The Rise of Fan Intelligence
What Do Fans Want?
According to a recent study from Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR), a fan's willingness and ability to attend sporting events has significantly changed since the start of the global pandemic in March of 2020. Jessica Gelman, CEO of KAGR, says the teams and leagues that make an effort to understand their fans' new wants and needs will be those best suited to drive attendance growth in the coming years.
It is unsurprising that since the start of COVID-19, attendance at sporting events has been on the decline. While some attribute this to the growing ticket prices, the data shows that price and attendance are not correlated. KAGR determined that the cost of attending a Major League Baseball game rose 8.2 percent, and attendance decreased 16 percent from 2019 to 2020. This decline is almost double what the league saw between 2016 and 2019. Similarly, Major League Soccer saw a 15 percent drop in attendance, and the National Football League recorded a three percent decline in attendance. Gelman believes that "engaging fans must be done on a more personalized and segmented basis." Further, it's not just about engaging with fans in the stadium or arena; it's about growing and maintaining relationships even in the off-season, which is where our idea of the Fluid Fan comes into play.
Sports Innovation Lab's mission is to help the world's leading sports organizations identify and understand their fans. Our Future of Watching Sports report highlights that for sports media to evolve, the industry needs to embrace fan behaviors beyond watching and focus on developing the Fluid Fan Studio. The Fluid Fan Studio focuses on four things: behaviors, media coverage, as well as immersion, and presence. But first, what is a Fluid Fan? A Fluid Fan is open to change, empowered to choose, and continuously evolving. Our research shows that revenue sources are coming together to create breakthrough experiences, and technology is the driving force in powering new fan behaviors.
Our Breakthrough Venue Experiences report examines how venues turn to technology and more digital expressions to win the Fluid Fan. The report identifies three challenges for venues: fans expect more, there is increased competition with other entertainment options, and fans enjoy digital togetherness. Based on our research, fans are expecting venue operators to use crowd intelligence to understand fan behavior, develop a partner ecosystem, build venues that are attractions beyond game days, and organize internally for agility. The core behind all of these fan expectations is a reliable connectivity infrastructure. Venue operators need to partner with companies like Cisco, Extreme Networks, JMA Wireless and more, in order to have the 5G and Wifi6 connectivity power to enable a seamless and connected experience.
The sports industry is still trying to recover from the mass cancellations and attendance decline while also navigating the post-pandemic era. Fans need to be able to rely on and trust that venue operators have the correct infrastructure in place. The venues that can win back the trust of the fans first will be the venues that bounce back better than others. To increase attendance, you have to improve the fan experience and to do that, you have to understand the customer. The best way to understand the consumer is through data and fan intelligence. Fan intelligence is becoming increasingly important as times change, and various technological innovations make sports better than ever, which is why it is just the beginning for us here at Sports Innovation Lab.
