The future of fan engagement

Fan activation of the core assets

Good fan engagement involves activation of sporting assets, e.g., players, coaches, and team mascots,
to build stronger relationships with various fan segments, e.g., the business-to-business segments such as different sponsors and the business-to-consumer segments such as families.

These relationships reach beyond the playing field and may also contain initiatives such as community outreach, CSR and sustainability engagement, and merchandise endorsements and activations (Shank & Lyberger, 2015).

Relevant brand activation helps to ‘bring brands to life’ and may foster a stronger level of league or team identity among the local, regional, national, or global fan bases (depending on the strength of the sports brand) and the public (e.g., sometimes sports leagues, teams, and events hold this ability).

Data-driven fan engagement models

There is a growing trend of sport organizations applying fan data collection and analysis to boost the effectiveness of their business operations.

This includes the strategic investment in fan engagement platforms, which can collect valuable fan-relevant data to support sports business decision making and impact in engaging customer-centric touchpoints for all involved commercial stakeholders in this ecosystem.

For instance, these data and fan engagement interaction platforms help to realize that commercial partners may gain increased proximity to the sports organization and its commercial and sporting assets through different digital sponsorship campaigns and concepts and lead to better ROEs, ROOs, and ROIs.

When honoring past achievements or remarkable challenges, a sports organization can benefit from tapping into the BASKING (‘basking in reflected glory’) and CORFING (‘cutting of reflected failure’) aspects of sports psychology and how these aspects relate to fan engagement.

Well-known examples include how sports organizations honor former championship teams or superior performances, their iconic players, and other memorable moments on and off the playing field. For instance, Boston Red Sox did so when David Ortiz excelled as a representative for his community after winning the championship.

“One has to be really big to be considered a representative of your broader community. It transcends sport. For example, David Ortiz is a great illustration of community representation.

He ended up in his last years of playing as symbolizing Boston due to his role as a leader after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. He helped to inspire the entire community during the entire baseball season and beyond.
When the Red Sox won the World Series that year, during the victory parade, Ortiz took the championship trophy and set it down at the finish line of the Marathon. It was the ultimate symbol of the community coming together and standing strong.
Not every player has the capability and the opportunity to have this kind of impact that goes well beyond his sport.” (Cortsen, 2017).

These actions are culturally manifested in a sports organization’s journey and resonate emotionally with fans and thus produce spirits of connection, community and pride while bridging generational gaps and boosting fan loyalty.    

Visual identity aspects of fan engagement

Fan engagement mirrors the identification with and the recall of team logos (e.g., Paris Saint-Germain’s meaningful integration of the Eifel Tower), uniforms (e.g., Denmark’s legacy and retro-fashion national team jerseys from Hummel), colors (e.g., Blaugrana and FC Barcelona), and sponsors (e.g., Carlsberg and Liverpool FC).

As such, visual identity plays a central role in fan engagement and the above-mentioned artefacts are vital branding components for fans to identify with.

These visual identity markers can, if consistently applied, assist in reinforcing a sport organization’s image (e.g., making it more recognizable) and positively interact with other branding components (e.g., the UEFA Champions League official theme song).

Thereby, visual identity aspects of fan engagement and other branding components form a ‘branding bowl’ capable of enhancing a strong fan base and hence attracting more commercial stakeholders.     

Sponsorship aspects of fan engagement

The latter is critical because competent fan engagement is paramount to monetize sponsorship deals.

Successful sports organizations understand that fan engagement is a profitable avenue when professionalizing commercialization efforts. For instance, the digital revolution in society also created new opportunities for sports businesses.

Strong fan engagement can offer commercial partners, e.g., sponsors, better opportunities for digital engagement via the sports organization’s different platforms, e.g., website and App solutions.

This can be unfolded via gamification, rewards, and premium content through which sponsors can integrate innovative sponsorship and brand activation and thus generating additional revenue beyond ordinary game-day activities for the sports organization as well as sponsors.

Media aspects of fan engagement

Marshall McLuhan is famous for stating that “the medium is the message”. To accompany this phrase in the context of the business of sports, commercialization and fan engagement, there is no doubt that different media platforms, e.g., ranging from broadcasting to contemporary platforms such as social media, Apps, and live streaming, shape how fans (the running engine) perceive sports and the associated commercial options.

The medium is rooted in the message and creates an interdependent relationship by which the medium holds different commercial opportunities and helps to reach a broader and more targeted fan-based audience.

FC Copenhagen and FC Midtjylland are two examples of Danish football clubs, which operate in sync with how the international sports landscape (and global sports clubs and thus brands higher up in economic order) includes sports clubs which act as media agencies.

“Events such as the Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup and the Olympics; professional teams such as Manchester United and Real Madrid; and brands including Converse, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo expend significant resources to integrate social media practices into their marketing strategy.”

There is already a long-term tradition of how sport clubs, e.g., Manchester United TV, can leverage media platforms to encourage and enhance fan engagement and thereby revenue generation via improved commercialization efforts (e.g., innovative and targeted advertising and content distribution). So, media platforms are imperative in expanding the reach and the depth of a sports brand and its associated commercial offerings. 

Concluding remarks

Fan engagement is a multidimensional element in professional sports, which holds vital commercial potential. It encapsulates brand activation, data-driven commercialization strategies, digital monetization, legacy enhancement, central identity markers, sponsorship attractiveness and media appeal.

When sports organizations understand the vitality of these fan engagement elements, there is higher chances to build a successful sports brand capable of fostering fan engagement and creating stronger revenue streams.

Collecting fan data and being close to the fans establish the likelihood of understanding fan behavior.

This will assist in developing commercial ecosystems, conceptualizing digital fan landscapes and unique sponsorship activation, which are reinforcing a sport organization’s future of fan engagement in the everchanging and very dynamic context of professional sports.     

References

• Alexandris, K., McDonald, H., & Funk, D. (2016). Sport consumer behaviour: Marketing strategies. New York: Routledge.
• Cortsen, K. (2017). NBA, LeBron James and global branding of basketball. Available from: https://kennethcortsen.com/nba-lebron-james-global-branding-basketball/  [accessed on November 24^th 2023].
• Cortsen, K., Hehr, M., & Nielsen, R. (2021). Sportsmanagement: Ledelse og kommercialisering i sportsbranchen. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
• Filo, K., Lock, D., & Karg, A. (2015). Sport and social media research: A review. Sport management review, 18(2), 166-181.
• Foster, G., Greyser, S.A. & Walsh, B., 2006. The Business of Sports: Text & cases on strategy and management. Belmont, CA: Thompson South-Western.
• Greyser, Stephen A., & Kenneth Cortsen. “MLS as a Sports Product—The Prominence of the World’s Game in the U.S.” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-111, March 2021. (Revised April 2021.)
• Greyser, Stephen A., Kenneth Cortsen, and Juan Fuentes Fernández. “LALIGA—From a Soccer Competition Organizer to a Global Player in the Sports and Entertainment Industry.” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-009, August 2023.
• Marques, N. M. R. (2022). Equity research-Nike, inc (Doctoral dissertation).
• Mullin, B. J., Hardy, S., & Sutton, W. (2014). Sport marketing 4th edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
• Rascher, D. A., Cortsen, K., Nagel, M. S., & Richardson, T. (2021). Who are our fans: an application of principal component-cluster technique analysis to market segmentation of college football fans. Journal of Applied Sport Management, 13(1), 1.
• Shank, M. D., & Lyberger, M. R. (2015). Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. New York: Routledge.

Want to know more about our fan engagement solution?

At Crowdmanager we have developed a Fan engagement white-label app, which connects all the exciting and exclusive features for a devoted fan in a one-stop-shop solution.

Here the fan will find news, content, livescore, streaming access, ticketing, loyalty program, coupons, and games. 

Besides that, we have built a commercial backend engine, where the clubs and rightsholders can analyze, monetize and manage all user behavior and furthermore, they can set up and activate sponsorship campaigns in a new way. 

Contact us to here more about our Crowd fan app solution here