SEME Conference Recap

I was fortunate enough to attend the SEME conference (Sports Event Marketing Experience) in Washington, D.C. last week. The conference features a wide-ranging array of panels, speakers, and conversations touching every corner of the sports business landscape. Despite participants hailing from different backgrounds, disciplines, and corners of the country there were several themes that emerged throughout the two-day event. Chief among them: an intense focus on the fan. In many ways, the event could be rebranded as the Fixing the Fan Experience Conference. Here are my key takeaways, trends on the rise, and some of my favorite moments from a captivating experience in the nation’s capital.

Consumption Habits

Sports media is at a crossroads with streaming services entering the fray for live sports rights while traditional cable RSNs struggle financially. We already know fans want the ability to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. No one hit on this theme more than Andy Kauffman, the NFL’s Senior Vice President, Marketing Strategy & Science. The NFL’s Next Gen Fan is “displaced, distracted, and digital,” according to Kauffman, with 70% (!) of fans displaced from their favorite team’s market. That is a shocking figure to me even as one of the displaced! ?

It is no surprise then, that the NFL launched NFL+ offering fans mobile access to live local and primetime regular and postseason games, plus other perks like live game audio. NFL+ Premium subscribers gain access to full and condensed game replays and all-22 coach’s film. Sunday Ticket will now be available on YouTube TV, and last season the league moved its Thursday night package to Amazon for the princely sum of $1 billion per season. All of these moves are in the name of reaching the Next Gen Fan on their terms. If the league raking in $100 billion combined over the next 11 years is this focused on fan consumption habits you can bet every other sports league in the country is digging in, as well.

Sports Betting Data Analytics and Insights

Shocker, data analytics was a big takeaway from the conference. There were some interesting takes on how data is being collected and optimized within sports betting organizations. Jennifer Matthews, Vice President Brand Strategy at FanDuel, Andrew Bimson, President and Chief Operating Officer, North America at Sportradar, and Alex Smith, Vice President Regulatory Affairs at Fanatics Betting & Gaming all touched on the importance of user data on separate panels.

FanDuel is leveraging the incredible amount of user data it has collected to transform into a media company. FanDuel TV launched in the Fall of 2022 with a live weekday show called Up & Adams featuring former NFL Network personality, Kay Adams. FanDuel also has a partnership with Pat McaFee’s PMI Network, although his future involvement appears to be up in the air as he heads toward fatherhood. (Here’s McAfee on his own show discussing the relationship with FanDuel). The goal is – stop me if you’ve heard this before – to be everywhere sports fans and bettors are and want to be.

Sportradar is your favorite betting platform’s data source. The ‘Bloomberg of Sports’ provides sports betting data, marketing services, media and broadcast solutions, and performance analytics to more than 1,700 customers in 120 countries. Data and insights from Sportradar are utilized by betting platforms, regulatory bodies, broadcast and media networks, coaches, and more. According to Bimson, Sportradar processes 3.8 million odds per minute, 2.9 million media data API pings per hour, and 1.5 million coaching insights per day. Fun fact: the average sports bet in the U.S. is $35! Chances are you’ve been exposed to lots and lots of data from Sportradar without ever knowing it came from them.

Fanatics is a late entry into the betting space, but if any company can make up for lost time this is it. Michael Rubin’s latest venture may be his boldest yet, as he charts a course for the apparel and merchandise ecommerce giant to take over the sports betting universe. The key, as laid out by Smith during his presentation, is the treasure trove of purchase data Fanatics can leverage. Unlike FanDuel or DraftKings, Fanatics does not have to build up its customer base from zero. It already has access to millions of transactions and can use its own loyalty program to help get its betting division off the ground quickly. Smith highlighted four key advantages:

1.?????User Experience

2.?????Database for customer acquisition

3.?????Built-in brand awareness advantage

4.?????FanCash loyalty program

In particular, the ability to cross-promote the FanCash program to ecommerce customers and bettors is a unique advantage for Fanatics. Buy your favorite player’s jersey… earn FanCash that you can convert into betting dollars. Bet on your favorite team… earn FanCash that you can convert into apparel dollars. Fanatics hopes to create a premium ecosystem for sports fans to buy, bet, and engage with their favorite players and teams. Existing customer data is foundational to constructing that ecosystem.

Improving the Live Event Experience

This wouldn’t be the Fixing the Fan Experience blog if I didn’t highlight some key developments in the world of live events. I especially enjoyed hearing from Britton Stackhouse, Executive Vice President North America for Fortress. According to Stackhouse, Fortress partners with 60 U.S. teams on access control, loyalty programs, ticketing, mobile payments, security, and more. She discussed how fan expectations in a post-pandemic world are driving technological decisions by sports organizations. What a concept! Stackhouse also highlighted how staffing issues at sports venues are driving automation. As venues struggle to find quality talent, more and more are turning to automated systems such as frictionless retail experiences and facial recognition technologies. Fortress is rapidly expanding its footprint over the next several months, and just announced its newest partnership with the Nashville Predators and Bridgestone Arena. And, according to Stackhouse, thousands of Taylor Swift fans across the country will experience Fortress technology firsthand at six NFL venues hosting The Eras Tour.

Overall, I had an outstanding time at the SEME conference. The wide array of representation throughout sports business was enlightening and kept the panels fresh and intriguing. There was also a solid mix of panel discussions, one-one-one fireside chats, and keynote presentations. Despite the rapid-fire nature of the jampacked event, I still felt there was ample time to network and ask questions. Part of the enjoyment for me personally was that it was not a networking free-for-all. The focus was on the content coming from the panelists, rather than the opportunity to ask mundane career advice questions. A personal highlight was getting to hear from Washington Wizards Assistant Coach and author of Basketball on Paper, Dean Oliver. I bought his book back around 2006 and was enthralled with Oliver’s Four Factors and the way he broke down the game of basketball with data analytics. It was a pleasure to hear directly from the “Godfather of Basketball Analytics.” ?

?I’m truly looking forward to next year’s SEME conference and hope to be a panelist myself one day.

Thanks for reading! For more, check out BFaithStats.com and the Fixing the Fan Experience blog.