Webinar: Making fan data work for you

On Tuesday, September 14, StellarAlgo – in partnership with Sports Business Journal (SBJ) – presented a complimentary webinar featuring panelists from the National Football League (NFL), including the Las Vegas Raiders, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the league itself; each brought their unique insight and expertise to a conversation about effectively using fan data to connect segmentation and personalization to revenue. Moderated by Eileen Silvergleid, Chief Revenue Officer at SBJ, panelists included: 

Justin Friedman, Senior Director, Data & Analytics, NFL

Ty Fowler, Data Systems Analyst, Kansas City Chiefs

Alexander Foster, Analyst, Revenue Planning & Analytics, Las Vegas Raiders

Erika Gunerman, VP of Account Management, StellarAlgo 

To view the complete recording, please see below.

View recording

CLICK HERE to download presentation slides.

Highlights

04:19 – Moderator Eileen Silvergleid, opens the conversation with a question for Justin Friedman about where the NFL was at before more effectively leveraging their vast customer data set, and why they chose to implement a Customer Data Platform.  

04:44– Justin provides background into how fan data is collected used at the NFL to help the league better understand the wants and needs of their fans.

07:41 – Eileen asks Erika Gunerman to provide insight into StellarAlgo’s partnership with the NFL and implementation of the CDP.

07:58 – Erika provides a brief overview of the purpose and function of StellarAlgo’s CDP and how StellarAlgo worked with the NFL to leverage the fan data in their native databases to drive specific results for the NFL, the Chiefs, and the Raiders.

11:50– Eileen asks Justin to elaborate on the league’s partnership with the Las Vegas Raiders and what they hoped leveraging such a vast collection of fan data could help them do.

12:39– Justin speaks about the importance of finding and choosing the right consumption layer, and how Alex Foster, of the Las Vegas Raiders, saw the value in using the extensive data set the league had amassed to focus on personalization and drive results.

14:20 – Alex walks through a specific case study of how the Raiders used their CDP to create strategic segments of Hispanic Raiders fans as part of a campaign amplifying former Raiders quarterback and coach, Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, Tom Flores. Alex uses a series of slides to illustrate how their video and social media campaign helped the Raiders connect with their target audience, and the return they are already seeing in customer lifetime value.

24:20 – Audience question for Alex: What other implied groups of fans across the NFL database – in addition to those we’ve mentioned already, such as ticket holders, language preference, and so on – what are some of those attributes you used to create your database of both implied and explicit fans?

26:02 – Eileen asks Erika to provide some insight into how other sports properties are creating their segmentation and personalization strategy.

28:50 – Audience question for Justin, Alex and Ty Fowler: In terms of collecting fan data, what activations have been most successful in acquiring fan data outside of the traditional (e.g., ticketing)?

31:34 – Audience question for Justin, Alex and Ty: What value does the NFL add, as the aggregator, that clubs wouldn’t otherwise have on their own? 

37:19 – Audience question for Justin, Alex and Ty: When it comes to additional marketing support, how does the league help clubs interpret the data, or give best marketing practices?

39:27 – Eileen invites Ty Fowler, of the Kansas City Chiefs, to walk the audience the use case for how he and his team drove more than $2 million in sales in the first few days of their campaign.

39:47– Ty explains the Chiefs’ goal was to introduce a communication approach to their schedule and on-sale announcement that was as targeted as possible, and elaborates on how he and his team used league data and propensity scoring available in StellarAlgo’s CDP to deliver the right message, to the right fan, at the right time, via the right channel, to drive sales going into their 2021 season.

44:35 – Audience question for Ty and Justin: As you’re looking at your fan data, what is more important for fan activation – interest in the team, or interest in the athletes?

46:03 – Audience question for Ty and Justin: In order for organizations to efficiently acquire new fans, what advice do you have when it comes to assessing fans’ lifetime value?

48:04 – Audience question for Ty and Alex: Do you have any examples of the types of targeted communications the club has found most effective for engaging and/or converting season ticket holders?

51:20 – Audience question for all panelists: What’s the best book you’ve read in terms of data analysis?

55:24 – As the webinar wraps up, Eileen invites all panelists to share their closing thoughts, including what the primary takeaway each would like the audience to glean from this conversation. 

Watch the recording

Panelists

Justin Friedman

Senior Director, Data & Analytics
NFL

Justin Friedman is currently the Sr. Director of Fan Data & Analytics at the NFL. Justin is in his fourth season at the league and heads up the growth, centralization, analysis/consumption of the league’s 60MM+ active fan database with a focus on driving overall fan engagement. Justin is the chief architect of the 32 Club AWS Workspaces which allows clubs to seamlessly tap into the league’s data and analytics in real-time to action fan data at scale. He has additionally been heavily involved in the league’s data privacy journey by putting fans’ privacy first. Justin’s overall nearly 10-year experience in the data & analytics space ranges across consulting, finance, and marketing.

Ty Fowler

Data Systems Analyst
Kansas City Chiefs

Ty Fowler is entering his fifth season with the Kansas City Chiefs, which marks his third season as Data Systems Analyst. Ty manages the Chiefs’ rewards program and works with ticketing and customer data for marketing and insights purposes. Prior to the Chiefs, Ty worked in both the radio and data analytics industries and received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Kansas.

Alexander Foster

Analyst, Revenue Planning
& Analytics
Las Vegas Raiders

Alex Foster is part of the team propelling the Las Vegas Raiders into the spotlight of sports business. On behalf of internal business units and Raiders corporate partners, Alex manages the organization’s consumer insights and media measurement platforms to optimize performance at every stage of the marketing funnel.

Erika Gunerman

VP of Account Management
StellarAlgo

As the VP of Account Management for StellarAlgo, Erika is responsible for nurturing and growing the existing client relationships across StellarAlgo’s portfolio, working most closely with the NFL and the 32 franchises. Erika has spent the past 7+ years of her career in the sports business specifically focused on helping sports properties utilize data and analytics to optimize business practices. Prior to StellarAlgo, Erika has worked most recently at Turnkey Intelligence (now part of MarketCast) and prior to that, spent time on the team side, in the nonprofit sector and in college athletics, so has first-hand experience across a wide spanse of the sports industry.

Eileen Silvergleid

Chief Revenue Officer
Sports Business Journal

Eileen Silvergleid joined Sports Business Journal in 2019 as its first ever CRO, overseeing all revenue, including ad sales, conference sponsorship, partnerships and circulation. With more than 20 years’ experience leading various sales and account management teams in the C-level professional services industry, Eileen is responsible for the performance, strategy and alignment of all SBJ revenue operations.