May 29, 2024 • 43 mins
Welcome to this episode of "How I Met Your Data." Join hosts Sandy and Anjali as they delve into a captivating conversation with Erin Kelly from Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR). Erin, the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions and Strategy, shares her experiences and insights on how KAGR, leverages data management, advanced analytics, and strategic consulting to help sports teams and leagues run their business more efficiently.
Erin discusses the importance of understanding fans beyond ticketing, the rise of sophisticated sponsorship analytics, and the impact of pop culture phenomena like Taylor Swift on sports viewership.
Tune in to explore the ever-evolving landscape of sports analytics and how data is shaping the future of fan engagement, team operations, and business strategies in the sports and entertainment industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hopefully they stay together, but we'll see. Yeah, we don't want to start any
rumors. There's no rumors.
We don't want this with the nation after us. Let's not. I don't want them after us.
Sandy here. Welcome to How I Met Your Data. I have to apologize.
This is going to be a long episode.
And initially I was going to break this up into two.
After listening to it, I just, it just felt wrong to do that. So leaving it out there.
(00:25):
So buckle up, take it in chunks, do as you wish. But great conversation with
Erin Kelly from Craft Analytics Group.
And Anjali and I just truly enjoyed chatting with her and learning more about
Craft Analytics Does and how they help the sports teams out there in the leagues
run their business with data. So listen on in.
Music.
(00:55):
So, Erin, it is so great to be talking to you.
Sandy and I kind of realized early on that we both knew you individually of one another.
You and I worked at the same consulting firm for a period of time.
I remember meeting you in Chicago where these DNA leaders were all brought together.
Not entirely sure what the purpose of that meeting is now. It's been several
(01:18):
years. I think it was back in 2018.
I was a new mom, so still trying to figure out my new life and traveling and
working and having a kid. And I remember you and I met and we chatted actually
quite a bit about, you know, saving space for our kids and kind of prioritizing.
Kid time with work and how to manage that. And that really stuck with me.
And when I joined Sandy in this adventure at Cervelo, realized that we both
(01:42):
knew you and we're really excited that we had this common connection.
So thrilled that you're here with us as you've now moved on to Craft Analytics Group.
Kager, as it's affectionately known, is a technology and services company focused
on data management, advanced analytics, and strategic consulting in the sports
and entertainment industry.
Aaron is the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions and Strategy.
(02:05):
Aaron, can you tell us what the Senior VP of Enterprise Solutions and Strategy
is responsible for and what you do day to day? That sounds so impressive, by the way.
What does that all mean? Well, first of all, when you said, why were we together
back in Chicago, it was connections.
And I think that if I really think about it, and before I explain a little bit bit more about myself.
(02:29):
When I saw you guys were putting this podcast out, I thought,
wow, you two are people that I put up in the world in terms of data, in terms of connectors.
And I really just see that this podcast is like an awesome platform to connect
all of us as listeners to a variety of folks with different perspectives.
So thank you for being great connectors.
(02:50):
I'm glad that we connected several times throughout the process here.
And thank you for that introduction from from a Kager standpoint.
So yes, I am the Senior Vice President at Kager. I manage all of our client-facing delivery.
So we go to market in two main kind of service areas.
One is a SaaS-based data warehouse platform and tools, and the second is strategic consulting.
(03:12):
So we actually started, we spun out of craft sports and entertainment,
the Patriots revolution, what have you.
Close to eight years ago, the CEO, Jessica Gelman, has worked with the crafts
in general, almost two decades at this point too.
So we started as a product and a data warehouse platform, data management platform,
because we saw an opportunity, especially in sports and entertainment,
(03:35):
to help clubs, leagues, industry players better understand the fans beyond just the ticketing.
Well, starting with ticketing, but really just beyond the ticketing.
And as we spun up the software data management platform, saw a need as well
that you can, great, you can integrate and bring data all together,
but how do you actually apply data to business problems and business areas?
(03:57):
And that's where our strategic consulting team.
Grew up over the last five or six years at this point. So it's been an awesome journey.
I've been with Kager four and a half years, left Slalom after a six-year stint
there, running the data and analytics practice to jump over to Kager.
It's been a great journey. I joined, we were 40 people.
We were kind of at this interesting inflection point. I also joined less than
(04:19):
90 days before COVID kind of officially hit and the sports and entertainment
space shut down altogether.
And so So it's been a really interesting journey.
But I think what we've seen a lot is that even coming out of COVID,
it's been such an accelerant in terms of the importance of data and analytics
to drive the industry forward, to drive the best fan experiences.
(04:40):
And it's been a super fun journey and where I feel like we're just getting started.
I think before we get too far, let's just put it to bed and address the elephant in the room.
What are your favorite sports teams and players?
I love this question. And I actually was chatting at dinner with my family the other day.
So I have an eight-year-old girl who plays a bunch of sports,
(05:00):
and I have an 11-year-old boy, similar, very sporty.
They do like other things, but they're pretty big athletes. And so I was sharing
and asking them who their favorite, and then I asked them who mom would say.
And so initially, my daughter immediately said, well, me.
So yes, I do have two budding athletes in my house that are my favorite athletes,
(05:20):
by far, done. So getting that out there in the world.
But if we switch outside the Kelly household, my favorite player is Caitlin Clark.
I think she is just phenomenal.
I mean, beyond just how good she is on the basketball court,
just how brave she is as a...
Young woman coming out into the professional arena.
(05:42):
She has lots of eyes on her at any point in time.
Just the ability to operate at her level under pressure.
Like Billie Jean King, I think, had once said, pressure is a privilege.
To me, she just embodies what that means. And I think it's phenomenal.
I love that we're talking about Caitlin Clark at home all the time in terms
(06:04):
of what she's doing now, how she's entering into the professional arena.
It just, it opens up so many more conversations around women's sports in general.
From a favorite team standpoint, you know, this is funny.
I actually feel like it's a little bit of like the yearbook superlative,
like who's my favorite team with the best mascot?
I would say I love like the Timberwolves are one of our clients.
(06:25):
They have Crunch, the wolf is their mascot.
Love it. My favorite Boston team is the Celtics. I think that's timely right
now. They're going towards hopefully NBA finals.
My favorite U.S. team, so I am definitely a, I love the Olympics coming up.
I love just that camaraderie that nationwide sports brings.
(06:45):
And the U.S. women's national team, the women's soccer team is my favorite and
really rooting for them.
I think they're at an inflection point and excited to see they've got a new
coach and other things like that.
So anyways, I probably sound a little little bit crazy. But I think it's interesting
because for me as a sports fan, pop culture fan, I don't think I'm unique in
terms of I don't have just one. I have many.
(07:08):
And I describe them in very different ways that are both emotional and rational.
And I think that to me is like underpins.
Why Kager does what we do on a day-to-day basis for our clients.
How do you actually put context into all the pieces that I've just rattled in
terms of who my favorites are?
I love the Caitlin Clark call-out because I think what's interesting about her
(07:32):
is she's extremely confident, yet very humble at the same time.
And that is a balance that we often do not see in players, male or female in sports.
But I watched her just the other day, there was this little thing I saw where
she was coming out of a, I think it was halftime, she was being actually coached by another player.
The other player was giving her feedback as they were walking back to a locker room.
(07:54):
And she was listening intently and having that conversation.
I thought that was fantastic because it's good to have young women see that. A hundred percent.
Absolute confidence she has, but yet still grounded and humble in terms of where
she can grow from others who have been, you know, who've walked that path.
Yeah. Love it. The other comment you made about being diverse, right?
And having multifaceted likes, some emotional, some specific because it's your hometown, etc.
(08:20):
I wonder if you find that it's really driven by a shift in how we consume information.
Because when we were younger, the only thing we saw was our hometown team.
We didn't really get publicized in terms of unless it was like Michael Jordan
or somebody really, really out there.
We really didn't know the inner lives and workings of people.
We weren't following them on Instagram.
(08:42):
They weren't trending on Twitter randomly. I would assume that you find that
to really change the way people fan.
Yeah, I think you're 100% spot on there. It's like, yeah, if you think back like 30 plus years ago,
you know, regional sports networks, you were tuning in to watch what you had
on your, I don't know, 10, 12, 50s channels on your TV, let alone just the consumption
(09:04):
that you were having via newspaper and other things like that.
And yeah, we see so many trends coming that people are following players,
that they have multiple favorite teams.
There's this mindfulness, especially at the professional league level,
to really understand fandom across the sport in general.
And so we work with all professional leagues, including the NFL and the NBA.
(09:26):
And those are two, in my mind, that have really understood this and really tried
to lean in to understand just the ways of how people are consuming information
and what does that look like,
even to the point where the NFL
has tried various digital platforms and viewership platforms and whatnot,
just as a means to, one, deliver the content out to where the folks are,
(09:48):
but learning through that. What actually works? Where are people consuming?
How can you actually use that information to then drive the next wave of interaction?
We were overseas a couple weeks ago, one of our first European football clubs,
soccer clubs, and they were talking a lot around how they are digitally activating
and engaging via WhatsApp from an application standpoint. point.
(10:10):
So, you know, obviously, like WhatsApp is on my phone, because if you're traveling
overseas, that's what you're using.
But it's less like relevant, I think, into daily ways of life, at least for me in the US.
But just like thinking about like, how do you become a master or at least a
at least having like an appreciation for all the different touch points that
people could be engaging from a digital standpoint?
(10:31):
And what do you do with that information? It's like a treasure trove of tidbits
there to really understand kind of the fan at a deeper level. Sure.
So like as you're kind of thinking about like engaging with the fans at a deeper
level, are you seeing certain trends that are really shaping how sports teams
are interacting with their fans?
Yeah, absolutely. So just to take like a step.
(10:54):
To the side for a moment. So Kager, we work on the business side of sports.
So we don't do necessarily on the on-field, on-court performance pieces.
And really, for us, the fan is at the middle of the nucleus of everything from
an understanding, what are all the different business levers that you can drive
with a deeper understanding of the fan?
And so, you know, we think about those levers and kind of a few big buckets,
(11:18):
and then there's some ancillary levers. But obviously, ticketing is one of those.
Media, in terms of the media rights, both at the league level,
the team level, and industry level.
Sponsorship in terms of big brands and how they're interacting with the clubs and the leagues.
Retail and then kind of in-venue and game day. I think ticketing is always going
to be king in terms of those interaction points.
(11:41):
But at the same time, there is a ton of data and analytics that are driving
that on any point in time.
I think where we see from a CAGR standpoint is that a lot of clubs still need
to get the foundational data management layer right to then be able to do the
dynamic pricing, the more sophisticated algorithms or whatnot.
So obviously, there's always going to be more room for improvement there.
But I think one of our biggest areas that we see is really around the sponsorship side.
(12:04):
So there's an increasing desire for sponsors of the big brands to understand
at a deeper level, who are the fans?
Who are the eyeballs that are going to see that name on the or the patch on
the jersey, the name on the stadium, the billboard outside when you're pulling
into the parking lot or the digital signage when you go to the app or the website or whatnot.
(12:25):
At the end of the day, the sponsor, it becomes a valuation equation.
So what's the value proposition of that club to the sponsor and vice versa?
And I think we're seeing an increased level of sophistication and frankly,
kind of ripe for innovation in terms of how you can get more granular around
the true value of a fan and of a brand to the club and vice versa. I have a question.
(12:48):
You triggered a thought in my head as you were talking because.
Player sponsorship specifically is a big deal.
Like, you know, I look at Caitlin Clark, she's getting Uber dollars right now.
Have players come to you? Have players come to Kager and said, help me?
Because I think about not just their sponsorship opportunities,
(13:09):
but also thinking about their memorabilia, right?
Like I know a lot of players resell their own stuff. off.
I'm just curious, has Kager dabbled in player analytics?
No, there are kind of big entities out there.
So like Wasserman is one of a big entity there. They have an awesome women's sports area.
(13:29):
So it is more your traditional like agency model and that they're working then
with the brands on behalf of the player.
But it is really interesting because I think where you're going is like,
how do we connect all the diverse data points there?
You have a player, you have a brand you have the
actual business side of the club that that player it's
(13:50):
a it's a missing it's we think about like the three-legged stool or
the 10-legged stool you're missing a stool there if you're actually not
connecting the business side of the the entity that that player is engaging
with with the brand and the person it's like you're only then looking at the
social media channels and the other channels like that but you're you're you're
missing that triangulation and you know i think i think there are a lot of technologies
(14:11):
and like concepts out there that
are trying to push to like more data sharing and pieces like that.
Obviously, that's, you know, heavily governed.
And I don't know if that's all the things that you guys are probably seeing
as well. I always think of Anjali as like the governance queen.
So you could probably teach me a little bit in terms of some of the new frameworks
(14:32):
and how people are thinking about making sure we're keeping,
you know, everything safe and secure and at the right level.
Yeah, call me anytime. time.
Awesome. Done. Connection. Check. So, Erin, you had mentioned the NFL and the
NBA kind of being a little bit more ahead of the curve in terms of their use of data and analytics.
(14:54):
But are you seeing some other leagues that may be a little bit more challenged,
a little bit more difficult or behind the curve?
And what's really driving them to stay where they are and really not take that next step? Yeah.
Well, besides the fact that they're not working as much with Kager.
That's one. So I will put my own pitch on that.
But no, I mean, I think in all seriousness, they're leaving the opportunities
(15:18):
on the table to actually capture the fan data beyond just the ticketing and transactions.
They're thinking more around the short-term operational, how can I get this
event stood up, but not necessarily thinking about all the different parts and
pieces from an experience standpoint.
I think as we look across leagues, there are leagues where your traditional
(15:39):
season ticket member is now.
Mid-50s and aging. And that's a scary place for some leagues to be in.
A full season ticket membership for any of the professionals, that's a heavy price.
One of the NBA clubs that we work with have done like junior membership.
And it's been a great opportunity to start to pull kind of younger folks in
(15:59):
and just get the bite at the apple. And at that point, it's not just about the revenue.
It's about actually forward looking, like how can you make sure that you're
filling the right funnel here so that you can deliver a great product on the
court ice field, but also just sustain that kind of community,
which is really driving that business forward.
So I guess like said in a different way, what are the laggards not doing?
(16:21):
They're not investing as much in data and analytics.
They're not taking technology serious as a true business driver.
They're shying away from even thinking AI and some of the productivity efficiency
that they're, let alone alone, just driving new customer experience and how
to get more efficient with the technology pieces.
But I do think it's changing. I think the last thing I'll say on this is we've
(16:44):
seen over the last couple of years, several, there's been a lot of transactions of teams acquired,
and it's brought even more kind of business-minded folks and entities into the sports arena.
So you're more traditional folks who have kind of grown up as owners are either
being displaced or Or importantly,
adding new thought leaders into the mix that don't necessarily have the history
(17:08):
of sports as a business, but are.
Savvy business people that have come from the financial services,
the consumer goods, whatever, that actually believes in data and can bring those
skill sets and experience to the table.
Well, that being said, one of the things that I've noticed, love to get your
thoughts on, is just this intersection of sports and truly entertainment, right?
(17:33):
Like, I don't think we can have a conversation about sports without talking
about SWELSI or whatever other acronym and we started to pull together for them, right?
So, you know, can you talk a little bit about that Taylor Swift effect on the
NFL and how, like, is Kager really exploring that or doing anything with that explosion of data?
(17:54):
Yeah, I love it. I saw Taylor when she came through Gillette Stadium last year. That was so phenomenal.
I cannot actually even explain how great of experience that was.
So a couple, like, quick facts here for you. So even just looking at the U.S.
Population, I recently read that 40% of the U.S. population are Taylor Swift fans or casual fans.
(18:17):
So 10% of the U.S. population are super fans, Swifties.
29% are casual fans. So 40% of people are tuning in, excited about what's happening.
I also read that they were more likely 83% to 64%. So that's Swifties to general
population to watch the Super Bowl.
So that is like nuts. That is never, it's like such a phenomenon in terms of
(18:42):
what this person can kind of bring to the table.
And so, you know, even if you're caring less about Taylor, you're just like
more people are watching an event and that just pulls everybody to the table.
You want to be part of the water cooler discussion or the chit chat or the community
discussions or whatnot.
So what does that actually mean and translate to? So-
(19:02):
To some extent, that's still really viewership and digital engagement and other pieces like that.
It's not necessarily translating to ticketing yet in terms of how the demographics are changing.
There's parts and pieces there for sure, and folks that are probably attending
more so because she may be in there.
But I think there's definitely room for improvement in terms of how to capture
(19:23):
those Swifties to be actual ticket purchasers.
To answer your question, how are we, Kager, thinking about it.
I think we're following the data.
We're trying to figure out where and how the demographics are actually changing.
Where are they changing?
And is there like, what's the true impact there? We know it's a pop culture impact for sure.
And we know that the halo effect to lots of different tangential businesses is there.
(19:46):
But like, what does that actually mean from a sustainable power of the revenue
streams to the leagues and teams itself?
You mentioned demographics changing for ticket buying.
And I can only imagine because the men Men are still going to go to the games.
They're still going to go to the games. So maybe they're not taking their buddy.
Maybe they're taking their spouse, their significant other instead.
And then the other guy has to go buy his own ticket, right? So that might be the story we see.
(20:10):
I did find it interesting because the NFL posted, they admitted,
that they had to look at the schedule based on where Taylor Swift was going to be.
And it could be because she had a concert at a venue, et cetera,
and they wanted to work around that.
But she's literally impacting what the NFL is doing, which is mind-blowing.
She's awesome. Hopefully they stay together, but we'll see.
(20:31):
Yeah, no, we don't want to start any rumors. There's no rumors.
We don't want the Swifty Nation after us. Let's not. I don't want them after us.
But just think about, like, you've got the Taylor Swift movement,
and then you have the Caitlin Clark movement, and you have the WNB,
and you have on the Coco Gauffs, and the tennis side is, like, growing crazy.
And then you've got, anyways, it just feels like it's such a moment
(20:52):
that is now the like norm of what this all
should be and how all the diversity can can
find its way in and and it really is going to be interesting in
terms of what leagues and teams are going to win in capturing the diversity
and thinking about the product not just of what used to work five ten whatever
years ago but like how do you make sure that when you have the dad and the daughter
(21:14):
or the mom and the son and the what what the maybe a little bit different mix
that it's a great experience.
And it may need to look a little bit different. You may need to be delivering
different amenities to folks when they come in the gates.
And so I think that's just, again, goes back to like the data,
the understanding, the fan behaviors, tapping into those emotions,
and then how can you actually map the product and the experience to those pieces as well? Yeah, exactly.
(21:39):
And I mean, it's curious because, you know, when you talk about having that.
Almost personalized experience when you walk through the door of a stadium,
depending on who you are, would love to hear like some of the changes that you've
seen over the last five, 10 years from an experience perspective. Yeah, absolutely.
We're working with one client now in the NFL out in California,
(22:01):
who is like going digital with a lot of their season ticket member amenities.
So basically, like, how do you light up when that person scans coming through the gate,
delivering specific content and or
food and beverage or other things like that like really leaning
into understanding where people are coming from and how to like
customize and personalize the offers it's actually crazy to think about before
(22:24):
covid i think it was less than half of the nfl clubs had had more exclusively
mobile ticketing maybe it was like a handful maybe i don't know less than a
dozen clubs and so mobile ticketing now is just ubiquitous like that's just what everybody does.
But think about that. We used to have the paper tickets, which meant you didn't
know who actually that belonged to.
Now we know who that mobile ticket belongs to. You know at least some level
(22:48):
of information and you have some way to communicate with them during the event,
before the event, and after the event, which is a great kind of turn in terms
of what's happening there.
I don't think we can have a conversation about data and analytics in any industry and not touch on AI.
So, you know, from a sports and entertainment perspective, what sort of opportunities
(23:10):
have you been discovering in terms of the usage of AI? Yeah, absolutely.
Sales and marketing has been just like a huge area of growth and acceptance
from an AI use cases and whatnot.
We work with an entity that sells Super Bowl tickets and kind of huge opportunity there.
The weekend before the Super Bowl, they have so many leads that come in,
(23:33):
in terms of people that are filling out online forms and all these other things.
Like how can you actually, like yes you can use some analytical modeling and
machine learning, but you have to take it a whole step forward.
Like how do you actually think about understanding who is that person?
How do I, how can I use any other context out there to then deliver back a
(23:54):
some level of message that's going to drive some level of conversion there,
just to be able to, I guess, reduce the overall burden from a manual interaction standpoint.
On an actual level, we're definitely seeing more from a customer experience standpoint.
So kind of in-venue experience, how folks are getting communicated to kind of
(24:16):
personalized content and other pieces like that based off of transactions and whatnot.
I still think we're scratching the surface in terms of how it's being used from
a true sports and entertainment standpoint.
But I think the sales and marketing is really out in front, both from the efficiencies
use cases, as well as starting to customize some experience.
However, as you guys probably are seeing, and I would love to kind of understand
(24:38):
what you're seeing from the other industries too, if you don't have the foundational
data in place, and you don't have some of the underlying data management,
like it's not going to work as well as you want it to.
And so again, it's that, you know, that balance of how can you use the true
power of AI, but have the right confidence that it's going to work the way that you're intending it to.
We keep saying you can't have AI without data.
(25:01):
So to your point, unless your data house is in order, you have the right data,
you understand its context, you know whether or not you should be able to use it ethically.
You can't really be confident in the outputs of your AI.
Well, it's also, I think what's conflated about the whole situation is that,
particularly with Gen AI, not your traditional, you know, machine learning,
(25:24):
that's a different challenge, right? That's your traditional data set that...
Maybe you have some unstructured. For the most part, it's being done against
structured data assets.
And we all very well know from many, many years of data management what we're
supposed to be doing there. Whether somebody's doing it or not,
that's a different story, right?
But I think with Gen AI, the challenge is a lot of that is on unstructured data.
(25:46):
And the data management governance principles around that are still not clearly defined.
And most organizations don't do it. They just don't.
They just drop it somewhere. And if somebody wants to use it,
they're responsible for ensuring it's accurate and complete, right?
So I think that's part of the challenge here in terms of efficacy and making
it right and ensuring you have great context is that there's got to be a new
(26:11):
capability within your organization to ensure that you're creating that,
whether it's a graph database or some kind of semantic around the non-structured
data that you now have to mine in order to get those kinds of insights.
And going back to your point about having all these leads one week before the
Super Bowl, I think about a marketing team trying to figure out,
(26:32):
how am I going to convert those leads?
Now, today, if you only have a week, there's only so much you can do from a
targeting message back and doing that analysis.
You're probably only bucketing three or four messages, right?
You can't get to that micro target where you can really turn the knob a bit.
And that's ripe right there, right?
Because now you can really micro-target that message because you have something
(26:54):
like Gen AI behind you plus the ML.
That's priority giving you all the different categories of, of,
and clusters of, of people and figuring out what the right messaging is at mass.
That is an intriguing prospect for sure. It is. Absolutely. Love it.
Let's go figure that out.
But yes. Give me a call.
Two for two now. Two for two. And dropped her own self-promotion as well.
(27:19):
So I think we're all covered.
Yeah, we're all good. Exactly. You know, one of our clients,
public clients we work with is the Philadelphia Eagles.
I love them. I know that's like right in your backyard.
They're just great, great people. Their CFO, we were down there last season,
almost honestly had me in tears talking about how much they think of their fans
(27:40):
as family and how to replicate that familial feel when you have 65 plus thousand in the stadium.
And he was sharing that there was a season ticket member, a dad and a son,
and they had been in the stadium.
They may have had tickets for several decades. I don't, it could have been 30 plus years.
And unfortunately over the off season, the dad passed away.
And so the first game, the son comes, you know, the customer service rep knew that that had happened.
(28:05):
The son comes with a friend and the leadership of the Eagles met them into this,
in the stands, condolences, and then also also gave them his dad's seat.
Basically, it was like, we have removed your dad's seat from where he has been sitting.
Isn't that awesome? I'm teary already. Yeah, that's beautiful.
And so again, like when we were chatting through that, it's like,
(28:27):
how do you create that emotional connection?
Data technology has to be able to help that in a genuine way.
And they're not going to be pulling every seat out of Lincoln Financial. However, like,
That's why people show up. That's why that family is coming back for their 31st
year and their 32nd year and what have you.
And, you know, that might be their vacation fund for the year is going to nine,
(28:51):
10 Eagles home games. And it gives everybody around them the ability to sit
there and they now feel connected by seeing that action, by seeing that moment.
It's, wow, the Eagles really do care about their fan base. They really do care
about us as individuals.
It doesn't have to be me necessarily, but seeing them do that for somebody else
actually makes me feel more connected to the team as well, right?
(29:12):
Yeah, 100%. And so, well, I do think then our theme of the podcast is connection.
So we'll continue and where data connects, right? One of the things that we
were talking about is, okay, well, we have to make sure then that the customer
service reps are creating the right data.
That was an extreme example. But when you actually have that face-to-face contact,
how are you creating some of that context so that potentially you could be utilizing
(29:35):
that within more analytics or whatnot to understand,
to your point, kind of at that micro level, what is actually the offer or the
product or the messaging that you want to be delivering at any point?
You mentioned Kager has two pieces. It's a SaaS data warehouse.
There's also the consulting and advisory services, I'm assuming, together and separate.
How deep is it in terms of the inner workings of a league or a team?
(29:58):
How broad is that perspective, the entire part of the company,
except for what happens on field? I would say with the industry leaders of each
of the leagues, it's very pervasive. It's a hub and spoke.
It's like you've got that underlying data set and you have your 30 plus different
business applications,
your apps, your whatever actually connected in so that at any point in time,
(30:20):
you can be delivering out to whatever business unit is needed and is there.
And those are the teams that are winning.
Those are the teams that are taking advantage of the opportunity.
Like, we always talk to our clients around like team performance matters.
Yes, 110%. You almost want to be building all these capabilities when the team
is doing really well, because you're one prepping yourself for what happens
(30:41):
if not, and then you're taking advantage of all the upside.
If they're not doing well, hey, let's actually get the house in order. And frankly,
that's what we saw during COVID is that we saw a lot more organizations using
that time, that inflection point to say,
we got to get the data and analyst infrastructure in place because we know it's
going to be even more critical to make those business decisions coming out of
(31:02):
this. We don't know what the fan is going to look like. They're going to look different.
They're going to be consuming from the bubbles and the wobbles and whatever
else was happening five years ago.
And how do you actually then translate that to what's going to end up happening
in your venue? Yeah, I'm still thinking about the Eagles, the Eagles piece.
I will say living in the Philadelphia area as a transplant initially.
I did not understand the fever pitch of any of the Philadelphia teams,
(31:28):
but especially the Eagles.
But you hear stories like that. You see how the sports players,
when they're doing their, their charity events, it's truly done from the heart.
At the events, they're engaging with their fans and really bringing them into the fold.
But then what happens when that player leaves the team?
(31:50):
I mean, there has to be so much data about how they're engaging with their fandom
and how their fans are receiving them.
So then what happens when that player leaves the team and goes to another?
How is that data truly transmitted and and capitalized on by the next.
Well, so a couple of things, because I think that actually goes some of that,
(32:12):
what you're talking about actually goes back to Sandy's point a little bit earlier,
which was talking about the, the agent and the player and the disconnect between the business.
And so there is still a little bit of that disconnect there.
However, we did a project with the NFL a couple of years ago called the non-home fan project.
And so part of this was actually trying to understand on any given Sunday,
(32:32):
where were fans coming from?
How many fans were home fans, how many fans were casual fans,
how many fans were traveling fans, destination fans, what have you.
We found that double digit percentages of on any given Sunday were non-home fans.
And we found that certain teams, and like anecdotally, we knew this,
but the power of that destination traveling fan and being able to do all the
(32:56):
connections there to know that,
okay, the Eagles have just traded XYZ player to this, we're expecting these things to happen.
However, However, when you actually start to look at the data,
you start to see the big opportunities that exist there in terms of,
well, what other offerings should be there?
What's the experience going to look like? Many times in professional leagues,
owners don't want visiting fans in the stadium.
(33:17):
They do a lot of geolocation work to keep them out. They're going to get there anyways.
People can sell on the secondary. What happened? There's a there's a use case
here that if you actually lean in a little bit into the right pockets there
of the destination or the traveling fans, it's a huge opportunity.
We did a pretty robust analysis.
And then we went with one of the clubs and gave them some customer lists of
(33:39):
folks that they wouldn't normally reach out to.
And they they did two email campaigns, multimillion dollars in terms of opportunity
there back from a conversion standpoint, be people buying tickets,
these these casual fans, these traveling fans that might not have made the connection.
Or if they made the connection, it would have been last minute.
And oh, by the way, now that they've actually identified these people,
(33:59):
they can now provide additional experiences or opportunities.
Here's a pre-event hospitality.
Here's another way to stay engaged. Hey, when this team comes next year,
do you want to know about it?
Again, it's creating more and more information there and creating that connection,
that interconnectivity across the whole community and landscape.
I mean, I can't even imagine if, and there's somebody close to home here, Mr. Tom Brady.
(34:24):
He goes to Tampa and then he says he's going to retire or everybody thinks he's about to retire again.
The number of New England fans who got on a plane and they made sure that they
showed up in Tampa to watch their favorite player that they grew up watching
finishes last season. It's a very simple thing.
(34:45):
And honestly, I grew up as a Miami Dolphins fan. I'm still a big Miami Dolphins
fan, even though I'm in the middle of New England.
Patriots land. and I get stuff for it every day, but I can't even,
growing up, if Dan Marino had gone somewhere else, I know I would have been
the first one to tell my parents, like, whatever it takes, we need to go see
(35:05):
him wherever he is because I love them so much.
The Brady factor has probably triggered a lot of things over at Tampa Bay,
for sure. Yeah, 100%. That's actually interesting.
So what Tampa Bay did for their season ticket members the last year Brady played
there was it was a two-year commit.
So it was a commit to his last year plus they had no problem selling them.
The mix may have looked a little bit different, but yeah, to your point,
(35:28):
yeah, you're going to make those moves.
It is really interesting to start to like quantify and put the data behind kind
of some of these opportunities because it starts to just break more legacy thinking
about how to run from an operation standpoint.
It doesn't mean that any team league and organization is going to take all of
those recommendations, but it's just like The data doesn't lie.
(35:49):
It's there. This is how we think from an interpretation standpoint.
Let's test it. We tested it. The value is there. Right.
And I can only imagine it getting more complex over time, too,
just as we said, like social media or even all the other ways we're consuming information.
Whether it's new apps that are coming to the fold, that's going to impact how
people find information, care about other players, care about teams, care about leagues.
(36:13):
I'm a huge Premier League fan because my wife...
Watch his or used to watch now i'm the one waking up
on the morning i don't know how that happened but i'm the
one watching this by myself she got me hooked and
then she decided to sleep it but does she follow any
specific team yeah we're tottenhotspur fans oh yeah just like the miami dolphins
(36:34):
never the yeah never the never the queen of the ball but it's it's intriguing
because it the world has opened up in many many ways well and and and like even
to that point so the world World Cup on the men's side,
FIFA 2026 is coming to the U.S., well, to North America.
Gosh, that is like, it's going to be such an amazing kind of fan activation,
(36:55):
fan understanding opportunities.
Well, because I think there's games in both of our cities, right?
Like, I mean, we have the Meadowlands, and I think that there's some in Gillette,
right? Yeah, Gillette's got seven, which is going to be bananas.
And there's a whole entity in Boston and that's set up to just run the fan fests
and think through what that looks like.
(37:16):
And so, you know, you look at like the messy effect with Major League Soccer,
like it's just the growth and understanding of who's there and how to activate it.
But it's going to be kind of a phenomenal opportunity, one, to bring the world
together, but also just from a like a true like data behavior,
data capture, just learning from a global standpoint and how we at Kager can
(37:37):
take take that to all of our clients.
Yeah. I mean, I was shocked this year to see so many professional cricket matches played here as well.
So yeah, it's surprising, right? There was a huge match, India versus Pakistan
in Nassau Coliseum in Long Island.
So we thought, hey, it'd be great to get some tickets. That'd be fun to go see that match.
(37:58):
Tickets were unattainable. They were in the the thousands of dollars,
like not in the secondary market, like from the get go.
And I'm going, that makes sense though, right? We have a massive community.
Right? In New Jersey and New York.
That absolutely makes sense. Like you have to go where the fans are, right?
If you have a set of fans that miss being able to watch a cricket match, take it to them, right?
(38:23):
I've seen the Premier League teams coming out here and just like the NFL is
starting to go to Europe. They're going to London.
You've got a lot of... And Brazil, they're in Brazil next season, which is nuts.
So that's, yeah. That's going to be insanity. I can't wait to watch that game.
Phillies are going to London this year too. Oh, from a baseball perspective? They may be.
(38:44):
Globalization is awesome. I think from a data professional standpoint,
it's now changing the game. What does all this mean?
How do we think about it from a fan data capture standpoint?
Standpoint, what can be used, what cannot be used, what's the right channels.
It's just, it's like a multivariable equation on how to put it all together, but it's so fun.
And, but it all starts with the underlying infrastructure, get your infrastructure
(39:06):
right. So I have a, I have a question.
Because I have a couple of colleagues who are obsessed with sports analytics.
I'm curious for those fans out there who are interested in data for teams,
what advice would you give them?
Because I do find that probably people don't realize there's two sets of analytics.
(39:27):
There's the business of, you know, having a sports team or running a league.
And then there's the business of the performance on the field,
right? Which is very specific and very different.
And there's not a lot of sharing going on there is my assumption,
right, in terms of what the teams are doing.
So which one's easier to get into? And what advice would you give them?
(39:49):
It's a really great point it's a
really great question to me i think the
business side is just it it is a little bit easier from a from a gateway standpoint
because there's i've seen some of the player specific stats and other pieces
like that it's very very complicated it's just i've heard like basketball stats
talked about and not only do you need to like understand
(40:13):
data and large like troves of data to be able to analyze it.
But you have to understand the game at a very, very granular level,
and like how the interpretation of different metrics and how to think about creation of metrics.
And, and if you're a student of the game, you understand the data,
you want to play with the data, you've invested a lot of time,
energy and effort to do that offline, and you have great data science technology
(40:36):
skills, then you're pretty marketable there.
And so like my boss and her co-founder of Daryl Morey, who's the general manager
of the 76ers co-founded the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
So that happens here in Boston.
I think this year was their 15th year. There's a whole half of the conference
that's focused on player analytics and the innovations of those pieces.
(41:00):
I would highly recommend checking some of those things out.
Some of it is on YouTube and other pieces like that. But they've had concepts
be pitched there that are now regular technologies in the space.
It's really cool. But there's not a whole lot that's like that in terms of that
community that can come together and really both understand all the X's and
(41:22):
O's of the data and then be able to interpret that.
Yeah, that's a really good point. It reminds me very much of somebody trying
to get into bioinformatics.
You have to really know biology and you have to really know data science,
right? Those are a few things that have to be together.
And it's funny because you're talking about sport.
You're talking about sport, right? We're all like, oh, it's just a game.
(41:42):
But the reality is to be able to analyze the doing of the game itself,
The mechanism of the game and what's happening on court on the field,
it requires a level of deep understanding of the game itself almost to very much like a science.
It's yeah you're yeah that's so
well put it's like that precision of are you shooting
(42:04):
from exactly at the free throw line or or slightly over
the free throw line or at the time when you
shot was there a defender within a foot of you three feet of you that there's
just a lot of different ways that all of that can come together and at the end
of the day like it's still going to be an input to an excuse me a decision it's
(42:24):
still an input to whether that player is worth going after or resigning or what have you,
or whether that strategy to that opponent,
when that specific star player plays.
You know, it's all the different scenarios there, but it's pretty cool. Awesome.
Well, Erin, thank you so much.
(42:45):
This conversation has been phenomenal and so interesting. I think we've all
learned something new today.
We're, you know, we're a little bit over what we had planned,
but I think it was well worth our time.
So really appreciate you hanging on and sharing all of these great insights
and nuggets of information and chatting sports and analytics with us.
Yeah, no, this was awesome.
(43:06):
I love talking about it. I love hearing the question. I love hearing the questions
and your, your perspectives too, in terms of what you're, I could,
I could hear and feel the things that you're thinking about on a day-to-day basis.
And you're hearing from your clients in terms of the questions that you're asking.
And I don't know it's it's a it's a pretty pretty fun area so thank you for having me.
Music.
Hopefully they stay together, but we'll see. Yeah, we don't want to start any
rumors. There's no rumors.
We don't want this with the nation after us. Let's not. I don't want them after us.
Sandy here. Welcome to How I Met Your Data. I have to apologize.
This is going to be a long episode.
And initially I was going to break this up into two.
After listening to it, I just, it just felt wrong to do that. So leaving it out there.
(00:25):
So buckle up, take it in chunks, do as you wish. But great conversation with
Erin Kelly from Craft Analytics Group.
And Anjali and I just truly enjoyed chatting with her and learning more about
Craft Analytics Does and how they help the sports teams out there in the leagues
run their business with data. So listen on in.
Music.
(00:55):
So, Erin, it is so great to be talking to you.
Sandy and I kind of realized early on that we both knew you individually of one another.
You and I worked at the same consulting firm for a period of time.
I remember meeting you in Chicago where these DNA leaders were all brought together.
Not entirely sure what the purpose of that meeting is now. It's been several
(01:18):
years. I think it was back in 2018.
I was a new mom, so still trying to figure out my new life and traveling and
working and having a kid. And I remember you and I met and we chatted actually
quite a bit about, you know, saving space for our kids and kind of prioritizing.
Kid time with work and how to manage that. And that really stuck with me.
And when I joined Sandy in this adventure at Cervelo, realized that we both
(01:42):
knew you and we're really excited that we had this common connection.
So thrilled that you're here with us as you've now moved on to Craft Analytics Group.
Kager, as it's affectionately known, is a technology and services company focused
on data management, advanced analytics, and strategic consulting in the sports
and entertainment industry.
Aaron is the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions and Strategy.
(02:05):
Aaron, can you tell us what the Senior VP of Enterprise Solutions and Strategy
is responsible for and what you do day to day? That sounds so impressive, by the way.
What does that all mean? Well, first of all, when you said, why were we together
back in Chicago, it was connections.
And I think that if I really think about it, and before I explain a little bit bit more about myself.
(02:29):
When I saw you guys were putting this podcast out, I thought,
wow, you two are people that I put up in the world in terms of data, in terms of connectors.
And I really just see that this podcast is like an awesome platform to connect
all of us as listeners to a variety of folks with different perspectives.
So thank you for being great connectors.
(02:50):
I'm glad that we connected several times throughout the process here.
And thank you for that introduction from from a Kager standpoint.
So yes, I am the Senior Vice President at Kager. I manage all of our client-facing delivery.
So we go to market in two main kind of service areas.
One is a SaaS-based data warehouse platform and tools, and the second is strategic consulting.
(03:12):
So we actually started, we spun out of craft sports and entertainment,
the Patriots revolution, what have you.
Close to eight years ago, the CEO, Jessica Gelman, has worked with the crafts
in general, almost two decades at this point too.
So we started as a product and a data warehouse platform, data management platform,
because we saw an opportunity, especially in sports and entertainment,
(03:35):
to help clubs, leagues, industry players better understand the fans beyond just the ticketing.
Well, starting with ticketing, but really just beyond the ticketing.
And as we spun up the software data management platform, saw a need as well
that you can, great, you can integrate and bring data all together,
but how do you actually apply data to business problems and business areas?
(03:57):
And that's where our strategic consulting team.
Grew up over the last five or six years at this point. So it's been an awesome journey.
I've been with Kager four and a half years, left Slalom after a six-year stint
there, running the data and analytics practice to jump over to Kager.
It's been a great journey. I joined, we were 40 people.
We were kind of at this interesting inflection point. I also joined less than
(04:19):
90 days before COVID kind of officially hit and the sports and entertainment
space shut down altogether.
And so So it's been a really interesting journey.
But I think what we've seen a lot is that even coming out of COVID,
it's been such an accelerant in terms of the importance of data and analytics
to drive the industry forward, to drive the best fan experiences.
(04:40):
And it's been a super fun journey and where I feel like we're just getting started.
I think before we get too far, let's just put it to bed and address the elephant in the room.
What are your favorite sports teams and players?
I love this question. And I actually was chatting at dinner with my family the other day.
So I have an eight-year-old girl who plays a bunch of sports,
(05:00):
and I have an 11-year-old boy, similar, very sporty.
They do like other things, but they're pretty big athletes. And so I was sharing
and asking them who their favorite, and then I asked them who mom would say.
And so initially, my daughter immediately said, well, me.
So yes, I do have two budding athletes in my house that are my favorite athletes,
(05:20):
by far, done. So getting that out there in the world.
But if we switch outside the Kelly household, my favorite player is Caitlin Clark.
I think she is just phenomenal.
I mean, beyond just how good she is on the basketball court,
just how brave she is as a...
Young woman coming out into the professional arena.
(05:42):
She has lots of eyes on her at any point in time.
Just the ability to operate at her level under pressure.
Like Billie Jean King, I think, had once said, pressure is a privilege.
To me, she just embodies what that means. And I think it's phenomenal.
I love that we're talking about Caitlin Clark at home all the time in terms
(06:04):
of what she's doing now, how she's entering into the professional arena.
It just, it opens up so many more conversations around women's sports in general.
From a favorite team standpoint, you know, this is funny.
I actually feel like it's a little bit of like the yearbook superlative,
like who's my favorite team with the best mascot?
I would say I love like the Timberwolves are one of our clients.
(06:25):
They have Crunch, the wolf is their mascot.
Love it. My favorite Boston team is the Celtics. I think that's timely right
now. They're going towards hopefully NBA finals.
My favorite U.S. team, so I am definitely a, I love the Olympics coming up.
I love just that camaraderie that nationwide sports brings.
(06:45):
And the U.S. women's national team, the women's soccer team is my favorite and
really rooting for them.
I think they're at an inflection point and excited to see they've got a new
coach and other things like that.
So anyways, I probably sound a little little bit crazy. But I think it's interesting
because for me as a sports fan, pop culture fan, I don't think I'm unique in
terms of I don't have just one. I have many.
(07:08):
And I describe them in very different ways that are both emotional and rational.
And I think that to me is like underpins.
Why Kager does what we do on a day-to-day basis for our clients.
How do you actually put context into all the pieces that I've just rattled in
terms of who my favorites are?
I love the Caitlin Clark call-out because I think what's interesting about her
(07:32):
is she's extremely confident, yet very humble at the same time.
And that is a balance that we often do not see in players, male or female in sports.
But I watched her just the other day, there was this little thing I saw where
she was coming out of a, I think it was halftime, she was being actually coached by another player.
The other player was giving her feedback as they were walking back to a locker room.
(07:54):
And she was listening intently and having that conversation.
I thought that was fantastic because it's good to have young women see that. A hundred percent.
Absolute confidence she has, but yet still grounded and humble in terms of where
she can grow from others who have been, you know, who've walked that path.
Yeah. Love it. The other comment you made about being diverse, right?
And having multifaceted likes, some emotional, some specific because it's your hometown, etc.
(08:20):
I wonder if you find that it's really driven by a shift in how we consume information.
Because when we were younger, the only thing we saw was our hometown team.
We didn't really get publicized in terms of unless it was like Michael Jordan
or somebody really, really out there.
We really didn't know the inner lives and workings of people.
We weren't following them on Instagram.
(08:42):
They weren't trending on Twitter randomly. I would assume that you find that
to really change the way people fan.
Yeah, I think you're 100% spot on there. It's like, yeah, if you think back like 30 plus years ago,
you know, regional sports networks, you were tuning in to watch what you had
on your, I don't know, 10, 12, 50s channels on your TV, let alone just the consumption
(09:04):
that you were having via newspaper and other things like that.
And yeah, we see so many trends coming that people are following players,
that they have multiple favorite teams.
There's this mindfulness, especially at the professional league level,
to really understand fandom across the sport in general.
And so we work with all professional leagues, including the NFL and the NBA.
(09:26):
And those are two, in my mind, that have really understood this and really tried
to lean in to understand just the ways of how people are consuming information
and what does that look like,
even to the point where the NFL
has tried various digital platforms and viewership platforms and whatnot,
just as a means to, one, deliver the content out to where the folks are,
(09:48):
but learning through that. What actually works? Where are people consuming?
How can you actually use that information to then drive the next wave of interaction?
We were overseas a couple weeks ago, one of our first European football clubs,
soccer clubs, and they were talking a lot around how they are digitally activating
and engaging via WhatsApp from an application standpoint. point.
(10:10):
So, you know, obviously, like WhatsApp is on my phone, because if you're traveling
overseas, that's what you're using.
But it's less like relevant, I think, into daily ways of life, at least for me in the US.
But just like thinking about like, how do you become a master or at least a
at least having like an appreciation for all the different touch points that
people could be engaging from a digital standpoint?
(10:31):
And what do you do with that information? It's like a treasure trove of tidbits
there to really understand kind of the fan at a deeper level. Sure.
So like as you're kind of thinking about like engaging with the fans at a deeper
level, are you seeing certain trends that are really shaping how sports teams
are interacting with their fans?
Yeah, absolutely. So just to take like a step.
(10:54):
To the side for a moment. So Kager, we work on the business side of sports.
So we don't do necessarily on the on-field, on-court performance pieces.
And really, for us, the fan is at the middle of the nucleus of everything from
an understanding, what are all the different business levers that you can drive
with a deeper understanding of the fan?
And so, you know, we think about those levers and kind of a few big buckets,
(11:18):
and then there's some ancillary levers. But obviously, ticketing is one of those.
Media, in terms of the media rights, both at the league level,
the team level, and industry level.
Sponsorship in terms of big brands and how they're interacting with the clubs and the leagues.
Retail and then kind of in-venue and game day. I think ticketing is always going
to be king in terms of those interaction points.
(11:41):
But at the same time, there is a ton of data and analytics that are driving
that on any point in time.
I think where we see from a CAGR standpoint is that a lot of clubs still need
to get the foundational data management layer right to then be able to do the
dynamic pricing, the more sophisticated algorithms or whatnot.
So obviously, there's always going to be more room for improvement there.
But I think one of our biggest areas that we see is really around the sponsorship side.
(12:04):
So there's an increasing desire for sponsors of the big brands to understand
at a deeper level, who are the fans?
Who are the eyeballs that are going to see that name on the or the patch on
the jersey, the name on the stadium, the billboard outside when you're pulling
into the parking lot or the digital signage when you go to the app or the website or whatnot.
(12:25):
At the end of the day, the sponsor, it becomes a valuation equation.
So what's the value proposition of that club to the sponsor and vice versa?
And I think we're seeing an increased level of sophistication and frankly,
kind of ripe for innovation in terms of how you can get more granular around
the true value of a fan and of a brand to the club and vice versa. I have a question.
(12:48):
You triggered a thought in my head as you were talking because.
Player sponsorship specifically is a big deal.
Like, you know, I look at Caitlin Clark, she's getting Uber dollars right now.
Have players come to you? Have players come to Kager and said, help me?
Because I think about not just their sponsorship opportunities,
(13:09):
but also thinking about their memorabilia, right?
Like I know a lot of players resell their own stuff. off.
I'm just curious, has Kager dabbled in player analytics?
No, there are kind of big entities out there.
So like Wasserman is one of a big entity there. They have an awesome women's sports area.
(13:29):
So it is more your traditional like agency model and that they're working then
with the brands on behalf of the player.
But it is really interesting because I think where you're going is like,
how do we connect all the diverse data points there?
You have a player, you have a brand you have the
actual business side of the club that that player it's
(13:50):
a it's a missing it's we think about like the three-legged stool or
the 10-legged stool you're missing a stool there if you're actually not
connecting the business side of the the entity that that player is engaging
with with the brand and the person it's like you're only then looking at the
social media channels and the other channels like that but you're you're you're
missing that triangulation and you know i think i think there are a lot of technologies
(14:11):
and like concepts out there that
are trying to push to like more data sharing and pieces like that.
Obviously, that's, you know, heavily governed.
And I don't know if that's all the things that you guys are probably seeing
as well. I always think of Anjali as like the governance queen.
So you could probably teach me a little bit in terms of some of the new frameworks
(14:32):
and how people are thinking about making sure we're keeping,
you know, everything safe and secure and at the right level.
Yeah, call me anytime. time.
Awesome. Done. Connection. Check. So, Erin, you had mentioned the NFL and the
NBA kind of being a little bit more ahead of the curve in terms of their use of data and analytics.
(14:54):
But are you seeing some other leagues that may be a little bit more challenged,
a little bit more difficult or behind the curve?
And what's really driving them to stay where they are and really not take that next step? Yeah.
Well, besides the fact that they're not working as much with Kager.
That's one. So I will put my own pitch on that.
But no, I mean, I think in all seriousness, they're leaving the opportunities
(15:18):
on the table to actually capture the fan data beyond just the ticketing and transactions.
They're thinking more around the short-term operational, how can I get this
event stood up, but not necessarily thinking about all the different parts and
pieces from an experience standpoint.
I think as we look across leagues, there are leagues where your traditional
(15:39):
season ticket member is now.
Mid-50s and aging. And that's a scary place for some leagues to be in.
A full season ticket membership for any of the professionals, that's a heavy price.
One of the NBA clubs that we work with have done like junior membership.
And it's been a great opportunity to start to pull kind of younger folks in
(15:59):
and just get the bite at the apple. And at that point, it's not just about the revenue.
It's about actually forward looking, like how can you make sure that you're
filling the right funnel here so that you can deliver a great product on the
court ice field, but also just sustain that kind of community,
which is really driving that business forward.
So I guess like said in a different way, what are the laggards not doing?
(16:21):
They're not investing as much in data and analytics.
They're not taking technology serious as a true business driver.
They're shying away from even thinking AI and some of the productivity efficiency
that they're, let alone alone, just driving new customer experience and how
to get more efficient with the technology pieces.
But I do think it's changing. I think the last thing I'll say on this is we've
(16:44):
seen over the last couple of years, several, there's been a lot of transactions of teams acquired,
and it's brought even more kind of business-minded folks and entities into the sports arena.
So you're more traditional folks who have kind of grown up as owners are either
being displaced or Or importantly,
adding new thought leaders into the mix that don't necessarily have the history
(17:08):
of sports as a business, but are.
Savvy business people that have come from the financial services,
the consumer goods, whatever, that actually believes in data and can bring those
skill sets and experience to the table.
Well, that being said, one of the things that I've noticed, love to get your
thoughts on, is just this intersection of sports and truly entertainment, right?
(17:33):
Like, I don't think we can have a conversation about sports without talking
about SWELSI or whatever other acronym and we started to pull together for them, right?
So, you know, can you talk a little bit about that Taylor Swift effect on the
NFL and how, like, is Kager really exploring that or doing anything with that explosion of data?
(17:54):
Yeah, I love it. I saw Taylor when she came through Gillette Stadium last year. That was so phenomenal.
I cannot actually even explain how great of experience that was.
So a couple, like, quick facts here for you. So even just looking at the U.S.
Population, I recently read that 40% of the U.S. population are Taylor Swift fans or casual fans.
(18:17):
So 10% of the U.S. population are super fans, Swifties.
29% are casual fans. So 40% of people are tuning in, excited about what's happening.
I also read that they were more likely 83% to 64%. So that's Swifties to general
population to watch the Super Bowl.
So that is like nuts. That is never, it's like such a phenomenon in terms of
(18:42):
what this person can kind of bring to the table.
And so, you know, even if you're caring less about Taylor, you're just like
more people are watching an event and that just pulls everybody to the table.
You want to be part of the water cooler discussion or the chit chat or the community
discussions or whatnot.
So what does that actually mean and translate to? So-
(19:02):
To some extent, that's still really viewership and digital engagement and other pieces like that.
It's not necessarily translating to ticketing yet in terms of how the demographics are changing.
There's parts and pieces there for sure, and folks that are probably attending
more so because she may be in there.
But I think there's definitely room for improvement in terms of how to capture
(19:23):
those Swifties to be actual ticket purchasers.
To answer your question, how are we, Kager, thinking about it.
I think we're following the data.
We're trying to figure out where and how the demographics are actually changing.
Where are they changing?
And is there like, what's the true impact there? We know it's a pop culture impact for sure.
And we know that the halo effect to lots of different tangential businesses is there.
(19:46):
But like, what does that actually mean from a sustainable power of the revenue
streams to the leagues and teams itself?
You mentioned demographics changing for ticket buying.
And I can only imagine because the men Men are still going to go to the games.
They're still going to go to the games. So maybe they're not taking their buddy.
Maybe they're taking their spouse, their significant other instead.
And then the other guy has to go buy his own ticket, right? So that might be the story we see.
(20:10):
I did find it interesting because the NFL posted, they admitted,
that they had to look at the schedule based on where Taylor Swift was going to be.
And it could be because she had a concert at a venue, et cetera,
and they wanted to work around that.
But she's literally impacting what the NFL is doing, which is mind-blowing.
She's awesome. Hopefully they stay together, but we'll see.
(20:31):
Yeah, no, we don't want to start any rumors. There's no rumors.
We don't want the Swifty Nation after us. Let's not. I don't want them after us.
But just think about, like, you've got the Taylor Swift movement,
and then you have the Caitlin Clark movement, and you have the WNB,
and you have on the Coco Gauffs, and the tennis side is, like, growing crazy.
And then you've got, anyways, it just feels like it's such a moment
(20:52):
that is now the like norm of what this all
should be and how all the diversity can can
find its way in and and it really is going to be interesting in
terms of what leagues and teams are going to win in capturing the diversity
and thinking about the product not just of what used to work five ten whatever
years ago but like how do you make sure that when you have the dad and the daughter
(21:14):
or the mom and the son and the what what the maybe a little bit different mix
that it's a great experience.
And it may need to look a little bit different. You may need to be delivering
different amenities to folks when they come in the gates.
And so I think that's just, again, goes back to like the data,
the understanding, the fan behaviors, tapping into those emotions,
and then how can you actually map the product and the experience to those pieces as well? Yeah, exactly.
(21:39):
And I mean, it's curious because, you know, when you talk about having that.
Almost personalized experience when you walk through the door of a stadium,
depending on who you are, would love to hear like some of the changes that you've
seen over the last five, 10 years from an experience perspective. Yeah, absolutely.
We're working with one client now in the NFL out in California,
(22:01):
who is like going digital with a lot of their season ticket member amenities.
So basically, like, how do you light up when that person scans coming through the gate,
delivering specific content and or
food and beverage or other things like that like really leaning
into understanding where people are coming from and how to like
customize and personalize the offers it's actually crazy to think about before
(22:24):
covid i think it was less than half of the nfl clubs had had more exclusively
mobile ticketing maybe it was like a handful maybe i don't know less than a
dozen clubs and so mobile ticketing now is just ubiquitous like that's just what everybody does.
But think about that. We used to have the paper tickets, which meant you didn't
know who actually that belonged to.
Now we know who that mobile ticket belongs to. You know at least some level
(22:48):
of information and you have some way to communicate with them during the event,
before the event, and after the event, which is a great kind of turn in terms
of what's happening there.
I don't think we can have a conversation about data and analytics in any industry and not touch on AI.
So, you know, from a sports and entertainment perspective, what sort of opportunities
(23:10):
have you been discovering in terms of the usage of AI? Yeah, absolutely.
Sales and marketing has been just like a huge area of growth and acceptance
from an AI use cases and whatnot.
We work with an entity that sells Super Bowl tickets and kind of huge opportunity there.
The weekend before the Super Bowl, they have so many leads that come in,
(23:33):
in terms of people that are filling out online forms and all these other things.
Like how can you actually, like yes you can use some analytical modeling and
machine learning, but you have to take it a whole step forward.
Like how do you actually think about understanding who is that person?
How do I, how can I use any other context out there to then deliver back a
(23:54):
some level of message that's going to drive some level of conversion there,
just to be able to, I guess, reduce the overall burden from a manual interaction standpoint.
On an actual level, we're definitely seeing more from a customer experience standpoint.
So kind of in-venue experience, how folks are getting communicated to kind of
(24:16):
personalized content and other pieces like that based off of transactions and whatnot.
I still think we're scratching the surface in terms of how it's being used from
a true sports and entertainment standpoint.
But I think the sales and marketing is really out in front, both from the efficiencies
use cases, as well as starting to customize some experience.
However, as you guys probably are seeing, and I would love to kind of understand
(24:38):
what you're seeing from the other industries too, if you don't have the foundational
data in place, and you don't have some of the underlying data management,
like it's not going to work as well as you want it to.
And so again, it's that, you know, that balance of how can you use the true
power of AI, but have the right confidence that it's going to work the way that you're intending it to.
We keep saying you can't have AI without data.
(25:01):
So to your point, unless your data house is in order, you have the right data,
you understand its context, you know whether or not you should be able to use it ethically.
You can't really be confident in the outputs of your AI.
Well, it's also, I think what's conflated about the whole situation is that,
particularly with Gen AI, not your traditional, you know, machine learning,
(25:24):
that's a different challenge, right? That's your traditional data set that...
Maybe you have some unstructured. For the most part, it's being done against
structured data assets.
And we all very well know from many, many years of data management what we're
supposed to be doing there. Whether somebody's doing it or not,
that's a different story, right?
But I think with Gen AI, the challenge is a lot of that is on unstructured data.
(25:46):
And the data management governance principles around that are still not clearly defined.
And most organizations don't do it. They just don't.
They just drop it somewhere. And if somebody wants to use it,
they're responsible for ensuring it's accurate and complete, right?
So I think that's part of the challenge here in terms of efficacy and making
it right and ensuring you have great context is that there's got to be a new
(26:11):
capability within your organization to ensure that you're creating that,
whether it's a graph database or some kind of semantic around the non-structured
data that you now have to mine in order to get those kinds of insights.
And going back to your point about having all these leads one week before the
Super Bowl, I think about a marketing team trying to figure out,
(26:32):
how am I going to convert those leads?
Now, today, if you only have a week, there's only so much you can do from a
targeting message back and doing that analysis.
You're probably only bucketing three or four messages, right?
You can't get to that micro target where you can really turn the knob a bit.
And that's ripe right there, right?
Because now you can really micro-target that message because you have something
(26:54):
like Gen AI behind you plus the ML.
That's priority giving you all the different categories of, of,
and clusters of, of people and figuring out what the right messaging is at mass.
That is an intriguing prospect for sure. It is. Absolutely. Love it.
Let's go figure that out.
But yes. Give me a call.
Two for two now. Two for two. And dropped her own self-promotion as well.
(27:19):
So I think we're all covered.
Yeah, we're all good. Exactly. You know, one of our clients,
public clients we work with is the Philadelphia Eagles.
I love them. I know that's like right in your backyard.
They're just great, great people. Their CFO, we were down there last season,
almost honestly had me in tears talking about how much they think of their fans
(27:40):
as family and how to replicate that familial feel when you have 65 plus thousand in the stadium.
And he was sharing that there was a season ticket member, a dad and a son,
and they had been in the stadium.
They may have had tickets for several decades. I don't, it could have been 30 plus years.
And unfortunately over the off season, the dad passed away.
And so the first game, the son comes, you know, the customer service rep knew that that had happened.
(28:05):
The son comes with a friend and the leadership of the Eagles met them into this,
in the stands, condolences, and then also also gave them his dad's seat.
Basically, it was like, we have removed your dad's seat from where he has been sitting.
Isn't that awesome? I'm teary already. Yeah, that's beautiful.
And so again, like when we were chatting through that, it's like,
(28:27):
how do you create that emotional connection?
Data technology has to be able to help that in a genuine way.
And they're not going to be pulling every seat out of Lincoln Financial. However, like,
That's why people show up. That's why that family is coming back for their 31st
year and their 32nd year and what have you.
And, you know, that might be their vacation fund for the year is going to nine,
(28:51):
10 Eagles home games. And it gives everybody around them the ability to sit
there and they now feel connected by seeing that action, by seeing that moment.
It's, wow, the Eagles really do care about their fan base. They really do care
about us as individuals.
It doesn't have to be me necessarily, but seeing them do that for somebody else
actually makes me feel more connected to the team as well, right?
(29:12):
Yeah, 100%. And so, well, I do think then our theme of the podcast is connection.
So we'll continue and where data connects, right? One of the things that we
were talking about is, okay, well, we have to make sure then that the customer
service reps are creating the right data.
That was an extreme example. But when you actually have that face-to-face contact,
how are you creating some of that context so that potentially you could be utilizing
(29:35):
that within more analytics or whatnot to understand,
to your point, kind of at that micro level, what is actually the offer or the
product or the messaging that you want to be delivering at any point?
You mentioned Kager has two pieces. It's a SaaS data warehouse.
There's also the consulting and advisory services, I'm assuming, together and separate.
How deep is it in terms of the inner workings of a league or a team?
(29:58):
How broad is that perspective, the entire part of the company,
except for what happens on field? I would say with the industry leaders of each
of the leagues, it's very pervasive. It's a hub and spoke.
It's like you've got that underlying data set and you have your 30 plus different
business applications,
your apps, your whatever actually connected in so that at any point in time,
(30:20):
you can be delivering out to whatever business unit is needed and is there.
And those are the teams that are winning.
Those are the teams that are taking advantage of the opportunity.
Like, we always talk to our clients around like team performance matters.
Yes, 110%. You almost want to be building all these capabilities when the team
is doing really well, because you're one prepping yourself for what happens
(30:41):
if not, and then you're taking advantage of all the upside.
If they're not doing well, hey, let's actually get the house in order. And frankly,
that's what we saw during COVID is that we saw a lot more organizations using
that time, that inflection point to say,
we got to get the data and analyst infrastructure in place because we know it's
going to be even more critical to make those business decisions coming out of
(31:02):
this. We don't know what the fan is going to look like. They're going to look different.
They're going to be consuming from the bubbles and the wobbles and whatever
else was happening five years ago.
And how do you actually then translate that to what's going to end up happening
in your venue? Yeah, I'm still thinking about the Eagles, the Eagles piece.
I will say living in the Philadelphia area as a transplant initially.
I did not understand the fever pitch of any of the Philadelphia teams,
(31:28):
but especially the Eagles.
But you hear stories like that. You see how the sports players,
when they're doing their, their charity events, it's truly done from the heart.
At the events, they're engaging with their fans and really bringing them into the fold.
But then what happens when that player leaves the team?
(31:50):
I mean, there has to be so much data about how they're engaging with their fandom
and how their fans are receiving them.
So then what happens when that player leaves the team and goes to another?
How is that data truly transmitted and and capitalized on by the next.
Well, so a couple of things, because I think that actually goes some of that,
(32:12):
what you're talking about actually goes back to Sandy's point a little bit earlier,
which was talking about the, the agent and the player and the disconnect between the business.
And so there is still a little bit of that disconnect there.
However, we did a project with the NFL a couple of years ago called the non-home fan project.
And so part of this was actually trying to understand on any given Sunday,
(32:32):
where were fans coming from?
How many fans were home fans, how many fans were casual fans,
how many fans were traveling fans, destination fans, what have you.
We found that double digit percentages of on any given Sunday were non-home fans.
And we found that certain teams, and like anecdotally, we knew this,
but the power of that destination traveling fan and being able to do all the
(32:56):
connections there to know that,
okay, the Eagles have just traded XYZ player to this, we're expecting these things to happen.
However, However, when you actually start to look at the data,
you start to see the big opportunities that exist there in terms of,
well, what other offerings should be there?
What's the experience going to look like? Many times in professional leagues,
owners don't want visiting fans in the stadium.
(33:17):
They do a lot of geolocation work to keep them out. They're going to get there anyways.
People can sell on the secondary. What happened? There's a there's a use case
here that if you actually lean in a little bit into the right pockets there
of the destination or the traveling fans, it's a huge opportunity.
We did a pretty robust analysis.
And then we went with one of the clubs and gave them some customer lists of
(33:39):
folks that they wouldn't normally reach out to.
And they they did two email campaigns, multimillion dollars in terms of opportunity
there back from a conversion standpoint, be people buying tickets,
these these casual fans, these traveling fans that might not have made the connection.
Or if they made the connection, it would have been last minute.
And oh, by the way, now that they've actually identified these people,
(33:59):
they can now provide additional experiences or opportunities.
Here's a pre-event hospitality.
Here's another way to stay engaged. Hey, when this team comes next year,
do you want to know about it?
Again, it's creating more and more information there and creating that connection,
that interconnectivity across the whole community and landscape.
I mean, I can't even imagine if, and there's somebody close to home here, Mr. Tom Brady.
(34:24):
He goes to Tampa and then he says he's going to retire or everybody thinks he's about to retire again.
The number of New England fans who got on a plane and they made sure that they
showed up in Tampa to watch their favorite player that they grew up watching
finishes last season. It's a very simple thing.
(34:45):
And honestly, I grew up as a Miami Dolphins fan. I'm still a big Miami Dolphins
fan, even though I'm in the middle of New England.
Patriots land. and I get stuff for it every day, but I can't even,
growing up, if Dan Marino had gone somewhere else, I know I would have been
the first one to tell my parents, like, whatever it takes, we need to go see
(35:05):
him wherever he is because I love them so much.
The Brady factor has probably triggered a lot of things over at Tampa Bay,
for sure. Yeah, 100%. That's actually interesting.
So what Tampa Bay did for their season ticket members the last year Brady played
there was it was a two-year commit.
So it was a commit to his last year plus they had no problem selling them.
The mix may have looked a little bit different, but yeah, to your point,
(35:28):
yeah, you're going to make those moves.
It is really interesting to start to like quantify and put the data behind kind
of some of these opportunities because it starts to just break more legacy thinking
about how to run from an operation standpoint.
It doesn't mean that any team league and organization is going to take all of
those recommendations, but it's just like The data doesn't lie.
(35:49):
It's there. This is how we think from an interpretation standpoint.
Let's test it. We tested it. The value is there. Right.
And I can only imagine it getting more complex over time, too,
just as we said, like social media or even all the other ways we're consuming information.
Whether it's new apps that are coming to the fold, that's going to impact how
people find information, care about other players, care about teams, care about leagues.
(36:13):
I'm a huge Premier League fan because my wife...
Watch his or used to watch now i'm the one waking up
on the morning i don't know how that happened but i'm the
one watching this by myself she got me hooked and
then she decided to sleep it but does she follow any
specific team yeah we're tottenhotspur fans oh yeah just like the miami dolphins
(36:34):
never the yeah never the never the queen of the ball but it's it's intriguing
because it the world has opened up in many many ways well and and and like even
to that point so the world World Cup on the men's side,
FIFA 2026 is coming to the U.S., well, to North America.
Gosh, that is like, it's going to be such an amazing kind of fan activation,
(36:55):
fan understanding opportunities.
Well, because I think there's games in both of our cities, right?
Like, I mean, we have the Meadowlands, and I think that there's some in Gillette,
right? Yeah, Gillette's got seven, which is going to be bananas.
And there's a whole entity in Boston and that's set up to just run the fan fests
and think through what that looks like.
(37:16):
And so, you know, you look at like the messy effect with Major League Soccer,
like it's just the growth and understanding of who's there and how to activate it.
But it's going to be kind of a phenomenal opportunity, one, to bring the world
together, but also just from a like a true like data behavior,
data capture, just learning from a global standpoint and how we at Kager can
(37:37):
take take that to all of our clients.
Yeah. I mean, I was shocked this year to see so many professional cricket matches played here as well.
So yeah, it's surprising, right? There was a huge match, India versus Pakistan
in Nassau Coliseum in Long Island.
So we thought, hey, it'd be great to get some tickets. That'd be fun to go see that match.
(37:58):
Tickets were unattainable. They were in the the thousands of dollars,
like not in the secondary market, like from the get go.
And I'm going, that makes sense though, right? We have a massive community.
Right? In New Jersey and New York.
That absolutely makes sense. Like you have to go where the fans are, right?
If you have a set of fans that miss being able to watch a cricket match, take it to them, right?
(38:23):
I've seen the Premier League teams coming out here and just like the NFL is
starting to go to Europe. They're going to London.
You've got a lot of... And Brazil, they're in Brazil next season, which is nuts.
So that's, yeah. That's going to be insanity. I can't wait to watch that game.
Phillies are going to London this year too. Oh, from a baseball perspective? They may be.
(38:44):
Globalization is awesome. I think from a data professional standpoint,
it's now changing the game. What does all this mean?
How do we think about it from a fan data capture standpoint?
Standpoint, what can be used, what cannot be used, what's the right channels.
It's just, it's like a multivariable equation on how to put it all together, but it's so fun.
And, but it all starts with the underlying infrastructure, get your infrastructure
(39:06):
right. So I have a, I have a question.
Because I have a couple of colleagues who are obsessed with sports analytics.
I'm curious for those fans out there who are interested in data for teams,
what advice would you give them?
Because I do find that probably people don't realize there's two sets of analytics.
(39:27):
There's the business of, you know, having a sports team or running a league.
And then there's the business of the performance on the field,
right? Which is very specific and very different.
And there's not a lot of sharing going on there is my assumption,
right, in terms of what the teams are doing.
So which one's easier to get into? And what advice would you give them?
(39:49):
It's a really great point it's a
really great question to me i think the
business side is just it it is a little bit easier from a from a gateway standpoint
because there's i've seen some of the player specific stats and other pieces
like that it's very very complicated it's just i've heard like basketball stats
talked about and not only do you need to like understand
(40:13):
data and large like troves of data to be able to analyze it.
But you have to understand the game at a very, very granular level,
and like how the interpretation of different metrics and how to think about creation of metrics.
And, and if you're a student of the game, you understand the data,
you want to play with the data, you've invested a lot of time,
energy and effort to do that offline, and you have great data science technology
(40:36):
skills, then you're pretty marketable there.
And so like my boss and her co-founder of Daryl Morey, who's the general manager
of the 76ers co-founded the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
So that happens here in Boston.
I think this year was their 15th year. There's a whole half of the conference
that's focused on player analytics and the innovations of those pieces.
(41:00):
I would highly recommend checking some of those things out.
Some of it is on YouTube and other pieces like that. But they've had concepts
be pitched there that are now regular technologies in the space.
It's really cool. But there's not a whole lot that's like that in terms of that
community that can come together and really both understand all the X's and
(41:22):
O's of the data and then be able to interpret that.
Yeah, that's a really good point. It reminds me very much of somebody trying
to get into bioinformatics.
You have to really know biology and you have to really know data science,
right? Those are a few things that have to be together.
And it's funny because you're talking about sport.
You're talking about sport, right? We're all like, oh, it's just a game.
(41:42):
But the reality is to be able to analyze the doing of the game itself,
The mechanism of the game and what's happening on court on the field,
it requires a level of deep understanding of the game itself almost to very much like a science.
It's yeah you're yeah that's so
well put it's like that precision of are you shooting
(42:04):
from exactly at the free throw line or or slightly over
the free throw line or at the time when you
shot was there a defender within a foot of you three feet of you that there's
just a lot of different ways that all of that can come together and at the end
of the day like it's still going to be an input to an excuse me a decision it's
(42:24):
still an input to whether that player is worth going after or resigning or what have you,
or whether that strategy to that opponent,
when that specific star player plays.
You know, it's all the different scenarios there, but it's pretty cool. Awesome.
Well, Erin, thank you so much.
(42:45):
This conversation has been phenomenal and so interesting. I think we've all
learned something new today.
We're, you know, we're a little bit over what we had planned,
but I think it was well worth our time.
So really appreciate you hanging on and sharing all of these great insights
and nuggets of information and chatting sports and analytics with us.
Yeah, no, this was awesome.
(43:06):
I love talking about it. I love hearing the question. I love hearing the questions
and your, your perspectives too, in terms of what you're, I could,
I could hear and feel the things that you're thinking about on a day-to-day basis.
And you're hearing from your clients in terms of the questions that you're asking.
And I don't know it's it's a it's a pretty pretty fun area so thank you for having me.
Music.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com