How US soccer clubs and leagues are scoring more fan data

For sports teams, more fans is rarely bad news. It usually means more energy at stadiums, more eyeballs on streams and broadcasts, and more revenue. And it also means more data.

It’s not always easy for marketers to collect highly coveted first-party data about consumers, no matter how beloved brands may be. For their favorite sports teams, however, fans will hand over just about anything (even, in some cases, their DNA). Sports marketers haven’t always taken full advantage, but in recent years, execs across major sports organizations have been getting more data-savvy.

Soccer, in particular, is poised for a fan data boom. With the World Cup coming to US soil for the first time in more than three decades, soccer fandom stateside has arguably never been higher. At the same time, Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) have relatively new, data-minded top marketers, and execs at teams across the leagues are increasingly thinking about how they can better collect and use fan data to improve the audience experience.

“That’s what people are looking for,” Scott Lewis, VP of business intelligence for New York City FC, who’s also worked in analytics for other soccer and baseball teams, told Marketing Brew. “That’s what is more likely to get them to come back. We can’t control what happens on the field, but the experiences...to me, that shows appreciation of the fan.”

Tickets, please

While clubs technically have access to a wealth of first-party data ranging from email addresses to transaction information, it’s not necessarily simple for sports marketers to use it. Fans may use different email addresses to purchase tickets or merch at different times, which can make it challenging to set up unique identifiers, Lewis said.

There’s also some fragmentation in the sports data landscape, as teams don’t necessarily use the same backend tech for ticketing platforms, retail sites, apps, and other fan touchpoints. That’s a roadblock that the Seattle teams—Sounders FC in MLS and Reign FC in the NWSL—are working to overcome using the fan experience platform Jump.

The partnership, which officially goes into effect next year, will unify the teams’ backend- and fan-facing platforms, gathering all their fan data in one place, Kaitlin Bailey, VP of business strategy and analytics for Sounders FC, said.

“We want to own our fan relationship,” she said.

In addition to Reign FC, the North Carolina Courage and Denver Summit in the NWSL use Jump. Sounders FC is the first MLS team on the platform, Jump Chief Product Officer Joel Resnicow said. The league itself has been building out its own internal fan intelligence platform called Fan Genome, which is meant to help MLS and its clubs get a more “comprehensive understanding” of fans, Abhijit Shome, the league’s VP of marketing technology, told us.

The Fan Genome project is made up of more than 1,000 data points—including demographic, behavioral, and transaction data—that teams can use to create fan segments for targeting, Lewis said. His team at NYCFC is fairly limited in terms of how they collect and use fan data at the moment, since they’re currently playing out of Yankee Stadium while their new Etihad Park is being built. But they’ve been “outlining some fan journeys” in recent months and are preparing to better customize fan experiences at the new stadium next season, he said.

Get personal

Segmentation and personalization have also become increasingly important for the NWSL, which recently hired a new CMO, Rachel Epstein, and chief commercial officer, Brian Kelly.

Epstein, who joined after eight years as VP of sports marketing at ESPN, said demographic segmentation is already guiding the league’s new marketing efforts but added that “there’s more to be done,” especially when it comes to creating social and digital content meant to engage different types of fans.

The Seattle clubs will use Jump to personalize experiences and messaging for their season ticket members, Bailey said. For now, the teams’ member platforms are separate from their general apps, but they’ll soon be streamlined into one, she said. That means easier access to event info, product drops, and other notifications and opportunities for fans—and more centralized fan data profiles for the teams.

“That fan experience doesn’t just start when they scan their ticket,” Bailey said. “It starts days, weeks, years before for members. They deserve simple, transparent, seamless experiences.”

With personalization extending beyond game days, Resnicow works with Jump clients on targeting and attribution for their ad campaigns. If they don’t have first-party data in one place, team execs don’t always know what exactly drives ticket sales, Reniscow said.

“Most of the time, it’s spray and pray,” he said. “We want to know…Did this fan they paid to acquire, is that person disappearing? Are they coming back? Not just understanding ROI, but true [lifetime value].”

More customized messages and offers can help create repeat attendees, said Dallas Dolen, who leads the US tech, media and telecommunications business at PwC, including its entertainment and sports work. That’s something that teams across leagues strive for, and it’s likely especially prevalent in the minds of soccer execs as they work to maintain the expected boost in fandom coming from the World Cup.