with fan engagement. It is based on this understanding and our years of experience having worked with sports teams that we have come up with our fan engagement platform – Fanisko.

Let’s deep dive to understand fan engagement

Of course there are many ways to engage with fans. Traditional methods of engagement like engaging with the fans inside the stadium are becoming outdated now. Engaging with fans inside the stadium alone is not going to be enough now. In times when fans are becoming increasingly dependent on digital platforms for consumption of content for entertainment and news, it would be deemed orthodox if a sports team were to decide against leveraging on this trend for fan engagement.

Since marketing and operations departments are tasked with the responsibility of engaging with fans they often take the help of marketing agencies for the same. These are agencies that specialize in offering marketing consulting and managing digital media presence for sports teams.

Our role in the entire process!

We sense the opportunity for a special engagement between marketing agencies and our platform. We work with sports team helping them strengthen their bond with their fans. Teams we understand face a number of challenges which we help them tackle. Some of these challenges are their inability to push good content to fans, offering rewards to them and making them a part of loyalty programs in appreciation of their commitment towards them and of course offering fantasy games for them to stay engaged and entertained.

We at Fanisko have tried and tested that a one stop digital platform could tackle all these challenges with great effect. Our platform is technology driven which enables us to bring the best to the sports teams using it. From being able to offer rewards to fans to offering innovative gaming that is a mix of Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality, our platform offers many distinctive features which cannot be found on any other engagement platform in today’s times. We allow fans of teams to build their own teams and play in the fantasy leagues. We allow them take part in trivia and polls and reward them for their dedication to the sport and their favorite team.

This was just a little on what our app has on offer for the fans whereas the teams too gain a lot from using our platform. Teams in addition to gaining increased engagement with their fans are also able to push pressing news about any new developments concerning the team to the fans. They are able to gain insights into what works and what doesn’t with regards to their content and communications strategy.

Wondering what’s in it for you?

Just imagine if the team that you are associated with was able to derive these benefits? Wouldn’t it help your relationship with them and make your job easier too with the help of our platform? It obviously would! It would also give your team more confidence when building a strategy with technology as its core base.

Apart from an association with Fanisko helping your bond with your team, it will also serve as a new stream of revenue for your firm. Yes, we’d be happy to work on a revenue share model with your agency.

To know in detail and get a demo of the way Fanisko works and why we call it the best fan engagement platform out there, click here.

 

Generate Buzz and Get Your Fan Base Excited About Your Team

Just like Apple or any other company, a sports team is a business, and they have to work hard to stay competitive.

Today, top athletes earn millions of dollars annually, and the most prominent sports teams have hundreds of millions of fans all over the globe. We live in the internet age, where everything is available to the user with a few clicks.

If you take a look at teams with enormous fan bases, you might think they don’t have to try hard to engage their fans. To an extent, that’s correct – sports fans are the most loyal customers in any industry. However, that doesn’t mean that those teams don’t have to create buzz around themselves to keep the fans excited. Just like Apple or any other company, a sports team is a business, and they have to work hard to stay competitive.

Fortunately, the digital world gives the opportunity to smaller local teams to stand out and quickly increase their fan base exponentially. Let’s have a look at ways to create buzz and get your fan base excited about your team:

Use Your Strengths and Team Events
Bring your ‘A’ game to the table and use everything you can to create buzz. For example, engaging fans through sharing important team news is a sure way to victory. Signed a new player?  Make sure your fans know it! Contract extensions, big match announcements, all of those can be a chance to get fans involved. Don’t wait for them to gather news they’re hungry for – feed it to them, and they’ll be more engaged.

Take Advantage of Video Content
Recent studies suggest that we read less every year, especially online. We don’t have the time to sit down and get every bit of information. We catch up with recent events during idle times such as commuting. That’s why video content is on the rise – it requires little effort, and provides more information in the same amount of time. Studies also show that video is far more engaging and more natural to consume than any other type of content. It gives you a perfect opportunity to increase fan engagement and deliver content that’s easy for them to absorb.

Engage Fans via Polls
Polls can be a great way to engage your fan base if you implement them right. For example, you can engage the fans before an important match and ask how they think the game will end. You could even organize contests and reward those who guessed correctly. Poll them to find out what they think who the best player in the most recent game was, and give them the opportunity to see the results and discuss them.

A Helping Hand is Always Welcome
With Fanisko Engage, your team will get all these functionalities and more. Our SDK integration platform helps teams engage fans through video content, polls, fan contests, as well as AI, Mixed and Augmented reality. It’s intuitive, easy and exciting for fans to use. And its beneficial for the teams that experience higher engagement and increased session times.

Via Fanisko, you can easily keep your fans engaged and excited about your team. Don’t hesitate to visit our website for more information about our platform.