Why is it difficult for sports teams to organise their data?
I won’t waste your time explaining why it is important for any business or organisation to have their customer data captured and looked after, we all know this.
Sports teams are no different. Having fan data captured and in a usable state opens up huge opportunities. The key word there is usable. It means clubs can offer a superior service to their fans as well as use the data for cross-selling and up-selling their different products. They can also use it as part of key sponsorship negotiations (Barca will still be kicking themselves about the Spotify negotiation)
But this is such a difficult thing for sports teams to get right due to the unique set of challenges they face in their industry.
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Consider the products and services a club provides to their fanbase. Most clubs will have a combination of digital ticketing, hospitality, fan memberships, club events, merchandise and the production of content. At the teams’ stadium, there will often be a bar, food vendors, a club shop and maybe more.
Crucially, all of these products and services need to be powered by some form of underlying technology. To address it, most clubs have ended up with 4 or 5 platforms that all serve an individual function. A ticketing system, a membership management system, an e-commerce system etc. All these systems have their own backend and rarely provide a CRM view of fans. Instead, you can see a list of ‘orders’ people have made which you can download into an excel file and that’s where it falls over.
Let's take the fan Joe Blogs who supports AFC Richmond. Over the course of 2 or 3 seasons, he has engaged with all of their products and services. He now exists in 4 or 5 system databases hidden away and his beloved club has no idea he exists. Every time Joe visits the club, they have no idea who he is or what his relationship is with the club. You get the idea.
This challenge leads to a few outcomes.
The club pays for another 3rd party to come in and build/run a database for them, integrating all this data together. An extremely expensive and difficult solution reserved for wealthy clubs with bigger budgets.
For the vast majority of clubs who don’t have these resources, this just means continuing to operate blind without any fan data to support decision making. They have a limited back office team, a limited budget and generally club profits go into the players on the pitch. Nothing moves forward, the fans lose out.
As I said, it is a unique set of challenges.
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What I have described above is the very centre of why Fanbase was born.
We are solving this problem… and not just for the biggest clubs. We want every pro, semi-pro and ambitious amateur sports team to be able to have it all. To be able to give their fans delightful and consistent experiences across all their products and services across web, mobile and in person. To have a system that powers their commercial growth and fan engagement sitting in the background starting with data. And to have all of this whilst working with one affordable platform.
If this sounds like what is going on at your club then why not book a call to learn more about Fanbase and how we can help solve any problems that you have.
