General Sports Business – Digital and Social Media Sports

Fan Development, General Sports Business

2026 Is the Year Hockey and Soccer Have Been Waiting For. Now Comes the Hard Part

2026 is the year they’ve been waiting for.

Both the NHL and MLS, and their growing women’s counterparts, namely the PWHL and NWSL, have had this year circled for a long time. A year they hope becomes the inflection point that raises the floor and ceiling for fandom and revenue for years to come.

Alex Silverman has been covering it all. As Sports Business Journal‘s lead hockey and soccer business reporter, Silverman is on top of all the hopes and dreams, the narratives, and how 2026 could represent a step-change for these sports or fall short of the sky-high generational expectations.

Soccer fandom has been growing in the US for years. MLS has expanded, and many markets are packing their stadiums. But not all that growth in soccer consumption has gone to MLS. There will be a spike in soccer interest from the World Cup, but Silverman said the jury is still out on how much the expected World Cup bump will benefit MLS.

“I think there will definitely be a bump in interest in soccer. It’s just a matter of — can MLS in particular capture it, or will that interest sort of just be funneled towards the [English Premier League] or [Mexico’s] Liga MX or [Spain’s] La Liga or [UEFA] Champions League?”…

More soccer fans, in any form, in the US is still a net positive, Silverman explained, but there needs to be specific interest in MLS.

“I think it’s important to get every soccer fan in the US to have at least some level of interest in MLS,” he said. “And this is maybe more my opinion than how they view it, but I don’t think it’s really sustainable to have a significant chunk of soccer fans in the US basically be indifferent to what’s happening in MLS and only want to focus on what’s happening in the European leagues.

“There are diehard soccer fans that aren’t interested in MLS, and I think they need to find a way to change that.”

MLS has been on an impressive growth trajectory for years. While their media rights deal with Apple TV has not lived up to the loftiest expectations, the last several years have seen significant spikes in awareness and attention as global stars like Thomas Müller, Son Heung-min, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and, of course, Lionel Messi. While MLS viewership on Apple TV remains a bit opaque, the success of clubs like Inter Miami, riding in Messi’s prodigious wake, increases the confidence that MLS and its clubs are massive businesses worthy of the nine and ten-figure valuations.

“Obviously, a lot of their marketing has focused on Lionel Messi over the last few years,” said Silverman, who has worked for Univision and Cablefax, in addition to his two stints with SBJ. “[Messi] has been front and center, with good reason. What you’ve seen Inter Miami do has really shattered what was previously thought possible for an MLS team. They’re generating over $200 million in revenue. So they’re showing that there is a path — and now granted, there’s only one Lionel Messi — but they’re showing that there is a path to being a major money-maker as a soccer team in the US.”

Inter Miami’s revenue growth is undeniable. But all of these major leagues eye the biggest prize: massive national media rights deals. That’s why the NBA is flying high after inking $77 billion worth of rights agreements across 11 years. Those deals are what drive multi-billion-dollar team valuations and allow leagues to command billions for expansion franchises.

So while Messi and the other stars, along with MLS’s largely excellent live game experience, are driving meaningful revenue streams, it all pales in comparison to what leagues like the NFL find in the figurative couch cushions of their broadcast agreements.

“I think Jimmy Haslam, the owner of the Columbus Crew [and the NFL’s Cleveland Browns], last year said at Leaders Week something like, ‘Our media revenue from the Browns is $400 million a year, and our media revenue from the Crew is $4 million a year.’ Right now it’s sort of an in-stadium product, and a lot of teams do well in terms of filling their buildings, but becoming a bigger business and doing more than just operating on thin margins will depend on creating broader appeal and becoming more of a media property.”

The NHL isn’t swimming in media rights revenue like its NFL and NBA counterparts, but the league is no doubt on a higher tier than MLS. And the NHL has benefited from some big national media numbers in the last year or two. Between the 4 Nationals Face-Off, with TV viewership that was higher than even the rosiest prognostications foresaw, and the big buzz and big numbers for the men’s and women’s Olympic teams’ run to the gold medal, there was a positive outlook as the league returned to play following the Winter Games.

While the NHL (as well as the PWHL) each enjoyed the increased interest and engagement, Silverman is still watching to see how much effect the Olympic jolt can have for the NHL — and whether the league missed an opportunity to make the Olympic moment mean even more.

“I don’t necessarily think that a lot of teams had strong plans going into [The Olympics] about how they were going to capitalize on it,” said Silverman, who, in addition to covering the NHL, is a longtime fan of the New York Islanders. “But I think in some markets where there was available seating inventory, you’ve seen some attendance bumps. And they have seen some slight viewership upticks in the weeks coming out of the games. So I’m curious to see how the playoffs this year do on TV.”

That’s the reality. The Olympics are a glorified marketing vehicle for the NHL. A powerful one, to be sure, but big TV ratings for Team USA games and big sales of Team USA jerseys don’t do much directly for the league’s coffers. That’s why the attendance and viewership bumps are nice to see, but, as Silverman noted, the hope is that the league’s biggest and most valuable games, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, see increased national interest, reflected in viewership.

But there’s another shining beacon on the horizon for the NHL, a big best-on-best international tournament that they own, control, and can reap considerable revenue — The World Cup of Hockey (as well as last year’s 4 Nations). Every international game is another supporting point for the NHL when it comes to selling and marketing the World Cup. That’s all part of the calculus for the NHL to disrupt its season and put its players at risk of injury in the middle of the league’s regular season, Silverman explained.

“I definitely think it’s good for the league to participate in these things,” he said; 2026 was, after all, the first time NHL players participated in the Olympics since 2014. “But I think they’re obviously a lot more incentivized to do so when they’re able to get direct revenue upside out of it in addition to building the fans of the future, which is why I think they’re super excited about how the 4 Nations did last year, which is a tournament that they control, and why they’re bringing back the World Cup of Hockey in 2028.

Silverman continued: “I think the biggest opportunity for them to see direct upside from this Olympics is now they’re going to be selling sponsorship for that World Cup of Hockey in 2028 [and] they’re going to be selling the media rights for that tournament. And the league will have good data points to point to from the last two years of international competition to say there are a lot of people who don’t necessarily always watch the NHL who are interested in watching international hockey, and now [they’re] selling international hockey…”

Hockey may have the benefit of Team USA competing for (and achieving) global supremacy in the world’s top tournaments, but soccer has a leg up on participation and barriers to entry. Virtually everybody in the US has played organized soccer or at least knows somebody who has. The same can’t be said for ice hockey. While there are plenty of NHL fans who have never played organized ice hockey (myself included!), the more sparse active exposure is just one more obstacle for hockey fans to be in awe of the athletes.

With less organic exposure to hockey, the NHL has to make the most of any chances to seize the spotlight. Silverman talked about this challenge for the NHL, and what they can do to capitalize when opportunities arise.

“The challenge with hockey has been the same challenge as always — participation in hockey is still fairly niche,” he said. “If you grew up playing hockey, you understand how incredible some of the things that these players are doing on the ice are, and you’re just more exposed to it. I think the Olympics went a long way in getting people that might not have necessarily been watching to watch.

“There’s been a lot of talk about whether something like [hit HBO show] Heated Rivalry will get more people interested in hockey. Anything that gets hockey more into the cultural zeitgeist is helpful. You’ve seen a little bit of a Heated Rivalry bump and an Olympic bump. So creating those kinds of moments where the players can break out beyond just the NHL media bubble is helpful.”

Both hockey and soccer are getting better at creating stories and moments that transcend their core audiences, and capitalizing when serendipity smiles upon them with something unexpected. They’re each chasing relevance; they’re seeking attention and engagement in an increasingly crowded ecosystem, full of endless feeds and infinite options, where the next thing is just tap or swipe away.

The question is what the results of these spikes really mean. Going viral isn’t a strategy, but neither is virality, once achieved, a guarantee of business success. More exposure has to be funneled to more audience capture, consumption, conversion, and fan growth, which, ultimately, translates to dollars that can support short-term growth and develop new cohorts and generations of fans at every level. As Silverman reports on the business strategies, challenges, and opportunities for hockey and soccer, he’s looking at the surface-level metrics, but also scrutinizing and digging deeper into what lies beneath.

“It’s great if you have a lot of people watching your highlights on social media,” he said, “but the revenue associated with that isn’t the same as the revenue associated with live rights. And as we’re seeing media companies be more selective with where they’re spending their revenue, you’re starting to see more properties popping up.

“The main revenue streams for any sports property are basically media, ticketing, and sponsorship. And in a lot of cases, there’s just not really media revenue to be had. I think that’s the challenge with people saying, ‘Oh, well, that’s not really the best way to evaluate our property,’ it helps to try and get a sense of what their business model is, how much of their revenue comes from media versus sponsorship versus ticketing and game-day revenue. There are a lot of things to consider there.”

It all has to result in something of substance. Regardless of the makeup of the revenue pie — and the next era of sports business models may indeed look different than the current one — the pie has to be big to get where these teams, leagues, and sports entities want to go.

“A year from now, 2026 will have told us a lot — not just whether a World Cup creates lasting soccer converts or a gold medal drives new hockey households, but whether the business infrastructure behind these leagues is sophisticated enough to capture the moment when it arrives. As Silverman put it, ‘the verdict is still out on whether it’ll increase interest in the core product.’ That’s the question the whole industry is watching.”

WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH ALEX SILVERMAN

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CHECK OUT ALEX’S WORK IN SBJ

General Sports Business, Team Reviews

In-Depth Review of San Diego Mojo Major League Volleyball Match Experience

Comprehensive insights into the San Diego Mojo volleyball match, covering fan engagement, venue setup, merchandise, player interactions, and in-game entertainment at Viejas Arena in March 2026.

Brand, General Sports Business

Why The Strongest Modern Brands in Sports and Beyond Are Shared Not Dictated

Ostensibly, sports business is selling a product. A social experience, affordable family entertainment, a compelling show.

But products have customers. In sports, we want fans.

Fans make the team or league part of their personality. Their favorite sport or athlete becomes an inseparable part of their identity. They become evangelists for the brand, recruiting others and spreading the good word. That kind of devotion transcends the product; that’s where brand comes into play.

Paul Stafford has worked with the biggest consumer brands in the world, in sports, but also well beyond sports. He appreciates that brands are not just a name, a logo, or a tagline — that’s not how he’s helped organizations like Airbnb, EA, and the Premier League, among others, develop authentic, resonant brands. He gave me a thoughtful description of how to think about brand and the difference between building a brand and executing a business strategy.

“I think many businesses are good at distilling a business strategy and understanding what they’re trying to do on a tangible level of, of ‘We’re going to invest in this space, we’re going to develop this product, so we’re going to appeal to these target audiences,'” said Stafford, CEO of global branding and creative agency Further. “But actually, you can’t then just communicate that to the world, you need to understand, well, what does that mean, and how does that translate into a role that this business is going to play in their customers’ lives?

“What is it that Jeff Bezos famously said: A brand is what people say about you when they’re not in the room. And that’s exactly it. What are they going to say about you?”

These are the elements that broaden the impact of the product or service. And that’s why it’s integral for all parts of an organization to understand the brand and know how to put it into practice. Brand isn’t a marketing motion, it’s not a sales tactic, it’s not a guide for the roadmap, nor a tone or personality trait — it’s all those things and more. Stafford explained that the strongest brands hit fans with consistency and conviction at every level and interaction — that’s what makes it undeniable and recognizable.

“Every single interaction that any customer, any employee, anybody, any business has with your business should really kind of play through that lens of like, well, how does it build on that proposition, how is it uniquely a relationship and an experience that only our business could have?” said Stafford, who led the company DesignStudio before it coalesced into Further. “And I think that’s it. You should be able to cover the logo, cover the marketing copy, but the whole experience and interaction should feel very much like that brand. So it doesn’t really matter what the touchpoints are. They can grow and will continue to grow, especially in this world of AI, but actually, that proposition should stay sacred from the very beginning, right the way through to the very end.”

Something special starts to happen as the brand seeps in, when customers have something to latch onto and can transform from customers to fans. In sports, marketers can think of fandom on a spectrum — from curious casuals to diehard evangelists. More broadly for brands across any vertical, Stafford referenced the ‘commitment curve.’

The commitment curve can be tantamount to avidity, but it can also mean more than that nowadays. Because the best marketing is word of mouth, real people spreading the word organically, those at the top of the commitment curve aren’t just patrons, but promoters.

“If you think about this as a sort of chart, and you think about it as who’s the most committed on this side, and also then how much you can ask those people who are committed that much…,” said Stafford, who invoked the ‘commitment curve’ concept as originated by former Airbnb Global Head of Community, Douglas Atkin. “So if you think about it as a founder or a chairman or the team, it’s those people who are the most committed to the business, and you can make the biggest ask of them. You don’t need to sell them anything. They are the business.

“Then you can think about each of these parts of the community as like a step down. So the next step down will be your employees, the actual team’s players in there, you can almost ask them the same. Next down, you probably have your most avid fans and supporters. Next down, you’ve got ‘I go three, four times a year’ kind of fans. All the way through to people who have never heard of you.”

An underlying truth in all this is that brands can’t be dictated. If, as Stafford mentioned earlier (referencing Jeff Bezos), that brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, then surely brand cannot, by that definition, be centrally controlled. It’s in the hands of others, and the best that organizations can do is to influence the thoughts and ideas of the most vocal and influential.

It can be a sobering, even intimidating, realization that even with all the resources and distribution channels in the world, brands can only control so much. But flip that on its head, says Stafford, and empower others to tell your story. Make everyone who cares, who’s high on the commitment curve, stewards of the brand.

“I think when you’re generating a brand, what you need to think of is how do we give the assets to each of these people to make them take one step up that ladder?” said Stafford. “So what do we give our employees or our team? What tools do we give them so they start acting like founders, they start acting like CEOs, they know the decisions to make, they know how to communicate what this business means as a founder? Those superfans, how do we give them the tools they need to start talking about us like they play for the club?”

Stafford has seen the challenges and opportunities inherent in this framework when working with global, generational brands. They have to be resilient and preserved, but also adaptable and evolved. The key insight, Stafford explained, isn’t to concede to the staunch preservationists or follow the lead of those looking to the future — it’s about taking those fan evangelists on the journey with you. It’s a balancing act, said Stafford.

“If your club wants to move into all of these new spaces and forget its loyal fans, forget its roots, you lose that connection,” he told me. “And, like I’m saying, a brand is never successful by just its own internal teams communicating. You need those advocates. You need those fans to go and tell that story for you. So you need to take them on the journey. And that’s why, really, you have to understand what it is that’s important to them, how that becomes a foundation, and how it communicates where you’re going in the future.”

These principles came to bear when Stafford and his team were tasked with the Premier League rebrand in 2016-17, when the top global football league dropped the longtime ‘Barclays Premier League’ moniker and refreshed its logo, among other efforts. Stafford walked me through a bit of the process, describing the balance of respecting the past while looking ahead to the future. There were several elements for which to account.

“They went and interviewed the fans and listened to everything they said, and then created something that is exactly what the fans said,” explaining fans’ resistance to proposed changes. “But then, when they had it played back to them, it was wrong. I think that’s right.

“You gotta understand where you listen, where you challenge, and where you have to take fans on a journey to the future, even if they don’t like it at the beginning. So how are you going to take them on the journey?”

Bringing fans along for the ride necessarily requires loosening the reins of control. The platforms are too dynamic, and almost everybody wants to be something of a creator. It’s not just naive to think every fan who plays off your brand or remixes your content will adhere to some arcane, static standards, it’s short-sighted.

Stafford recognizes it’s not easy for brands to adapt to this new normal. But it’s an opportunity to achieve outsized results, to empower abassadors who will build on your brand and make it stronger, engendering greater loyalty, expansion, and engagement.

“We’re working a lot with brands now to say, well, we need to stop this being so locked down, we need to give it the flexibility to embrace and utilize the community, that they’re going to go and use these assets,” he said. “We just need to build some way that those things, whether that’s a visual way, whether it’s a tonal way, that kind of resonates and builds it back to us…

“So we are working with brands now [on] how do you create assets that can always be adapted, given out, iterated on, but also be recognized as you and yours and build that brand loyalty back to you. It’s going to be a bigger and bigger challenge as we go forward, but it is how brands need to start thinking.”

The most powerful brands, the ones that inspire zealous devotion, aren’t owned, but shared. That’s when customers act more like fans and fans behave more like evangelists. When fans don’t refer to the team as ‘them’ but ‘us’ — it’s our team, our organization, our brand. The commitment curve crests at the point where brand blends with identity, and fans feel part of it themselves.

WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH PAUL STAFFORD

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General Sports Business, Sponsorships

Why Brands Invest in Sports—and How it Explains the Women’s Sports Boom

Why is sports sponsorship valuable? What factors make it a premium asset for brands?

Sure, the ability to command large, broad, often live audiences plays a major role. But as marketing has matured, the unique value proposition for sports has only grown and has become better understood and appreciated.

Sara Toussaint has seen this play out throughout her career, with experience on all sides of the sports and athlete sponsorship complex. She’s seen fan affinities drive business outcomes through partnerships, she’s been part of tactics that activated partnerships during emotionally charged moments in live sports, and she’s seen new, once vastly undervalued opportunities emerge in women’s sports, which perhaps coalesce all of the above factors in driving the premium value of sports sponsorship.

Toussaint, who today is co-CEO of global women’s soccer-focused athlete management agency TMJ, spent nearly a decade at Wells Fargo driving the bank’s sports sponsorships. Partnerships in sports were not on an island; they were part of Wells Fargo’s overall marketing plans and expected to drive tangible, compounding cross-channel results. Standard wisdom suggests sports fans will support the partners of their favorite teams, especially when it enhances their own fandom. Toussaint explained how this played out for Wells Fargo’s sponsorships in pro and college sports.

“On the Wells Fargo side, it was how do we support the marketing initiatives that the CMO had set in place?” said Toussaint, who spent time at Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer, among other stops, before her tenure at Wells Fargo. “We would use sponsorship as a way to augment the existing media plans and marketing strategies for everything from the websites and store, etc.

“Then, from the brand side, what the property really wanted [was for] Wells Fargo, especially around the Mexican national team and Major League Soccer, to promote those properties here in the US. So to have the Mexican national team debit card on every Wells Fargo ATM was a huge win…there’s a lot of data out there on consumer affinity to brands that support their favorite teams — and we definitely saw that in terms of the number of accounts that were opened, and we could tie that to a Mexican national team card, a Florida Gator card to a new account. Like, we could say on that account that was the card that they requested, and we can presume that we had done marketing there that had caused that demand.”

It’s not just about brand associations and tailing affinities, though. Part of the magic of sports sponsorships is the inherent preponderance of high-impact moments and campaigns. Times when fans are excited, their hearts racing, and their attention focused. That feature of sport is an opportunity for brand partners to make their sponsorships active, riding the wake of the emotional highs, augmented by the real-time nature and inherent connection of sports and social media.

Toussaint had a hand and a front-row view of these opportunities, with Wells Fargo’s partner, the national soccer team for Mexico, competing in the World Cup. She described a clever, provocative campaign that saw American soccer hero Landon Donovan expressing that he’d be cheering for Mexico, and also recounted how Wells Fargo made the most of their sponsorship during the matches and moments themselves.

“We did a lot of live social moments [during the World Cup],” she said. “Our social media team at Wells Fargo had a control room, and there were probably nine screens they could monitor, whether it’s Twitter or Facebook. We had the World Cup up while Mexico played, and we pre-programmed creative and copy as much as possible, so as things happened during a match, we were ready with a post, or we were ready to then supplement, like they just won, ‘Get your Wells Fargo Mexico debit card’ or whatever, and do that in real time. So that social media piece was a really big win for us around the World Cup.”

Social media wasn’t just a way for a brand like Wells Fargo to enter the conversation alongside the properties they were sponsoring, it also gave emerging sports, leagues, and athletes a more level, meritocratic playing field to fuel their rise. These catalyzing elements helped several new sports and leagues find footing, but the impact has been (and continues to be) most evident in women’s sports.

Toussaint recounted to me how a past colleague, at the time, saw the opportunity in women’s sports as a growing and undervalued asset. She looked at the rising National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), and it was the social and digital channels, in particular, which stood out.

“There were so many compelling reasons for sponsoring NWSL,” said Toussaint, who is also a co-owner of two pro soccer teams, the North Carolina Courage in the NWSL and Querétaro FC in Liga MX (Mexico’s top-flight men’s pro soccer league). “For me, the number one reason was the digital footprint and engagement footprint. I was like, Wow, this could be a really cost-effective way to get social media engagement.”

With more women’s sports and athletes commanding attention and audiences on social and digital media, the legacy media began catching up, with coverage going from 4% not long ago to around 15% today, Toussaint noted (citing reports from Sports Innovation Lab, among others). While the early sponsors have been followed by more brands, but the scope and scale of women’s sports still pales in comparison to most of the more mature, generations-old men’s sports properties and its traditional sponsorship assets.

That’s an opportunity, though, said Toussaint.

“With the women, aside from the data, we can also say, Look, it’s not as saturated as men’s sports, so you’re going to have a lot more awareness,” said Toussaint, who heads TMJ’s TMJ Catalyst, which focuses on connecting TMJ’s athletes with brands and business leaders for deals. “You have a lot more white space to play in. We talked about brand loyalty, you’re going to have a lot more of that. You’ve got new categories you can play with. You can try new things, and it becomes even more of a white space because you’re not competing against brands that are typically in this landscape. So that’s a big piece.”

The combination of more media coverage, more brand partnerships, bigger audiences, and more fan interest has turned women’s sports into an asset class that’s increasingly attracting institutional capital and high-net-worth individuals. That infusion and energy will only accelerate the flywheel, driving more growth and more capital in a virtuous cycle of value creation. The bigger fan bases, superstar athletes, and increased cross-channel footprint are all good signs for the continued rise of women’s sports — but it’s that investment that Toussaint cited as perhaps the most impactful factor showing the world, especially the business world, that women’s sports are far from the more charity-driven, corporate social responsibility play the properties may have been a generation ago.

“People follow wherever the money goes, and you’re seeing big money get into women’s sports, and you’re seeing billionaires buying [in],” she said. “And for whatever reason, people think billionaires are like the smartest folks in the room…That news is now on CNBC, and marketers are watching CNBC, right? So you’ve got exponential input that’s coming into the space, and that’s really important. Where the money goes, especially big money names, you’re going to have the media following, and you’re going to have the marketers follow, too.”

The marketers are here. The value proposition for women’s sports is undeniable. And the new paradigms in sports business will favor women’s sports, with its strong social and digital game. As sponsorship further appreciates elements beyond eyeballs, it’ll be the sports properties that can deliver activation and affinities, and the brands that can capitalize on sports’ special elements and emotions that will turn potential value into kinetic outcomes.

WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SARA TOUSSAINT

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General Sports Business

A Rodeo Review: A Day at the San Diego Rodeo Championships with a SportsBiz Perspective

I went to the Rodeo Championships at Petco Park in San Diego and took notes on the fan experience, content, and the event overall, with a sports business lens. There were probably ~ 10-12,000 attendees and some good takeaways + opportunities.

Check out some of the visuals below and quick hit nuggets and observations here:

🤠 There were protesters outside the main gates, chanting with a megaphone and handing out pamphlets, speaking against cruelty to animals. It was a small but vocal group (fewer than 10 people)

🤠 One of the highlights was the Kids Fest before the event, clearly positioning this as a family outing and trying to get kids excited about rodeo. The Kids Fest included limited sponsor presence, but a handful of activities, including:

(Padres-branded) bounce houses, a bandana station to decorate your bandana, bouncy horses to ride, a lasso station to teach kids, a cowboy on stilts, and, naturally, line dancing (some impromptu, some planned), not live music. There was also, notably, no beer or food on sale (let alone free food) at the Kids Fest — something like free snow cones or kettle corn would’ve been great

🤠 There seemed to be a good amount of VIP elements and upsells — get up close to the animals and competition area before the event, and premium seating right up next to it

🤠 In addition to the National Anthem, the pre-event ceremony included a prayer, addressing and thanking the lord, and also tinged with patriotism thanking the troops

🤠 The demographics of attendees — mostly white, multi-generational families, young kids, older couples, too, and also a good amount of young adults and college-aged females (who were excited to put on the cowboy gear, no doubt). Also some Hispanics (we are in San Diego, after all)

🤠 There was not much pre-event pageantry overall besides some brief intros and very little explanation of the events and scoring. But this is championship Sunday, so perhaps less necessary

🤠 It’s a competition more than a show, so the competitors did not display much personality. Though I’d love to see more distinct outfits, including their horses. There was also little interaction with competitors until the very end. These competitors have intriguing stories (video vignettes peppered through the event would be cool). Post-event meet and greets would be advisable, too. Have CTAs for their social media accounts…

🤠 There was limited audience interaction or digital CTAs during the event, though if you dug in enough, you could find a live scoreboard website. It would be good otherwise have more interaction, too — predictions, ETWs, merch promos

🤠 While there wasn’t much sponsored elements (the kiss cam, for example, was non-branded, there was solid title sponsorship of each competition with prolonged exposure across screens, including a brand flag ride around on a horse before starting each event

🤠 Some, not all, of the riders’ shirts were decked out in sponsor logos, not quite motorsports-esque in volume

🤠 The co-branding with the San Diego Padres was unmistakable – from the colors and even the paper numbers on the competitors ( a bit tacky like they’re marathon runners) having Padres on them. The staff had sweet baseball uniform jerseys with San Diego Rodeo — sell those! Or auction them autographed autographs

🤠 There was a sweepstakes promoted on the video board, a toolbox ETW — with QR code on the board to enter

🤠 There is a good amount of downtime between events, with ample space to fill with content. There was later some audience interaction with kiss cam, dance cam, trivia, and even a marriage proposal. Sponsorable assets there

Definitely more opportunity for unique camera views — POV of the riders cowboy, of the support staff often right next to the action, a camera on the animals, the accessory riders

🤠 The highlight of the day was an acrobatic trick rider, doing stands and holds while horse riding. Impressive! And the crowd seemed to enjoy it, good fodder for social

🤠 Other random observations:

– Officials throw flags during events to denote fouls like NFL refs

– I saw a couple of cowboys gear-wearing girls filming a TikTok on the side of the concourse

– They emptied the bazooka of singalong songs, with a medley of all of them together during a 3-4 minute break

– There were a couple of times when people were honored on the dirt (including youth rodeo). If they can go on the dirt between events, I’d love to see some simple fun games like a horseshoe toss or something

– It feels like the sport could do a lot in collecting and sharing data — torque of the bucking horse, speed off the horses, heart rates of the riders, height of bucking bulls, perceived difficulty of the moves, etc.

Western culture is having a moment in the US, and that’s part of why I was interested to check out this event. They didn’t invoke the pop culture popularity of cowboy culture and lifestyle, taking a serious approach to a world-class competition. The crowd was impressive and engaged, and the opportunity to grow through content, partnerships, and lifestyle is clear, too. In an increasingly digital, AI world, the timeless nature of rodeo offers something special, taking people back to simpler times.

General Sports Business, No Biz Like Sports Biz 2013 Early Thoughts

2026 Sportsbiz Reset: 20 Questions and Concepts to Stimulate Next-Level Conversations for the Year Ahead

The audiences are more accessible. The TAM has never been bigger. And the position of sports at or near the center of culture around the world is clear. In 2026, the aperture is wider than ever for sports and digital/social, so teams must focus on impact with the metrics. The ‘so what’ as a colleague of mine likes to say.

There was once a time when organic reach with one’s followers was 15-25%, but now no reach is guaranteed. But the path to reaching and engaging audiences is simple — create good content that your desired audience will enjoy.

That has changed the equation. Virality is a dime a dozen nowadays, relatively speaking (random accounts go viral on TikTok every day), but creating metrics that matter, building deep relationships, and cultivating (and participating in) engaging communities are where the strategy and the ‘so what’ lie.

Last year, I wrote about a variety of subjects for the sports industry to consider in 2025 (in-game social, community management, micro-communities, niche content, creator strategy 3.0, content franchises, +Experiences, generative AI, games, drops, Live, and much more. Many of those topics and concepts covered last year remain relevant a year later.

But as 2026 kicks off, I want to try something different, quick-hitting sparks that’ll hopefully provoke internal or external conversations or new approaches. The so what and the opportunities in plain sight, if developed intelligently.

Pulling from my day job, I’ll start with ten tips about how to approach data analysis, data-driven strategy, and storytelling more effectively. Then, I’ll highlight ten areas ripe with opportunity, building on behaviors and paradigm shifts playing out as the new year begins.

I’m no expert, and I’m hopeful any prognostications will not be 100% correct (you’re not taking bold swings then!). But the value of these columns is to think about what you’re not thinking about, ask the next-level questions, and stimulate compelling conversations to strive for greatness in 2026 and beyond.

Mean/Median/Max

You might remember those terms from middle school (elementary school?) math class, but it’s important in any job these days to understand and appreciate the difference between the three. Each tells a distinct, data-based story about performance over time and benchmarking, and each can be spun or misconstrued if not dealt with objectively and comprehensively.

Mean is the good ‘ole average. You may think about average reach, average engagement, average engagement rate, etc. — and that’s fine. But don’t be blind to the fact that the same average can be achieved in a lot of ways, and tells a different story. One super-viral post can frost over weeks of subpar performance, or evenly distributed base hits can add up. Which brings us to…

Median. You remember median? The middle number. This is only useful (imo) across a large enough data set. If your median is significantly different than your mean, it means you may be bottom-heavy or top-heavy. It may obfuscate your big home runs (or vice-versa), though (which average an account for), which brings us to…

Max. What does peak performance look like? Is it getting higher every year? All of this stats talk is why I’m a fan of a moneyball approach to metrics. Would you rather be Luis Arraez or Kyle Schwarber? You can end up at the same average engagement/reach, but I’d rather have a higher slugging percentage, even if the batting average is dicey. This all leads to…

Ask the hard questions

Celebrate your increases. Rally around the stories that put performance in the best light. But don’t run away from the hard questions — run towards them. Is that high engagement rate because of lower reach? Did the metrics go up mainly because of a record-breaking performance or something out of your control? That’s fine! But acknowledge it and maybe even compare it to the last analogous predictably high performer. Red team your best data performance stories — what are the factors that drove it besides you and your staff being great at your job? And vice-versa, where was incremental value created where it would be unexpected?

It’s not always easy to be honest and ask the hard questions, but it’ll present a clearer picture and uncover greater insights. Which brings us to…

Ask the next questions

Your numbers are crushing it. Benchmarks are getting surpassed, the highs are higher and the lows are, well, higher. That’s great, but so what? Do the five whys (originated at Toyota) or something like that. Ask why — why did performance improve, why will that ‘success’ matter, etc. etc. This isn’t just about retrospective, but forward-looking, too. It forces one to get deeper into the heart of the matter and think beyond the silo of the day-to-day tasks or departmental job. Don’t turn every finding and insight into something bigger than it is, but ask those next questions about what it means, why it matters, and what action could or should be taken next. And always keep in mind…

Context matters

Nothing happens in a vacuum. There are factors that can enhance, diminish, or dilute performance. Metrics for success, in definition and scale, can differ depending on resources, circumstances, and even vibes. The team with engagement metrics through the roof can get there from the team being unexpectedly great (yay!) or unexpectedly awful (fans are pissed) — that fans are actively interacting is almost always a good sign, but there’s a different story playing out in each case, and, for some brands and businesses, that can mean everything. Similarly, be careful with comparison. An organization with endless resources is probably going to be able to churn out more and bigger metrics than one operating super-lean (but not always, and that’s why context matters and can tell a richer story!). A player receiving thousands of photos from his/her team may end up posting team content more often than another player receiving only a few pics throughout the year. A month-over-month comparison may look different if the team played X more games in that month compared to another month, or one season had a huge trade and free agent signing and one didn’t. This isn’t about excuses, it’s about understanding the full context and not leaning into vanity metrics with no meaning, which leads to…

The Thing About Views

‘View’ counts can be deceiving. Or, at least, they tell only partial stories. In sports ticketing, the industry often talks about FSEs (full season equivalents). You could get to 5 FSEs through sundry paths. One full season ticket and eight half-seasons, a few quarter seasons and a hodgepodge of miniplans, etc. etc., you get the idea. Similarly, there are innumerable ways to think about, say, a six-minute video. The viewers that watch only a quarter of the video matter, so do those who watch the whole thing, and everything beyond and in between. But here’s to taking an FSE-approach to videos to more effectively understand success (among many other ways to slice and dice watch time and trends!). There’s another level to this, too, which is…

Audience matters

Sometimes, oftentimes, who you reach matters as much, if not more, than how many. Audience goals go beyond the highest numbers and once you understand, you can operate on a higher level of strategy. I’d rather my podcast reach the 100 thought leaders in sports business than 1000 random people, for example. The goal of every post, every platform, every strategy is not always to reach the biggest audience, but the biggest right audience. Sometimes that means everybody. Super Bowl ads are valuable for a reason. But some businesses and brands may only care about reaching parents, high wealth individuals, students, Hispanic audiences, subsscribers, non-subscribers, etc. etc. Your audience goals require more nuanced measurement and thinking. As do…

The Unmeasurables

Some of the most valuable impact is simply not measurable. And that’s okay. We can’t measure how often a fan randomly thinks about the team or brings them up in casual conversation. It’s difficult to measure content driving someone from liking to loving a team or player, the degree of emotion and identity one feels. It’s hard to measure a fan or partner perceiving a team’s dedication to a community initiative or project, even if they don’t engage with your content about it. This list can go on and on — and I’d say it’s well worth your time to brain dump and document all the things you cannot (or believe you cannot) measure, and in turn understand the correlations for those meaningful unmeasurables. But also have your eyes open to…

The forgotten measurables

We’re drowning in data, but it’s helpful to consider what you’re not measuring, too. One of the most useful analysis sessions to do periodically is to consider what things you know that you don’t know (as confusing as that sounds). That content that’s flopping on organic social media may be crushing in your app, on paid social, or email. How is the growth and/or virality of your athletes or even your sponsors (especially endemic sponsors) being considered, if at all? Are you keeping track of the composition of your audience over time and across platforms and posts? What’s happening to your contests and sweepstakes when it comes to clicks, conversions, and down-funnel activities and revenue? We can, and do, measure a lot, but there’s also a lot we cannot or do not. But that also ties a bit into…

Compounding measures

We talk a lot about connecting dots and stacking wins. But don’t just talk about it, put it into practice when evaluating results and drawing out actionable insights and plans. When you’re growing or succeeding in one area, it can (and, really, should) lead to success in connected areas. Organic content strategy can success can inform and improve paid strategy. Growth rates beget growth rates — don’t just focus on the growth percentage of X metric, but compare it to the rate of growth from last year, are you accelerating or decelerating in a given area? Are you connecting metrics and tactics so that crushing it one area will lead to crushing it another? Ask more questions about where and how you’re compounding; there are outsized wins and more comprehensive stories toe realize. And that very much leads to…

Know the real goals

The goal is not to rack up engagements. The objective is not reach for the sake of reach. It’s about engagement rate or driving views and shares. That’s all great, but it is critical to understand what we’re trying to do here. That’s how to advance a career, too, learning about revenue streams, data-driven decision-making, and identifying opportunities to drive short-term (and long-term!) goals that are meaningful to the business. Ticket sales (and the various types of ticket sales and ticket buyers), merch revenue (and all its tentacles and variations), sponsorships (again, all the nuances and categories and impact results), community initiatives, new fan development, brand goals, and the list goes on and on. That’s why it’s not about being a sports fan (though that can help!)), but a fan of the business of sports. A student of the ‘so what’ of it all.

A bonus # 11 — Follower counts

Having seen multiple thought leaders and columns all talking about the present and future of followership, it’s more important than ever to consider what follower count and a follower means in 2026. The number of followers for a given account still matters (many can’t quit those optics), but it’s also true that follower count has never mattered less. What can and should replace follower count? What matters more? We’ve talked about hte intangibles, but from a pure data perspective, what’s a good measure of the health and viability of a given account on a platform? Could you look at the aggregate reach or engagement of the last 15 posts, the rolling average or median engagement for the last 30 days or 90 days or 365 days, or perhaps the number of unique accounts, or number of accounts as a percentage of followers, etc. etc.? When you stumble upon an account whose content catches your eye or is growing (in whatever sense), what would you want to know beyond their follower count?

Okay, so that was the data geek part of this post. I’ll try to keep part two shorter. It’s more akin to a strategy, tactics, or (sigh) trends look at 2026. It’s good to see a lot of musings from 2025 come to fruition, or be mentioned now in 2026 trends and predictrions post I’ve seen. If nothing else, if you read the below, I hope it conjures up thoughts and ideas, and stimulates compelling conversations. So, consider:

A face for the team

Real people are more engaging than brands, in case you haven’t heard. And I’ve loved the idea of a team face or quasi-host for over three years, and got the chance to speak to one of the pioneers in this space, Aviv Levy Shoshan a couple of years ago (excellent interview!). Someone who is good on camera and can develop a relationship with fans/followers such that it feels like a friend, just one with incredible access to your favorite team. We’ve seen some teams make moves in this direction, and I hope to see more.

Next-level creators

Ngl, this was also mentioned, in some form, in last year’s column. First, it should be said that there are talented creators in-house everywhere right now, they’re just creating for the team or league’s channels (though some do some fun BTS on their own accounts, too). Most creator activations are one-offs (partly the nature of the maturing creator economy), working with a talented artist or someone who’s more an influencer, to invite them to a game or collaborate on a single content piece. What would it look like to make a creator strategy an all-in, year-round strategy? More teams can hire mature, growing creators full-time or near full-time to create for their own accounts and the team’s. Or, heck, identify or cultivate a young talent and foster their presence, through access and collabs. There’s something to be said for the growth of cross-pollinating partnerships, too (we’ve seen a little of this). I’m not a creator economy expert (I know a guy!), not even close, but there’s even more to be done in the space and I’ll be psyched to cheer it on. Speaking of….

Global local content correspondents

Teams are increasingly national and global brands. They’re trying to develop and engage fans around the country and around the world, growing the relationship with those alreayd coming into the fold organically and expanding the base further. I spoke in the last podcast interview of 2025 about localization with IMG’s digital leader Lewis Wiltshire (watch/listen!) and indeed some properties are working through agencies to help with localized content and accounts. Many European football clubs have native speakers living and working in the team’s home cities in Spain or England or Italy or Germany, etc. Others have seen fan clubs or supporters club pop up organically (or through the team officially). There’s opportunity to turn those flames into conflagrations, establishing more direct relationships with creators on the ground, providing them with content (where applicable), showcasing the fandom in their country, activating around exhibition tours, flying them to major domestic or international events, connecting them with athletes, athlete hometowns (where applicable), partners, and local influencers. There’s a lot that can be done by having boots on the ground part of the team’s operation and org chart officially, and I’ll be psyched to see what can happen in this area. A good segue to…

Co-creation to the nth degree and democratization of content

In conversations with experienced thought leaders in the greater sports space, the phrase ‘democratization of content’ or something like it has come up several times. It seems like every time we’ve seen a league or sport loosen the grip on content, to whatever degree, it has resulted in more engagement, more reach and views, more fandom, and more revenue. The number of eager, talented creators multiplies by the day; how can we open up the barriers (where possible, vis a vis media rights) to enable these creators to get their hands on content and do their thing with it. Remixes and edits, hype videos, commentary and analysis, etc. etc. There have been some agreements here and there, particularly for YouTube channels to create and disseminate endless compilations (‘Best alley-oop dunks of the 2024-25 season’ or something) in exchange for a revenue share or upfront fee. But there is a vast, growing ecosystem of creators who are eager to create and, in turn, grow your brand and fandom. We just have to harness it.

Content production houses for athletes

It was something of a throwaway comment, but certainly revelatory, at the late 2025 Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum when South Carolina Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati loosely estimated that 50% of the Gamecocks in-house content team’s work could go toward NIL activities for athletes. That’s not even a trend, but more likely just the new paradigm in major college athletics. What could this look like in the pro space? There’s been some activity around letting athletes use podcast studios, or the like, for their content production needs. But what’s the next phase of this, the next level? The partnerships and contracts likely need to evolve a bit to put in-house content teams to work for athletes content for the athletes’ own channels and partners, but there is a ton of value to give and take there. It may not get there in 2026, but it’s an interesting space to watch as the majority of athletes will soon have some content strategy (and one beyond posting Getty Images or AP photos)

Background content

A couple of mindblowing stats to kick off this section — the number of hours that podcasts on YouTube were watched on TVs hit 700 million hours in October 2025, an increase from 400 million hours October 2024. 300 million more monthly hours of video podcasts on TVs in a year! The second stat is from a YouTube video (one of many) that just shows a burning fireplace for 10 hours straight — now has nearly 200M views, growing about ~ 50M views per year (with a rising growth rate)! There’s a demand for background content or background noise for TV sets, whether to accompany someone while they’re working at home or just hanging out or engaging in household chores or reading or whatever. Those are a lot of hours up for grabs. Podcasts are one route that many are already investing in (including Netflix!), but it’s also intriguing to consider what your version of fireplace 10 hours or 3+-hour podcast could be. I’ll save my long list of ideas for another post, but this is a fun one to brainstorm, and the data seems to suggest there’s some smoke here.

More social events (and places?)

We’re all looking for social outings. For experiences to post about on social media, and opportunities to get together IRL. The games are one attraction and event, but teams have vast databases from event attendees (most often attending with friends or family) with disposable incomes, and also have expertise in event production, promotion, and monetization. Sports teams are ultimately entertainment companies; the biggest ticket is the media rights of the show, of course, but they also host millions of event attendees every year. What other events, within but also beyond the game days, can teams host, co-lead, or collaborate on (with partners, influeners, creators, etc.)? This could lean in a more premium direction — wine and cheese and speciality food tastings, art exhibitions, and the like, but the opportunity is vast — local collectibles showcases (collectibles are all the rage!), fashion shows, speed dating, student events, more frequent casino nights and carnivals, pop-up coffee houses, TED-like talks, concerts of varying size, live action shows or plays, and the list goes on. They’re of course renting out their huge venues for traveling shows, but the opportunity in events can be those meant for groups in the hundreds or low thousands, supplementing the games and major events meant a packed stadium or arena.

More mascot, owned IP and character building

The rising value of mascots has been a trend for a few years now. There are mascots who generate massive value and even direct sponsorships, and new teams are making the mascot reveal a big part of the brand building. We’re seeing more mascot collaborations, whether special events across a city or league, or celebrating a mascot’s “birthday.” Mascots are, generally, truly team-owned IP, less shackled and more flexible than most potential content initiatives. What could the next level look like for mascot-led content, including but beyond TikTok skits? Could a team create (or collaborate on) kids-first content that could be the first choice on the iPad and YouTube for parents over Ms. Rachel or Cocomelon or another rewatch of the same episode of Bluey? How can teams leverage their IP, their powerful brands (including parents who want to create mini fans out of their kids), built-in distribution channels and partnership networks, and creative production capabilities to build content and characters and original music/songs? It could be kids-first, it could be adult animation (or non-animation, it could be anime — with AI and recommendation-driven feeds making experimentation less resource-intensive and faster and easier, the opportunity is there.

More prediction-style platforms and games

One of the earliest easy wins in sports social media was the start of the prediction contest. For the hockey world (where I came up), it wasn’t long before pretty much everybody had some variation of a prediction contest, most often guessing which player would score the first goal. (We also tried a ‘Beat The Streak’ game to predict an anytime goal scorer for consecutive games, a la the ESPN contest of the same name). Now, it’s clear 2026 is the year of the prediction, with prediction markets continuing to penetrate sports (and well beyond sports). Many teams have already continued to stand up some sort of prediction games, as they make for good sponsor assets for sports gaming and wagering partners, so expect 2026 to only offer more growth and more opportunity and even innovation in the prediction space, by and in partnership with teams and leagues. Could we go from first goal scorer to also, leveraging some advanced data, top MPH speed of the game? Or funny money-based parlays outside of the $$ wins and losses for the actual gaming platforms and prediction markets? It’s a slippery moral slope, but there’s no doubt prediction platforms, in some form, will be ubiquitous in 2026.

Interest group ambassadors

The internet is shrinking. Well, kinda. There are places for the most esoteric of micro-communities and fan segments everywhere, not to mention the bigger, less esoteric communities. Reddit continues to find new life, while Meta’s Threads (as I was anticipating!) seems to be evolving to something more like Reddit, with its expansion of communities-based features (but, noting that Threads still wants to be somewhat timely). A lot of teams are finding success in activating within these communities, whether through content, collabs, or even mini events and theme nights. How can teams and leagues identify and create ambassadors within these interest groups — power users, moderators, influencers, et al. who can be active liaisons and open up opportunities for unique, value-add content, collaborations, and conversations? This also goes along with another mini trend (not called out in the list above) of elevating and creating content with day-to-day employees within an organization — have the lead grass maintenance person talk about their job with a horticulture community, the team’s nutritionist talk food, the organization’s massage therapist demonstrate what you could do at home — and work with leaders within these interest groups to make these collaborations a success (and potentially cross-sponsorship opportunities). A theme of this column, like localized ambassadors and more ongoing creator relationships, can play out with interest-driven communities and groups, too.

If you made it all the way to end, good on you! You have the same energy and enthusiasm for this space as I do. Message me and let’s connect if we haven’t met before. Let’s have a great 2026!

Analytics and Data, Digital, Fan Development, General Sports Business, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sponsorships

From Front Door to Bottom Line: An Insider’s Look at Sports Marketing Leadership and the Power of Fan Identity

The view from a sports team’s social media seat offers a unique perspective. Social touches just about everything. The person at the helm of the social media practice needs to know everything going on with the team, by necessity. From gameday presentations to sponsor activations, community events, and fan development initiatives, ticket promotions, and team transactions — the list goes on. Meanwhile, social has more fan touchpoints than any other part of the organization, is their finger on the pulse of an admittedly small but mighty sample of the fan base, and has a better picture of fans’ psychographics than perhaps any other department or person within the team.

From his early days managing social media with the Carolina Panthers, Dan LaTorraca appreciated the unique position that social media occupied and the diverse ways it could provide value. He eventually ascended to a role overseeing marketing with the Carolina Hurricanes, taking lessons from years of experience to help in building an industry-leading organization at the Canes. Today, he leads marketing at media measurement and tracking platform Zoomph, where he uses learnings from nearly two decades in sports business to continue to help push the industry forward.

I recently sat down with LaTorraca for a wide-ranging interview, packed with insights and anecdotes from throughout his career. Read on for just a few of the key points touched on in our chat. There is so much more in the full interview, and I highly recommend watching or listening! Check it out here

Social Media Is Part of the Larger Organization

It’s easy to become a little myopic in any job function or role. The social media operation wants to nail its KPIs and surpass them, hitting highs in metrics like views, impressions, reach, and engagement rate. But social media is ultimately one cog, an important and arguably the most front-facing cog, of the team and its business. The power of social media lies in its connectivity to every organizational goal, and therefore its ability to play offense, finding opportunities to capitalize on and problems to solve.

LaTorraca talked about his understanding of the pivotal position in which social media sat, and the mindset of weaponizing it, in a good way, to affect the bottom line, while maintaining and developing the long-term brand and connection with fans essential to any sports team.

“Social obviously was a powerful tool for engagement, for revenue driving, but also it’s like, Well, how are we driving [website] traffic with it? How are we driving leads with it? How is it feeding these other pieces here? How does the mobile app fit in with all this other stuff? How does email fit in? Ultimately, it wasn’t just about social; it was about building a strong digital ecosystem. And social may be the most valuable, impactful, and engaging part of that, especially in that era when everything was social…Social has been that front door, that front porch for teams in a lot of ways, so a lot of the resources and strategy started there, but it had to fit together with everything else, and to ultimately drive value and figure out where those value opportunities are.

“In the Panthers’ case, they were doing really well with ticket sales. They didn’t have a lot [of tickets] to offer because of the PSL [personal seat license] system they had there. So it was like, where are we going to make money elsewhere? Where are we going to drive value elsewhere? And is it with driving tune in for our broadcast network? Is it with retail and merchandise sales? Sponsorship integration ended up being the biggest piece for us. So, really having that perspective of, we have to see how this fits together with everything else, and also understand compromise. A lot of times it’s tough, and it was tough for me at first, too; it was almost like, you have to maintain the purity of social. Like, there’s a way to do this, and we can’t have other departments influencing or implementing our strategy and decision making here with another ticket deal or this or that. But I realized early on that, while it is an important marketing tool, it has to fit within the boundaries and the needs and goals of the organization.”

Developing a Voice and Brand That Draw Fans In

When LaTorraca was early in his tenure with the Panthers, the concept of a team with personality was just emerging in sports social media. But he knew that developing intimate relationships with fans was going to be the most effective way to punch above their weight in the Carolina and national sports hierarchy.

“The first thing that I picked up on was just like answering fans a lot more. Remember Zappos? That was one of the focal points of their social strategy was that they actually responded. We were still in an era in 2011 or so where if a brand responded to you on social, you were like, Alright, it’s either an automated customer service thing or it’s a mistake. The responses didn’t have personality or uniqueness. And you know, where we are now, it’s like, Oh man, this brand actually cursed at me. So we’ve evolved a whole lot. But back then, it was new, and that was something the Panthers could do differently.

“So building those 1-to-1 relationships, and I even kept a list of, like, certain things fans were passionate about, and we built authentic relationships there. I think that really helped us not only understand what mattered to them, but also the language they were using and how to craft and build our content strategy. So it was a mix of best practices and understanding what worked and what didn’t, and what we liked and what we were capable of, as well as what was going to resonate with our fans. We didn’t have the creative resources, we didn’t have a lot of other stuff that other teams had, but we were able to at least strategize our way into driving value both internally and externally.”

But, especially during a time when you’re trying to transform the strategy, you have to be able to show why this shift, this personality pivot, is working. Some things are immediately and easily measurable, some aren’t. But LaTorraca sought to prove why and how things were working and resonating. Those transformative moves can have compound effects, too, increasing fan avidity and evangelism, strengthening identities, and creating a fan base whole that’s greater than the sum of its individuals.

“Certain things like those 1-to-1 interactions aren’t measurable; technically, Zoomph can track those, and you can actually see social value if some kind of response actually catches fire. There is a way, but there’s so much more in those particular instances of measuring the sentiment. It’s not measurable in the traditional sense…

“However, the social voice was a key there, and that was something we were able to have data on that I used to validate the direction we wanted to go…This was at the time when you had the LA Kings starting to show a little more personality on social. I started seeing that and I was like, ‘This is what we need to be doing.’ We tried it in the comments a whole lot, and that was the way to test it. But we would occasionally put stuff out there that I felt was more human and had a bit more personality and sass and spunk to it. And what I would do is track the data and performance of that one and start kind of planting those seeds with my boss and his boss and ultimately their boss, who is the owner of, like, Look, this is working and this performs better than the average post, and clearly this type of of language and messaging and approach is resonating with our fans.

“I think it was built on those 1-to-1interactions, warming people up, and then eventually having actual personality and catching people off guard with some of the stuff that we put out there is going to be really good for growing our brand, engaging our fans, creating pride and sentiment there, and we backed it up with data. We were able to show, like, Hey, this is working, and get that buy-in to the point where in 2014 or so, we started having a lot more personality, and then I was able to share a lot more data. Then, 2015 was the Panthers’ Super Bowl season, and that’s when the gloves came off because it was where the team won 15 or 16 games in a row in the regular season, and a lot of people were doubting the team. And they were upset with Cam Newton for dancing in the end zone, and it was a lot of like, Oh, you guys are good, you’re probably the worst 10-0 team though, and everything was just ripe for me to dunk on on social. Almost like every week, we had something else that would go viral, because nothing galvanizes a fan base like when you’re successful, the team is good, the players are good, you’re winning, and the media or other narratives are coming at you. It puts a chip on the shoulder.”

The Value of Fandom

In its most fully developed state, sports fandom seeps deeply into hearts and minds, and it’s contagious throughout a snowballing mass that grows stronger with each addition and display. The strength, appeal, and spread of a brand create immeasurable value in ways both tangible and intangible. It all leads to arrows and trendlines pointing up, making every activation and strategy that much more meaningful and effective. It’s not always easy to measure linearly, because fandom drives success exponentially.

“I firmly believe that sports fandom can be boiled down to a desire for connection and community, and it’s fueled by identity. Those three pillars, to me, are the things that you have to engage in some way, because that’s what we are at the core of our identity or our kind of essence of sports fandom and sports consumerism. And I think finding ways to engage and leverage those, or build some brand pillars that help kind of convey those…In the Canes case, we defined it as fun, bold, and regional, but those were still lenses we could operate through. Like, regional is a great one, because we can talk about local community engagement and building a Canes bar network, or authentic brand positioning campaigns that were like murals or things like that. So, ultimately, the essence of those things, it’s not directly measurable in a traditional sense; it can be in a bunch of different ways of like, alright, how do we attribute this to that? But if you’re seeing certain things in your tracking, how retail sales of certain items are going up and trying to understand the psychology behind that, or certain types of social content or campaign or messaging or email pieces or other activations, whatever it may be, events or or ticket offers or promotional theme nights — all that stuff is measurable in a sense, but you have to also be able to tie it back to that human element in order to kind of have both sides there. You got to have the tactics you can measure, the activations you can measure and then refine and optimize, and you got to have well, this is how we tie it back to affinity or passion or community or belonging, or these other less tangible and measurable things that are really at the core and essence of what it means to be a sports fan…

“We had all these little ways we were going to try to get [the Canes] logo out there authentically. And it was like, alright, high-quality decals in every online order from our e-commerce shop and working with local businesses to distribute flags and all these little ways to influence the visual positioning of our brand, because that creates more passion. People see that and they say, I want to be part of that, or that’s something, or they’re already a fan, they’re like, I love that. This is that piece of their identity hanging on a flag outside their local bar, and that’s an important piece there. Well, yeah, it’s not as measurable, but it’s so important for growing a brand and creating that sense of pride and that regional sort of connection there, that sports really is.”

Making Big Moments Bigger

Sports are unpredictably predictable. There is a whole lot you can plan for (more on that in the next section), and a whole lot of extemporaneous opportunities that’ll present high ceilings of upside, even if you can’t foresee the details. It’s part art, part science, to enlist a well-worn but apt cliche, and a social media sixth sense of sorts to spot an opportunity to seize — provided the preparation and systems are in place to make seizing said opportunity possible in the first place. LaTorraca recounted one of the many examples of the Canes being ready to execute when an unexpected moment struck (and this excerpt doesn’t even capture all the ways the Canes capitalized):

“The last big piece we had with Twitter Amplify was the David Ayres game, which I’m sure you remember, was the emergency backup goalie comes in for an extended period, not just a couple of seconds, and essentially wins the game against the Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada. And he was the team Zamboni driver. It was this whole wild story. And that video, I remember texting our video producer at the time and was like, Dude, you glue yourself to him, get as much as you can, because we didn’t have video people traveling prior to my first season there. But [revenue via] Twitter Amplify helped me make the case of being like, look at all the money we’re making, we need more video. Thank God somebody was there, and it wasn’t just a PR person with their cell phone getting something. We had one of our best video producers there, and he got some iconic footage that was later used in ESPN commercials and all sorts of stuff. But that one video where, if anybody listening goes and Googles David Ayres, of him walking into the locker room after the game, and all the Canes players are spraying him with water and all that, that one video made like $80,000 for us, and it was insane.”

Building and Activating a Well-Oiled Machine

Just like some of the best athletes make impressive plays look easy, some of the sports organizations make agile execution look smooth, too — like they had it planned all along. Both the athlete and the team can make it look easy because they’ve prepared and planned. They’ve been proactive in setting up the systems that need to operate together when the moment comes and have plans ready to go for every scenario, many of which can be anticipated, to whatever degree of precision. One of the most memorable initiatives from LaTorraca’s time with the Canes was when well-known hockey commentator in Canada, Don Cherry, called the Canes ‘A bunch of jerks.’ And the rest is history, as that line was molded into a revenue stream and a galvanizing force for Canes fans everywhere. LaTorraca explained how executing around that campaign and initiative was just one example of the importance of ‘proactive planning.’

“Creating a culture that prioritizes that proactive planning really is the key to being able to have the runway to capitalize when crazy stuff happens. And it always does. Lightning struck us two times in a year at the Canes, and that was great, and then it didn’t strike the same way for a while. But we had that Bunch of Jerks thing, and we were able to capitalize on it and build a shirt. And people are important, too; we had the right relationships. I can still remember sitting in my office after that game, after we sort of concocted this plan, and Mike Foreman is texting Don Waddell and Tom [Dundon], being like, Hey, we’ve talked, we’re making shirts about this. You know, like, I pitched this idea to him and I was like, we can use this company here, because at the time, Breaking T was just kind of getting big, and I was like, I think they can turn it around for us quickly, because I don’t want to wait here for this one. It was also President’s Day weekend, and a lot of other shirt distributors were closed. Mike got the approval and basically was like, Alright, if Dan can show what a shirt model will look like by the next morning, we’ll go…

“If you give yourself more time, it just leads to so much more opportunity for creativity and doing stuff that’s a higher quality. Whether it is planning out the promotional giveaway item or a Star Wars night idea. Our Whalers night is another great example of like, Hey, you really want to plan that out, that was a Super Bowl for us, in a way, to capitalize on that, whether it was retail or activation, it was a a chance for our creative team to flex, and you want to be able to plan that out far away in advance…Whatever you can do, give yourself the runway to do it for the things you can control. It goes back to what I tell my kids all the time, You can’t control what’s going to happen to you, but you can control how you react. And if you have the right system in place and process in place and plan and people and all that, and you can come up with the right ideas and creative solutions, you can really turn a tough situation into a win, or you can turn a win into a bigger win, but you gotta have a lot of things in place to do it. It doesn’t just happen like that, and if you don’t have the runway to do it, it’s not going to happen. So that’s what really separates the good from the great is those cultures that prioritize people first above all else, but process and proactive planning, and that’s how you really win time and time again when these things happen. Because they always will. It might not be as big as every other situation, but even capitalizing on the smaller ones can still drive value in the end.”

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WATCH/LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH DAN LATORRACA

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Fan Development, General Marketing, General Sports Business, Social Media ROI, Sponsorships

How Sports Properties and Their Partners Build for Mutual Success: An Insider’s View

How do you define a good sports sponsorship?

There are plenty of definitions, and no shortage of software tools and measurement businesses to answer that question. But, for the consumers — the actual sports fans — there is a bit of you know it when you see it. Part of it is longevity, with brand-sport associations that have been together so long, it feels like they go together like peanut butter and jelly. The activations aren’t interruptive but additive or complementary.

For the brands, they’re getting the proverbial bang for their buck. But that ‘bang for the buck’ can mean a lot of things, as anyone who has worked on the brand or property side can attest. The roots of sports sponsorships may have been outfield signs and facsimiles of newspaper ads, but the options are more varied and solution-oriented in modern times.

For the teams and leagues, it’s more than just a paycheck. The revenue is key, to be sure, but other elements come into play — brand associations that can elevate their own, better experiences and content for their fans supported by willing partners, and putting their stamp of approval or endorsement on products and services that help them and can help their fans, too.

Nick Kelly has been on all sides of the sponsorship equation. He witnessed the religious-like fealty with which fans treated their favorite drivers’ partners in NASCAR early in his career, he’s walked around a stadium seeing product get poured (usually!) with AB InBev, he was in the middle of deals that saw the sponsor selling service back to the property at Verizon, and he’s been at the helm of a major pro sports league as CEO of then-expansion Major League Soccer club Charlotte FC. He talked about the diversity of sponsorship ‘ROI’ and approaches for different brands, a departure from the ‘cookie-cutter’ paradigms that may have persisted at a less enlightened time.

“On the AB (AB InBev) side, it was very marketing-heavy,” said Kelly, who today has taken his years of experience and insights to help others as CEO of Encore Sports and Entertainment. “Like, we could never really tie it to direct sales: one, because it was super complicated, and two, it was illegal. I could never walk into Yankee Stadium and say, ‘Well, only 70% of the beer you’re selling here is mine, but I’m paying you 100% of the sponsorship revenue. What gives?’

“On the Verizon side, you could be very black and white,” he said. “So a lot of it was very marketing ROI driven, brand lift, social media engagements, a lot of the soft metrics, but they mattered. And look, sports still are probably the number one, if not the biggest marketing pillar or marketing channel you can have to drive brand awareness. On the Verizon side, for us, a lot of it was business back. A lot of it was ‘What is the value I can pass to our 130 million consumers?’ I’ve got 130 million consumers; what do they get as a Verizon customer and a Washington Commanders fan? [For example], is there 10% off the team store? Is there early access to tickets? We didn’t really even take into consideration a lot of the soft metrics. They were there, but that wasn’t really driving the immediate value back to us.”

The sponsorship paradigms have undergone more shifts than ever in the last couple of decades, too, as sports teams have adopted new platforms that allow them to reach more fans than ever, and with often wildly unpredictable swings in audience. New signage and new naming rights were easy enough to adapt, but then Facebook posts and tweets and Stories came along, and, more recently, TikTok, where a post could reach hundreds or millions, with even social media managers not always quite sure which posts will hit.

Kelly provided insight from his perch, as he was right in the thick of this rapid evolution in sponsorships, full of opportunities and uncertainties.

“The bigger challenge became as new assets came online, and we wanted to create them with teams; I think we both struggled to price them,” said Kelly. “It’s like, ‘Hey, we want to come up with a content series for TikTok; well, TikTok just started, we’ve never priced that out’. Or when we signed the deal, they only had 20,000 followers, and when the deal came up, they’ve got 3 million. And it’s fair. So I think it became a little bit more of like we do understand the rate card is a league-informed baseline of what teams charge, but not all teams are created equal. And honestly, the content that teams create isn’t all equal.” [Interesting to note that Kelly called out the Jacksonville Jaguars as being particularly good at content during his time working with AB InBev]

The often-volatile nature of sports teams’ audiences, especially on social platforms where the difference between a winning and a losing season could sometimes vastly inflate or deflate the metrics reached, led Kelly and his colleagues at AB InBev to create a new model, an incentives-laden sponsorship deal. The goal for both sides was for the team to crush it, to hit the highest of highs and receive the highest payout; that’s what AB InBev budgeted for, too. Teams can go on championship runs that deliver better and bigger audiences than expected; they can also find a new groove in content production that captures big numbers on social and digital platforms. The new deal structures ensured they could get rewarded for that success. Kelly explained the how and the why.

“In theory, we probably had 15 to $20 million a year at risk that was based in incentives,” he said,” but we fully expected to pay it. But it was very time-consuming and cumbersome to coach all the teams on how to get to that successful metric. It was based on everything from the social media side — we even did it off of attendance or championships — so they can just get paid their bonus now, so then when the renewal comes up, it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re more valuable.’ ‘[Well] I already paid you for that. We already paid you for winning a championship, but if you don’t go to the championship, if all of a sudden you go from winning the NBA Finals to not making the playoffs, it’s not like I have a chance to come back down. So it helped us in forecasting a lot.’”

There’s a sense of fairness and trust cultivated with deals like that. And even the notion of ‘coaching’ teams to those metrics caught my eye. Memories are long in professional relationships, and the sports industry is no exception. The importance of honest and open communication was a consistent throughline during my discussion with Kelly, and is no doubt a big part of how he has cultivated successful partnerships, activations, and initiatives over the years.

While you may walk with your head a little higher after buying a new car and feeling you got one over on the salesperson, the best partnerships are when both sides win. The individual on the brand side driving the sponsorship wants to ensure the company’s decision to invest in the partnership was the right one, while the property side wants to also show they more than justified the cost of the deal, and that renewal is an easy decision when the deal expires.

“Nobody on the brand side ever goes into a deal trying to think ‘I gotta get as much out of this as possible because we’re likely not going to renew’,” said Kelly. “The brand side is overly incentivized because they have probably fought to get this deal, so they need to make it look like it’s the smartest decision they have ever made or recommended to their CMO or CEO by getting a ton of value out of it and then ultimately renewing the deal because it was such a great investment.

“Most times when a partnership doesn’t work, it’s either, one, a change of strategy which the team can’t help, or two, the brand itself didn’t put the right resources to get the most out of the partnership. Very seldom is it that the team has not provided or been flexible enough for the brand to get the value out of it. Because, look, no team wants to take any category back to market. So I think a lot of the communication has to come from the brand and the agencies to get to success, because you having to justify why you spent X amount of dollars on a partnership and why that was a bad decision three years later, it’s tough, because it puts your job at jeopardy.”

Kelly continued, discussing why he understands the frustration that can come from each side, as both brand and property want to do right by the partnership, and can feel pressured to deliver and over-deliver on expectations.

“That’s the one thing that we’re counseling some of our clients on now is like, you fought for this, you fought for, or your CMO handed you this or your CEO, you need to make it work,” said Kelly, referencing the advising and work he and his team do today at Encore. “You’re not in a position, and the teams should know that, like, they’re in a position to make all of these deals work. And when they’re being a pain in the ass and they’re asking you for stuff, it’s not because they’re being selfish, and it’s not because they just are trying to get more than they want, they’re trying to justify the expense they made, period.”

These conversations are often framed around how the property (team/league) delivers sufficient value and results for the brand. But, in recent years, as more emerging sports leagues have entered the ecosystem and women’s sports leagues continue to command and demand attention and investment, the pollyannaish paradigm of partnerships are more viable and visible than ever. These are two-way relationships where the partner helps elevate the league/team as much, if not more, than the other way around.

Big brands, with deep pockets, haven’t just put their money where their mouth is, by betting on the growing women’s sports leagues, especially, they’ve also taken action to ensure the gatekeepers appreciate the consumer demand for women’s sports as much as the sponsors believe in them (and the data often dictates).

“They don’t just write the check and then walk away and hope the partners do it all,” said Kelly, discussing the partners of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), who’ve often been vocal about getting games more exposure on broadcast networks, with whom they’ve also invested. “They’re amplifying on their traditional, social media, above the line, everything; they’re there. They’ve done a great job of connecting the dots.

“They don’t just hand the NWSL a check and then say, I don’t have anything left for you, broadcast partners or players. They’ve been able to close the loop. They’re supporting the broadcast partners. Then they’re making demands in a very responsible way of like, ‘We need to see this more on linear [television]. We need to see this more in the right time slots.’ And it really takes somebody with the right vision and the right brand, with the right vision to pull it forward because the commissioners of these leagues are in a tough spot because they want to drive as much revenue as possible to the league to then disperse out to all the owners. Then obviously they want the teams driving their own revenue, too. But when you get a brand like Ally who does the full flywheel of every point, everybody gets a little piece, and everybody’s getting elevated.”

There’s a perception bump, too, that can come when a big-name brand signs on to partner with an emerging league. Pick your favorite upstart league and its trajectory can often be seen through its sponsor roster. The endemics typically come first; it makes sense for equipment manufacturers and apparel partners, for example, to sign up early and a lot of the early fans are participants in the sports, so fit a sweet spot segment of potential customers for brands endemic to the sport. As the fan base broadens, with more interest and engagement, so, too, does the list of partners.

Before long, well-known brands in the auto, insurance, beverage, quick-service restaurant, and other CPG and B2B brands seeking to reach a wide swath of fans. The day a league signs a blue-chip brand like AB InBev can be a signficant signpost — a big brand believes in the league, and the windfall that comes with such a sponsorship allows for further investment and growth. Kelly reflected on this idea, noting the big brands he represented were cognizant about what their investment could mean to a growing league.

“We weren’t naive to the influence we had when we were at either one of those companies I worked at, because, we knew that if we came on to a league early on, because we believed in it, it helped establish credibility for the league if you have, you know, a Budweiser or Verizon on board early,” he said. “And it was just very much a ‘Do we believe that this is, one, good for us because we’re hitting another audience?’ And two, ‘Do we believe they have the infrastructure in place to actually go and drive even incremental value for us than we actually are investing?’

“We saw hundreds of presentations over the years from esports teams. And, you know, we did Drone Racing League for a while, all these other ones where it was just like, you know, it meant a lot. For us, it became a little bit more we got on the sales tour with them promoting like, well, why did you invest? And they would just say, ‘Hey, can brand X call you and tell you about what you’re doing in our sport?’ And it’s like, sure. So, oftentimes in these emerging sports we became a little bit more of like an evangelist for why did you invest. And look, we felt that it was a privilege and also a responsibility of, if we were investing here, we got to see that it works.”

Sports sponsorships may have started out, decades ago, as advertising transactions and static assets, but they’ve since evolved into integrated relationships. The most successful deals today are no longer about merely buying access, but about engineering a dynamic where every stakeholder wins: the brand justifies its investment, the property elevates its value, the emerging league gains credibility, the fans receive better, more engaging experiences.

The modern sponsorship is a flywheel where both sides, and increasingly the fans, are fully invested in the other’s success. It requires honest communication, the flexibility to account for unpredictable growth, and the vision to see an investment not just as a cost, but as a commitment to the growth of the entire sport. The biggest win isn’t just a renewal, it’s a legacy of impact.

A good sports sponsorship is one that leaves all parties better off for the relationship. It’s not just a line item on the budget, but a statement of shared belief, proving that when partners rise together, everybody wins.

WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH NICK KELLY

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Analytics and Data, Digital, General Sports Business

The New Revelation in Sports Business: Why the Fanbase Is More Valuable Than the Team

The sports industry is lagging.

Sports may capture an outsized part of the zeitgeist, increasingly prominent in pop culture, but when it comes to understanding and maximizing the lifetime value of their consumers, their peers in other fields are ahead.

That’s starting to change, thanks to an infusion of new leaders, strategic capital, and a convergence of technological developments positioning sports to reach new levels of sophistication and new heights of efficiency and effectiveness.

Shripal Shah has spent years in the sports industry, including a long stint with the then-Washington Redskins, ascending to Chief Strategy Officer. He’s also spent years out of the sports industry, highlighted by his time with shopping rewards platform Shop Your Way. He’s seen the way retail and hospitality analyze and engage customers, and the how those industries govern and operationalize data in ways that the sports industry is just starting to conceive. Shah is well-positioned to understand this inflection point at which sports finds itself, and the lucrative opportunities it presents.

“I think the one area [that] I think sports could adopt towards, is retail is much further ahead in this idea of true personalized marketing, like use of personas, segments, data enrichment,” said Shah, who today is Chief Digital Officer of Next League, a software development and technology solutions company specializing in sports and media. “And in retail, there’s a concept called RFM marketing…It’s an approach and a framework to drive people, based off this idea [of] how recently have they shopped with or interacted with you, how frequently and the monetization. And it really touches on this idea not just going from awareness, consideration to purchase, but this idea of how do you really create higher lifetime value from your customers? How do you create a higher share of wallet or a higher spend?”

The sports industry is built on long-term fandom. When the operation is working as expected, generational customers are cultivated, lifelong fans who aim to pass on their favorite sports and teams to their kids. And yet, while plenty of effort is put forth around season ticket renewals (though the traditional concept of season tickets has diminished appeal for younger generations), sports organizations are more often than not in pursuit of the next fan, the marginal fan and incremental dollar. There is merit in that, no doubt. When media rights deals are dictated by one more fan watching for at least a minute, it makes sense to chase increase the overall pool.

But there’s also untold riches to surface in the deeper end of the pool. There’s more value to mine among the diehard fans and those closer to the bottom of the funnel than the top. And the methods by which organizations learn more about, and activate, those fans compound in value. Shah has seen it play out with customers in the retail space.

“Once you’re at a real scalable retail, because at that point you could have — like at Shop Your Way we had over 50 million users — you don’t actually need to go acquire more users, you already have a lot of their info,” said Shah, whose recently published book, Unlocking Fan Loyalty: From Frequent Flyers to Fanatics in the Age of AI, breaks down how sports organizations transform ordinary customers into passionate fans by harnessing the power of data, personalization, and artificial intelligence. “You could always try to get more people in the funnel, but if you can also retain those users and convert more, [get people to] spend more, that can also drive not only your top line growth, but better bottom line profits. I think that nuance is starting to show up in sports, as you’re seeing the advent of these holding companies that are now cross-team, the insertion of private equity.

“And now with AI democratizing and bringing more of these mature marketing tools to the budget levels of sports teams, I think that’s going to also lend itself to really leverage those tools and those data sets and technology. It lends itself to another marketing approach that I think ultimately could lead to a higher lifetime value for the fan base.”

AI is everyone’s opportunity. As Shah told me, artificial intelligence can have a democratizing effect for marketing teams in sports and beyond. Every conversation about marketing tech stacks and roadmaps now includes myriad mentions of AI. There’s a sense of excitement, amplified by FOMO, as the sports world grapples with understanding how to implement AI into their systems. The interest is higher than ever, but there are some prerequisites for effective implementation of AI. And that’s part of this inflection point, as Shah sees it; more excitement than ever, coupled with a forcing factor requiring organizations to upend their old systems of thinking and do a deep audit, and deep cleaning, of their data.

“I think AI just kind of came and became a thing,” said Shah, whose aforementioned book is part of a three-book series on AI in sports business. “I was talking with the major LLM providers and they said it was almost like what they called an awakening, that demand for an LLM [such as] ChatGPT and Copilot went up 1,000% this summer, which was more than the request to buy enterprise licenses the prior nine months or year combined. So that kind of came over the top.

“Before that, when I first rejoined Next League and I was talking with CMOs, this idea of creating a more mature marketing tech stack for personalization was really everyone’s number one priority…But now I think that some people are waiting to see how AI changes what their plan was for the marketing approach…it is about personalization, propensity, predictability, going from like, 40 personas to 400 to 4000 to to infinite…

“I think that’s going to ultimately lead towards more automation because what existed outside of sports was people already had marketing automation and workflow automation. That was the concept that no one ever invested in in sports, and AI is going to really force that. Because to really have good AI products and workflow, you need to have good data governance and you need to really focus on automation. And I think AI is going to sort of be the forcing mechanism that really should cause this level of maturity, because it’s going to force the data to get better.”

The move towards exponential automation is also disrupting decades-old paradigms in sports business, as org charts and team compositions evolve to make the most of new AI-infused capabilities. The days of armies of inside sales reps and smile and dial at high volumes aren’t completely gone, but they’re waning. When it comes to investing in the sales and marketing operation, the first thought goes to tech before headcount now, Shah explained, and that’s a marked change.

“Earlier on, I think there would have been a question like, ‘Well, why are we spending $400,000 on this tech stack when we could just hire 3 or 4 other ticket people? Alright, let’s go hire three, four ticket people at $35k each, fresh out of school, why are we going to spend half a million dollars [on tech]?’ Like you would run into that type of thinking as recently as a few years ago,” he said.

“I think the AI discussion is now throwing that out the window where it’s saying ‘No, what could be done with AI before you ask for headcount?’ AI is not replacing people, but it’s forcing a new conversation which is now forcing an investment into these other tool sets because the tools are going to help people do better, more impactful work, more deeper work.”

AI, and its forcing mechanisms vis-à-vis data infrastructure is just part of a greater transformation Shah sees taking place in sports business. In the same way that AI is not going to replace humans, but empower them to focus on deeper work, it’s allowing the content operations to maximize the value it gets out of each creator and manager. The future of content operations, he told me, can be likened to a ‘portfolio strategy,’ with some tasks and ‘baseline’ content work largely done by AI and the more complex work being done by humans.

But perhaps the most exciting future, and where the sports industry can most emulate the retail and hospitality industries, is in loyalty programs and more integrated and improved partnerships. As Shah described earlier, bringing in principles from the retail industry, like RFM marketing (recency, frequency, monetary value), coupled with the leap ahead in data governance ushers not just better, more nuanced understanding of fan profiles and consumption behaviors, but also allows them to tell a richer story. A well-oiled loyalty program that directly shows purchase behavior and funnel conversions to partners is among the holy grails in sports — and it’s more attainable than ever, fueled by multi-directional, open-loop loyalty programs.

“It gives the teams the ability to get real data points to then describe and demonstrate that fandom and the value of that to their brand sponsors, which then ultimately should lead to higher revenue,” said Shah. “Because by being able to have that data and the proof to be demonstrated, that’s going to ultimately lead towards more spend, because then the sponsors can look at this versus other media channels and say, ‘This is going to give me a much deeper connection that’s going to help me so that I’m not always having to reacquire my customers. I’m also building long-term customers at a much lower acquisition cost.’ It creates that flywheel effect.”

Shah lights up discussing the promise of open-loop loyalty programs making their way into the sports world. Such programs thrive in the retail and hospitality fields. Among the many examples Shah cited, the Marriott Bonvoy program is a shining beacon, where points are transferable from one partner program to another, where spending with Starbucks, Uber, and BetMGM can be redeemed for rewards with any of the aforementioned programs, and points can be transferred back and forth, including from credit card programs. The intermingling of earning and redeeming presents an incredible value proposition. The opportunity is even greater now, as sports organizations invest in multi-club ownership and retail ecosystems around their venues. Spending on sports remains a non-necessity, a luxury or entertainment expenditure, which only adds to the appeal for sports to more effectively integrate into the everyday purchases and journeys of its fans. Shah explained why open loyalty programs are such an exciting opportunity for sports and why he believes loyalty programs may become among the most valuable assets sports organizations hold, as the programs are for other businesses.

“[Open loop loyalty programs] work beyond just a single retailer or partner. They’re cross-currency,” he explained. “So what that’s done is it has driven more value to the currency because now it has value in multiple places, which then creates higher liquidity because now there are more people who are earning more. But then they’re also redeeming more, so therefore they’re spending more. Now, that drives higher potential frequency. The person who came twice a year somewhere might come three, four times a year without having to pay for acquisition costs. The person who came once a month might come one and a half times a month. And that is what everyone outside of sports is seeing.”

That’s the promise of RFM marketing in action, and why Shah is so excited about bringing those principles to sports. Shah continued, noting the significant value proposition this all represents, broadening the aperture for fan engagement and consumption capture.

“This idea of cross-industry collaboration is happening in industries and verticals that have much higher spend. People spend a lot more with their grocery stores and their gas, because they need it, than they do with their sports tickets,” he said. “People in some places could be spending more on travel, so they’re using it for personal and for work than they are for their sports tickets. So it’s just a matter of understanding market size and TAM, and I think it’s an education.

“I’ve had many conversations…That’s the premise of the book; this is a reality where, for airlines, their loyalty programs are considered more valuable assets than their entire fleet of airplanes. Full stop.”

The sports industry’s long-awaited business evolution is finally here. AI has emerged as the ‘forcing mechanism,’ compelling the data maturity and automation that organizations have long desired but deferred. This new foundation allows sports to adopt the proven playbooks of retail and hospitality, shifting focus from chasing the next marginal fan to maximizing the lifetime value of their most loyal fans through sophisticated, open-loop loyalty programs.

This transformation is more than an operational upgrade, it’s part of a grander vision. The goal is no longer simply to fill a stadium, but to build a powerful economic flywheel effect where a team is embedded in a fan’s daily life, capturing value far beyond the stadium or arena. The organizations that embrace this change are redefining their very identity, marking the final evolution from a sports team that has fans to a fan platform that has a team.

WATCH/LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SHRIPAL SHAH

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CHECK OUT SHRIPAL’S BOOKS ON SPORTS IN AI AND LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Analytics and Data, General Marketing, General Sports Business

What the Sports Industry Can Learn (and Adopt) from the Retail Business

On episode 305 of the Digital and Social Media Sports podcast, Neil chatted with Shripal Shah, Chief Digital Officer, Next League, and author of Unlocking Fan Loyalty: From Frequent Flyers to Fanatics in the Age of AI

What follows are some snippets from the episode. Click Here to listen to the full episode or check it out and subscribe to the podcast via Apple or listen on Spotify or YouTube.

Category: General Sports Business

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