The hidden game: challenges for sports digitization

In the vast arena of the sporting world, clubs and teams are competing in a constant race to achieve a high level for sports digitalization.

The deafening applause and the roar of the fans must merge with the digital world. A world that generates a lot of valuable data for these companies.

Today I want to look at several pain points that need to be addressed if fully functional sports digitisation is to be achieved.

1. Turning passion into value

In a world where the fan phenomenon has established itself as the main way to follow a sport, the fan base of clubs has been growing steadily in recent years.

However, while fan fervour is continuous, companies must strive to transform this passion into sustainable monetization models that allow clubs to reinvest this fan love into new assets.

2. The data dilemma

Even though we have the outline of the data ecosystem, we need to ask ourselves: What information is really key and what data do I care about? The diversity of social platforms and data sources presents challenges for the use of relevant data, so we need to adopt different strategies depending on our objective.

Also, in sports environments where traditional models prevail, data validation becomes critical, so the challenge is to digitise one’s own data and migrate from traditional management models to full digitization.

3. Useful digital selection: the digital victory

In a resource-constrained landscape, success is not only about identifying the crucial KPIs of the sports sector such as:

• Subscriber retention.
• Brand value.
• Event attendance and viewership.
• Fan engagement.

The key is to make this data available in a very visual way through dashboards so that everyone has access to it and can adapt the strategies they have in place. This allows teams to improve their operational efficiency in order to have a more affective communication with supporters and ensure greater engagement with the fans.

4. E-inclusion: opening doors

Digital inclusion is another challenge that sports organisations must face in this transformation journey. The link between communication and business is essential to overcome barriers and monitor different audiences successfully. Besides, this helps to strengthen fan loyalty and engagement, as well as maintain a clear competitive advantage in terms of market reach.

One example of this is trying to find ways to track the movements of older people, who do not tend to use new technologies, making it difficult to analyse their buying behaviour. Providing intuitive and easy-to-use digital interfaces and tutorials to teach them how to buy tickets online are some of the solutions proposed so that older fans can feel listened to by the club and their actions can be easily monitored.

Digitization of sport: towards a digital horizon

In short, sports digitization is a process that takes time and requires the elimination of fundamental pain points in order to be completed successfully. This is why companies have to gradually move towards achieving objectives that improve their operational efficiency and greater agility in decision making.

An example of this is television, which, as a traditional media, has adapted to digitalization better than anyone else to be able to personalise its content. Today, audiometers are no longer necessary to measure their audience, since all smart TVs are connected, something that is represented in the form of data through dashboards. This helps broadcasters to choose which content and formats work best and which do not, as well as to retain and attract new audiences.