Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

SAS (News - Alert), a company specializing in business analytics, announced a new suite of solutions to help sports teams and leagues sell more tickets, T-shirts and other associated promotional items.

 

“Simply collecting data is not enough,” said Jeffrey Ma, author and co-founder, Citizen Sports, in a press release. “Companies must analyze and understand as much data about their businesses as possible and use it to make smart decisions. Using SAS Analytics, sports organizations can systematically incorporate more information than ever and look objectively at which strategies will help them win.”

 

Sports organizations possess valuable internal and external data including social media. These organizations also need to integrate this data and employ it to create strategies that offer optimum value for each interaction.

 

SAS Analytics offers techniques and processes for collecting, classifying, analyzing and interpreting data so as to detect patterns and relationships. This will help arrive at new insights and better answers easily. SAS’ analytical insights are expected to help improve fan experience, ticket sales and business operations.

 

SAS sources revealed that fans are spending a lot of time online thereby giving rise to huge volumes of unstructured data that can be leveraged to study fan behavior and demographics. Season ticket holders can be identified and they can be encouraged to renew then by attracting them with meaningful offers.

 

“We want to put forth as much effort to understand our fans as we do our players,” said Paraag Marathe, San Francisco 49ers Executive VP of Football and Business Operations.  “Working with SAS and Destiny Corporation consultants, we are aiming to improve the overall fan experience, from visiting our website all the way through attending a 49ers game. By having a more robust view of our fans, we can communicate with them in ways they appreciate and develop personalized offers.”

 

Fans can be categorized according to likely behavior and profitability and this will help understand them better, said Craig Duncan, Manager of Sports and Entertainment at SAS.

 

With SAS solutions, teams and leagues are getting the information they need to evaluate and execute strategies to increase sales of individual game tickets and season tickets, along with renewals. If it is possible to have a full stadium to support players then everyone wins including fans, players, sponsors and staff, Duncan noted.

 

SAS’ end-to-end capabilities address important challenges that face sports executives, like data quality, fan segmentation, campaign management, seat and resource forecasting, business reporting and financial management. These offerings based on the SAS Business Analytics Framework along with support from comprehensive consulting, training and support services are expected to ensure maximum return from IT investments.