Data and AI Bring Moneyball to Sports Marketing

About 20 years ago, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane used data and statistics to help his low-revenue team keep pace with wealthier competitors, making for a stronger roster. The resulting success inspired Michael Lewis' bestselling book Moneyball, which in turn led to Brad Pitt portraying Beane in the film adaptation. Beane's analytics methods, which used combinations of stats to find low-priced athletes whose performance exceeded their costly superstar peers, helped level the playing field in professional sports. Now sports marketing is having its Moneyball moment with the help of massive pools of data that show which athlete endorsers are giving brands the biggest bang for their buck. For example, software companies like EDO use search data to show why ads featuring track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson outperform better-known athletes such as Tom Brady or Stephen Curry. While EDO found that the average lift in brand search increases about 15% following a sports celebrity’s appearance in an ad, some (like Richardson) exceed that and are also seen as a welcome break from overexposed faces. “I know it's a tortured analogy, but it is kind of a Moneyball idea,” said John Cripps, EDO’s svp of convergent measurement. “We're looking for diamonds in the rough here.” Sports marketers seek hidden gems not only in endorsers but also in teams, season ticket holders, viewers and casual fans. Data and artificial intelligence find the best values as well as underserved consumers waiting to get into the game. A 360-degree view Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders averaged more than 40,000 fans in attendance per game before the pandemic hit. But they didn’t necessarily know who those fans were or what they wanted from the team. About three years ago, customer data platform Amperity CEO and co-founder Kabir Shahani was developing a system that could ingest any kind of data at any scale and run models, creating an all-encompassing view of a customer. This caught the attention of Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer. He brought in Amperity to collect anonymized data from SeatGeek, Ticketmaster, Salesforce's ExactTarget and Einstein predictive data, Sounders' email subscribers and the league’s customer relationship management system. Outkicking Their Coverage Data says these athlete endorsers exceed brands’ expectations and outperform their better-known peers. Source: EDO 1 Rob Gronkowski (5.51) 2 LeBron James (2.89) 3 Chris Paul (1.07) 4 Bryce Harper (0.90) 5 Serena Williams (0.87) 6 Sha’Carri Richardson (0.71) 7 Bo Jackson (0.65) 8 Candace Parker (0.53) 9 Jessica Long (0.50) 10 Kelly Oubre (0.47) “We're able to rapidly assemble that into that single view of the fan,” Shahani said. “So now I know everything that [a fan's] done: I know the jerseys he owns. I know how he engages with us on social. I know how many games that he goes to.” From 2018 to 2019, that 360-degree view of Sounders fans resulted in 22% more fans opening newly personalized emails, 29% clicking tailored links and 80% more fans putting down season ticket deposits. Meanwhile, partners saw a $34 return on every dollar spent on ads. When the pandemic hit, the team used Amperity to keep fans engaged and inform them of health and safety protocols. Taylor Graham, the Sounders’ svp of marketing and business operations, said that the Sounders’ season ticket renewal percentage is currently the highest in club history as a result of pandemic-era marketing efforts. “That metric is 100% aligned with our ability to serve them and to retain them, and Amperity is an essential tool in doing that,” Graham said. Data and AI also offer a shortcut to sports’ return on marketing investment. Data company FanAI svp of sales Adam Holt said partners such as PepsiCo can access social media mentions, product purchase data from Catalina, credit card usage information from Fiserv's First Data and purchasing history from major ticket sellers to see how fans respond and spend. The game changer Data firm MarketCast used its information to help an unnamed consumer-packaged goods brand increase spending on its products by $25 million through “official sponsor” ads with a major sports league. Almost 20% of that growth came from casual fans. “Years ago, the CEO of the company would be the biggest advocate of, say, golf, and a company would invest in the PGA Tour just because he or she was passionate about golf,” said Graham McKenna, CMO at MarketCast. “In recent times, there's accountability. For clients, it's almost like a CMO now has a CFO hat on.” Data gatherers like Helixa use social media to help marketers find audiences that traditional surveys and studies overlooked. Are there fans of LeBron James who like and retweet posts about country music? Do fans of the Las Vegas Raiders hike? Do they play video games? Laia Pescetto, Helixa’s vp of marketing, said her firm's clients want to see the additional dimension and depth behind a fan's lifestyle. As a result, they’re marketing not only to the sports fan but also the entire ecosystem around them. “You need to know a little bit more about your audience than those one-dimensional personas or stereotypes that we were all kind of going off of in the past,” Pescetto said.

Sports Marketing News

Data and AI Bring Moneyball Methods to Level the Sports Marketing Playing Field

Social media, search and other fan-focused analytics take the guesswork out of ads and sponsorships

Jason Notte

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Jason Notte