#121 Turning Fan Data into commercial success (part 1)

When it comes to leveraging fan data for commercial success in sports, there are several common questions that organizations often ask. These include: What kind of fan data should we collect? How do we collect fan data effectively? How can we ensure the privacy and security of fan data? What strategies can we implement to increase fan engagement and attendance? How can we leverage fan data to optimize revenue streams? What technologies and platforms are available to help manage and analyze fan data in sports?  As you can hear, there are a lot of questions sports organisations ask and I am sure you have your questions too. 

We often try to answer these questions on this podcast but before I tackle some of them, there are two other resources available to you that I would like to highlight. Firstly, it is our newly launched course, “The 4 Fundamentals of selling tickets and merchandise” which is available for enrollment on Udemy. From the course you will learn about the cost of doing nothing, that is, not taking any decision or action towards addressing the changing economy of a sports organisation and its audience. You will also learn about the role the 4 fundamentals play in helping you increase your sports organisation’ average revenue, ticket, and sales and negotiate sponsorship agreements of higher value, amongst other things. During the course, you will gain insights from sports organisations that have already leveraged the 4 fundamentals to see how they apply to you. This is not a course to be missed because it addresses all the questions in this podcast and so much more. 

The other resource is our CEO and Founder Stefan Lavén’s tech show at Sports Pro Live 2024 on this very topic, Turning Fan Data into commercial success but this time with the League of Ireland, one of the sports organisations we work closely with. This will be another moment for you to take inspiration from a club that is already addressing these questions but this time straight from the horse’s mouth. We will make the session available to listen to on the podcast in the next coming week so if you are not already following the podcast, make sure to do so so you never miss inspiring, practical content ever again. Go on do it now.

Now back to the common questions that get asked when talking about turning fan data into commercial success. Starting with, What kind of fan data should we collect? At the very least, sports orgnisations should be collecting their supporter data with contact information, website data, form data, ticketing and merchandise data and partnership and sponsorship data. Beyond that, it depends on the data sources the organisation has. Do you have OTT, an app, a loyalty program, a newsletter, membership etc. Then this should all be collected. But then what do you do with this data.This data must be merged, cleaned and deduplicated so it can give you more insights into your fans behaviour and their lifetime value to the organisation. The questions, How do we collect fan data effectively and How can we ensure the privacy and security of fan data? Have the same answer. And that answer is by using technology, more specifically a sports cdp - a tool that collects and merges all your data in one place and then gives you actionable insights that you can then use to have dynamic real time segmentation that will ensure your organisation is response to its fans’ needs. Other technologies fall short in these categories so that is why I can unequivocally say every sports organisation needs a sports cdp like the one Data Talks offers. That also answers the question, What technologies and platforms are available to help manage and analyze fan data in sports? A sports CDP is the simple answer. Data Talks’ sports CDP utilises primarily zero party data and first party data making it GDPR compliant. If you want to learn more about this, our course is available for enrollment on Udemy. 

I have answered all your questions but one, What strategies can we implement to increase fan engagement and attendance? This question will be answered by Stefan Lavén Data Talks’ CEO and Founder and League of Ireland Director Mark Scanlon, during their tech show session at Sports Pro Live 2024. If you are going to be at the event, make sure to join them at 2 pm BST in the Alcock Suite at the Kia Oval in London.

Thank you for tuning in.