How Data Is Changing the Nature of Fan Engagement

Today’s mobile and social technologies have completely transformed the way fans consume their sports content and how they interact with their favorite clubs on a daily basis. It’s safe to say that it’s no longer enough for organizations to think they know what their fans want, and instead, they have to know what they want.

Today’s mobile and social technologies have completely transformed the way fans consume their sports content and how they interact with their favorite clubs on a daily basis. It’s safe to say that it’s no longer enough for organizations to think they know what their fans want, and instead, they have to know what they want.

As a direct consequence of this trend, sports teams and their stakeholders are on a constant lookout for new methods on getting their supporters connected by adding more value to their fan experience. But to do that, however, they need to understand better what drives their fans and what makes them look for more.

As GlobalSportsJobs CEO Will Lloyd states: “The answer, as so often these days, is data.”

From any given club’s perspective, fan data is a precious asset to have. And it’s only those teams that have figured out ways on how to gather, analyze, and utilize this data to their advantage, who have a chance to increase the value of their fan engagement in a consistent manner. In other words, the information allows sports teams to get inside their fans’ heads, and in a sense, anticipate their actions, their desires, and their dislikes. It is to provide them with everything that they will ever want or need from their team.

“It is more important than ever to understand who our fans are and how they want to engage with us,” said Ian Treseder, Marketing and Commercial Manager at the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR).

Fan Data Analytics Application

Analytics can be applied in a wide range of areas such as ticket pricing, customer relationship management; sales inventory, and, of course, fan engagement. But when it comes to the latter, in particular, it can be used to enhance the live game experience, as well as to increase both fan and sponsor participation.

With abundant data at their disposal, sports teams can find new and innovative ways to engage specific fan groups. Live engagement can, for instance, be used to enhance the in-game experience, like requesting a particular song or earning a reward for frequent concession purchases.

With past attendance data, teams can increase ticket purchases with targeted promotions and offer personalized discounts for similar games like those previously attended. Similarly, this sort of data can be used to target those who don’t attend games as much and could be motivated through some custom-tailored promotions. Sponsor ads can also be personalized based on the fans’ past behavior, both on and off the stadium, for increased effectiveness.

Fans Using Data

Sports fans are also keen on getting their hands on some data, and some teams are more than willing to provide it. The data offers a fan what they want to know. It can be about how fast a player is running, or the distance a player covered on the court, or other in-depth information about what’s going on. Many fans are also into fantasy sports, and by having this sort of data, it can influence their picks for their fantasy teams. In short, there is a multitude of ways that data can be used to enhance fan engagement.

Conclusion

As an SDK integration platform, Fanisko Engage can provide both you and your fans with the necessary data for a more engaging and pleasurable fan experience overall. From front-end interaction like Mixed Reality for fan experiences, Augmented Reality for gamification, and Artificial Intelligence for personalization, to back-end analytics, Fanisko brings teams into the modern era of data-driven fan engagement. For more information, please feel free to check out our website.

Fan Engagement as a Culture

Sports, unlike most other industries, has the luxury of starting out from the point of loyalty with their customers/stakeholders/fans. Not even the entertainment industry has this advantage, let alone other, more mundane businesses, like manufacturing, banking, fashion, or whatever.

It is the same reason why sports fans aren’t called customers, in the first place, since they are not buying a commodity or a service. They are, instead, investing their time, energy, mindset, and sometimes, even their entire personality in their favorite team. What’s more, they’ll continue to do so even when the team’s ‘product’ is not rising to their expectations. Again, not many businesses have the luxury of continued customer loyalty when they are underperforming on the market.

The particularity in the business world should not be taken for granted, however, even if the emotional ties between fans and their respective sports teams can be generations old. Instead, it should be respected and nurtured for what it is – a culture.

This attitude and perspective towards fan engagement are where clubs can set themselves apart from the competition. Most successful sports teams understand this relationship for what it indeed is and make sure to maximize the opportunities that it provides.

The Golden State Warriors

There’s probably a no better example of a team that has understood fan engagement for what it is, than the Golden State Warriors. Not that it’s the only one, mind you, but it’s a team that managed to ‘rise from its own ashes’ because of it.

It all started back in 2010 when the team sold for a whopping $450 million. Given that they hadn’t won a championship since 1975 and it had a severe lack of facilities, that was a lot of money. But Joe Lacob was able to look beyond all that and began building the team’s culture both on and off the field.

With their campaigns like “We Believe” and “Strength in Numbers,” the Warriors have taken fan engagement to a whole new level, seeing a constant increase in attendance and a strong developing bond between the team and its fans. These are only set to increase with the team’s move to their new, state-of-the-art, and self-financed arena in 2019.

None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for the Warriors’ ability to recognize and then build their fan engagement culture around the supporters, themselves. It’s the fans that represent the foundation for any successful sports team, and the Warriors know it.

The Solution

Taking a leaf out of the Warriors’ playbook, we come to realize that a club has to build itself around its fans and the community. It can only be achieved if it is through every touch-point and direct communication.

Fanisko Engage is an online platform which creates unforgettable moments for the 21st-century fan. As supporters clamor for more connection, Fanisko’s tech platform brings them to the center of attention by offering the first ever Mixed Reality fan experience. It is combined with Augmented Reality for gamification, as well as Artificial Intelligence for personalization, thus, bringing the team and its fans together, wherever they may be.

Conclusion

In the end, it’s the fans that are the real experts of your club, and it’s only through them that a sports team can succeed. By giving them the means to stay connected and interact with your squad 24/7, you will be sure to develop a bond that can withstand anything. Fanisko Engage can get you there!

Latest Trends Shaping the Future of Digital Fan Engagement

As a software development kit (SDK), Fanisko can either enhance a team’s already-existing app or develop one from scratch. This platform powers the first ever Mixed Reality fan experience by combining augmented reality (AR) for gamification with AI for personalization, thus, allowing sports teams to connect with their fans wherever they are.

With over 66% of sports fans going online at least once per day to check out the most recent developments about their favorite team, it should come as no surprise to anyone that digital engagement with the fans is becoming increasingly more popular with every passing day.

This trend, however, presents both a significant opportunity as well as a severe challenge for sports clubs and teams to engage with their fans in an ever more content-saturated environment such as the internet. Here are the latest trends that will influence the digital fan engagement in the foreseeable future.

Reorganizing Fragmented Content

With the internet quickly becoming the preferred source to follow up on sports news, fans can keep up with their team’s activities whenever their heart desires. The internet brings a ton of bite-sized content such as instant replays, highlights, or behind-the-scenes previews, found on all sorts of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, or Snapchat. For all the marketing benefits that this fragmented content brings, sports clubs have a tough time engaging with their fans.

Even if some sports teams have their mobile apps, many fans prefer to keep themselves up to date by making use of the previously-mentioned social platforms. Fanisko Engage, on the other hand, can help sports clubs get back in touch with their fanbase by funneling all of this content on the platform.

The Rise of eSports

In the Kleiner Perkins Internet Report 2017, it was highlighted that eSports are gaining more and more ground over traditional sports. In fact, 27% of Millennials said that they have a ‘significant preference’ for eSports, 13% slightly prefer it, as opposed to 27% who strongly favor and 15% who only slightly prefer traditional games. The remainder of 18% is comprised of millennials who have no inclination either way.

These percentages come in comparison to non-Millennials who noted that 45% prefer traditional sports and only 13% strongly favoring eSports. Of this group, the remaining 20% were indifferent, 13% had a slight inclination towards eSports while 11% said they slightly prefered traditional sports.

This trend comes at a time when McDonald’s, a Worldwide TOP Olympic Partner since 1976, has ended its deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ahead of time. It was also in 2017 when McDonalds Australia partnered up with Blizzard to sponsor their Starcraft II World Championship Series. Vodafone Spain, on the other hand, launched its own Twitch Channel to live stream esports gameplay and other gaming news.

Globalization

With the internet, many sports leagues have seen a surge in the size of their overall the size of their overall fanbase. Nevertheless, most of these fans will never physically attend a match only because of their geographical location.

It is why certain sports teams such as Manchester United, have decided to partner up with regional sponsors, in an attempt at reaching to their ever-growing international fanbase. Manchester United is the most dominant football team online in China.

The Bundesliga and the English Premier League are the first two soccer leagues concerning popularity in the world, quickly followed by the Spanish La Liga. The last one, however, has since opened several permanent offices in the APAC region to counter this shortcoming and outpace the others regarding fan engagement.

Conclusion

These trends presented will become increasingly more transparent and widespread as time goes on. Other such macro-trends will also present themselves in the upcoming years as new technologies will be reshaping the sports industry like never before.

How Fan Analytics Plays a Key Role in Promoting Fan Engagement?

It is safe to say that humanity would not have reached very far if everything was left to chance and speculation. All marketing and other business strategies, in general, function the way they do because they make use of hard data and statistics. Understanding one’s fans, their habits and behaviors, their likes and dislikes, is the only sure way to drive better and more efficient engagement. Fan engagement analytics is not only useful for enhancing the live game experience and even increase the overall fan base, but it can also help in increasing sponsor partnerships.

The NFL is even taking it a step further. Back in 2015, it partnered up with SAP, an enterprise software company so as to bring high-quality, relevant analytics to their fans. Avid sports fans have always been analytically-oriented, using all sorts of data and other statistical information at their disposal in an attempt at predicting the outcome of various games or seasons.

With this partnership, the NFL is now providing their fans with relevant information for driving more fan engagement. Unsurprisingly, it works. Though technically, that is not fan analytics, per se, it, nevertheless, proves the point of just how useful andcrucial hard data really is – and in the least expected ways, no less.

Fan Engagement and Fan Analytics

Fan-based analytics can be gathered from many sources such as social media, the internet, the stadium, or all sorts of other channels of communication. By putting all this information together, sports teams can better understand how their fans interact with the sport and with the club’s brand. With having this detailed information, decision-makers can devise better strategies that are specifically tailored to fit their objectives and can cater to their fan base exactly how and when they want to.

Trends can also be predicted better, which, in turn, results in higher ticket sales, higher TV ratings, and more profitable sponsorships. In short, fan data is a cumulation of the fans’ overall feelings and expectations in regards to the team’s performance. The key is to know how to access that information and put it to good use.

But as useful as fan analytics is, its main downside is that it’s somewhat hard to get. As fragmented as sports co ntent is nowadays – spread over social media, broadcast TV, stadium attendance, and so on – it can become quite a challenge to get all the necessary data in time.

Enter Fanisko Engage

Fanisko Engage is, as its name would suggest, an all-encompassing fan engagement platform. In short, it is an app that individual teams or leagues can use to attract and entertain their fan base with all sorts of content that they would otherwise find spread out all over the internet. Be it short videos, behind the scenes moments, highlights, fantasy sports, or VR/AR gaming, this platform has it all. With it, fans can keep themselves updated on the team’s progress without having to shift from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and TV. Everything exists, conveniently, on this platform.

Asfar as the teams are concerned, this is excellent news since they can better connect and interact with their fans without having to look for them all over the web. What’s more, this platform provides analytics services. It gathers and presents data and metrics regarding performance, activity on the platform, fan behavioral insights, and predictive analytics.

Conclusion

Sports clubs will, thus, have the chance to understand their followers better and drive better fan engagement in the process. Information, after all, is power.

What Can Sports Brands Do to Get Closer to Their Fans

Present-day sports fans are all about versatility and convenience, both of which being possible and facilitated by technology. This innovation is also something that all sports brands need to embrace, sooner rather than later in order to get closer to their fans.

The entire economy is trying to find ways to better adapt to the speed things are changing everywhere in the world. Sports are not the exception. In the recent past, watching broadcast TV and going to the stadium were the two main ways through which sports brands used to interact with their fanbase the most. Today’s innovative technologies, however, are turning that notion on its head.

On-Demand Media

Social media has completely changed the way businesses are marketing their products nowadays. When it comes to sports, however, more and more people are turning to Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Twitter, or Snapchat and live streaming games instead of watching them on TV. Nevertheless, these social platforms aren’t necessarily replacing TV, per se, but reinventing it.

Though it might seem challenging for some, branching out to various social media outlets presents ample opportunities waiting to be exploited. Not only will this trend open up new opportunities, but it will also allow for a more level playing field where even the smaller sports brands have a chance to be heard.

Live Social Displays and other Ballgame Experiences

Not even stadiums are exempt from this change. If in the past, kiss cams were all the hype, today, these are a thing of the past. Various, state of the art technologies have made it here as well. Snapchat has partnered up with software provider Tagboard, as well as with several teams from the NBA, NFL, MLB, and MLS in order to display live content on the jumbotron. Fans can now post and see live content for the entire stadium and TV watchers to see.

The San Francisco Giants, the Golden State Warriors, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Seattle Sounders FC, and the Arizona Coyotes, among others, are all using Instagram Stories in a similar manner. High-speed Wi-Fi on the stadium has also brought with it other conveniences so as to cater to their fans. The San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams are providing in-seat food delivery.

VR/AR and other Reality-Enhancing Experiences

Virtual and Augmented Reality is the next big thing in sports entertainment. Not that long ago, in September 2017, the MLB announced the introduction of a new app called At Bat. With it, fans on the stadium can point their mobile phones at individual players, giving them instant statistics such as arm strength, catch probability, as well as base percentage and batting averages. MLS team DC United is also pioneering this technology in somewhat of a similar manner as the MLB, as a means to get better in touch with their fans.

Conclusion

In short, technology is the way through which sports brands can better connect and interact with their fans. Nevertheless, the sheer amount of content and diversity can become overwhelming pretty fast. Certain fan-engagement platforms such as Fanisko Engage can, however, bring much of this new tech under the same roof, thus giving fans the experience they want, as well as the teams the ability to properly engage with them.