In a world where technology remains the prevalent vehicle for Sports teams to interact with their fanbase, large amounts of data are the by-product of this symbiotic relationship. While this data has the potential to inform club strategies, back-up creative ideas with solid evidence, or just to streamline operations, many organisations are unsure where the best place to get started on their analytical journey is. Today we will look at 5 simple ways a Sports Organisation or Rights Holder can improve their position when it comes to building a data strategy.

According to Gartner, 97% of data sits unused in organisations, with McKinsey reporting that only 1% of business data actually gets analysed. While data and analytics may seem like a broad and overwhelming subject, the most important part is just knowing where to start. Embarking on a data analytics programme can be seen as daunting, but you don’t need to boil the ocean to see short-term informative results.

Source: Statista (Leading challenges with using data to drive business value in organizations throughout Europe and the United States in 2021)

Implementing the use of data analytics to drive incremental business value can start in a much more simplistic way than many might think. The best place to begin is to do some work understanding what business impact you want each of these decisions to make —whether that is to increase ticket sales, drive merchandise spend, increase frequency of visits, or to decrease churn while growing the active and new customer segments.

In a Harvard Business Review published whitepaper titled ‘REAL-TIME ANALYTICS - The Key to Unlocking Customer Insights & Driving the Customer Experience’ they outline a number of actions companies should take to increase their likelihood of success. Here are 5 of our favourites and how they can be applied to your organisation:

Best Practices for Adopting Data Analytics into your Sports Organisation

Start with the problem you want to solve, prioritise those use cases in terms of impact, and then figure out what’s required in terms of technology infrastructure and organisational change to get there. We are all resource constricted so focus on things which will deliver the biggest wins first. Use the data you have at hand to prove out the potential ROI.
Conduct a data audit in order to understand what you are working with in the short term and what is a longer-term goal. In an ideal world all companies would have the budget and resources to create a 360-degree view of all their organisational data and their customer base, but the reality of course looks very different. If you don’t have the luxury of a fully connected platform that pulls in data from all areas of your business, then you can prioritise the the data you do currently have available.
Develop and prioritise use cases. Draft a few initial purposes for real-time analytics within your organisation and clearly define the business objectives for each. Prioritise them based on value, viability, and the path of least resistance.
Determine the technology & resource infrastructure necessary to deliver the desired outcomes. When developing or investing in visualisation tools, make sure you keep the end users in mind. Intuitive, user-friendly tools are key to adoption and therefore success. Make sure that everyone who can benefit from using analytics tools across the organisation has access to them.
Build for scale. Consider cloud-based solutions that are easier to deploy and develop as your requirements change. Those who are successful in adopting real-time analytics continually monitor their results and adapt their strategy in accordance with what is working.

While it’s important to figure out the strategy, most of the progress will come from actually executing it, so make sure you are working with a data analytics provider who can give you the expertise you require. Start small and build on the results - even small changes to the current approach can yield massive wins in operational efficiency and marketing campaign ROI in the short term.

The Fulltime Analytics platform automates the tasks of pooling and checking your data, presenting it back in a user-friendly and intuitive manner. Our team can help with asking the right questions of your business to ensure you get meaningful and actionable insight and output. You can contact us here for a no-obligation chat about how to get started with using data to grow your sports businesses.

5 Tips For Getting Started With Data Analytics In Sport