A supported study on the future of media production in sports, from a German football league (DFL), has found that fan engagement and extra mobile consumption are all set to increase drastically. This comes as no surprise, the problem is sports teams and organisations are already feeling the pressure trying to engage their fans, especially the younger generation. So the question is, how will this increase in fan engagement effect sports organisations?
Fan engagement effect on sports organisations:
Ticket Sales and Merchandise
The obvious way that an increase in fan engagement will affect organisations is a highly engaged fan base is more likely to be attending games and buying merchandise, thus driving revenue through sales. This increase in revenue is not the only benefit of an increase in ticket sales, a sold out stadium is also extremely attractive to sponsors which can further drive revenue for sports organisations.
Community
Benefits of fan engagement are not purely financially based. One of the main purposes of increasing fan engagement is simply about making sure fans are in touch with each other. They are part of the community. they can help the team and the team can help them to create a more meaningful experience and value – everyone’s a winner!
Mobile Consumption
In terms of an increase in mobile consumption, the market is completely untapped by sports organisations and revenue is quite literally being left on the table. If businesses can pair the increase of mobile consumption hand-in-hand with creating a personalised experience for the user, there is huge potential for further increases in fan engagement and consequently further revenue. An existing example of this would be Tottenham Hotspur. The Club utilised dynamic personalisation to elicit a strong emotional response from their audience. The Club wanted to forge a special connection with supporters no matter how they entered the database, so they combined attention-grabbing subject lines with intensely tailored pictures in the email content. This was a game changer for the club, the enhanced welcome programme, which was activated when fans entered the database, has had a steady open rate of 36% since it launched. Tottenham Hotspur is now keeping the 20% of recipients it was losing as part of the previous welcome programme because the number of engaged fans has exceeded expectations. This study that has found an increase in fan engagement should trigger other businesses to follow Spurs’ lead.
Social Media
An increase in fan engagement can take many different forms. Fan engagement isn’t just old fashioned ticket sales, it is also interaction on social media and fan forums, to name a just a few examples. If sports organisations can begin to introduce content like player interviews, behind the scenes footage and match highlights that fans can interact with on their mobile devices, they will start to see a drastic increase in overall fan engagement. This increase in social media engagement will definitely have a positive knock on effect on to traditional fan engagement (selling tickets and merchandise).
If you’re a sports organisation looking to enhance the fan experience check out what fans want or if you’re interested in how you can generate revenue through social media then have a read of the Nifty Ebook.
