Solving for common staffing, database and fan engagement constraints at small- to medium-sized sports organizations

Throughout my career in football, I have had hundreds of discussions with clubs, leagues, and federations having growth ambitions being limited by internal constraints. These growth ambitions vary wildly, one wants to grow a fan base in a different continent where the other wants to strengthen local community connections. But these ambitions are often being blocked by internal limitations. Condensing all these conversations, these blockers can be summarized by three common themes:

• Lack of human resources
• Having a too small fan database
• Fan engagement costs money without delivering returns.

Throughout various consulting engagement, I have helped to solve for these. I also often collect fresh opinions from the students I teach on how they would solve this. And that always results in some practical out-of-the-box ideas. So, if you are a medium- or small-sized sports organization, see if the following suggestions work for you.

Solving for human resource constraints:

As a small sports organization, you are chronically understaffed. This limits growth and further professionalization of the organization. the following ideas should give you some ideas on how to expand your team against low to no cost:

• Consider hiring student interns. If you are based in a city with a university, use this opportunity. Universities are always looking for placements or real-life examples for practice. By partnering with these universities, you do not only unlock student manpower but also access the professor's expertise.
• Consider asking for sponsor-funded salaries. With a transparent and believable story, some sponsors are willing to pick up the bill of staffing cost. I have seen this construction more often in football, where a club with a clear staffing need saw the cost of an annual salary being picked up by one or multiple sponsors. Because in the end, your growth also means growth for them.
• Ask your federation for help. National Associations can request support from regional or global federations. UEFA has programs like UEFA GROW and UEFA HatTrick and FIFA has FIFA Forward where they can help you with practical support. Often, they send over specialist consultants for free to help you with certain topics. But also clubs can often get support from their national federation or the ECA. A good example is the Dutch FA with its KNVB Expertise program which promotes knowledge sharing and provides various services to individual clubs.

Solving for 'fan engagement cost' constraints:

Fan engagement does not have to be expensive if managed effectively. The #1 issue clubs/federations face is that fan engagement is perceived to not have a direct ROI. But that is incorrect. In fact, organized properly, it can delivery direct revenue. Consider the following approaches:

• Leverage your Foundations or Trusts: by having multiple CSR-programs in place, you offer an opportunity for local businesses to 'buy off' their CSR-initiatives via sponsorship. There are various clubs in Europe making serious profits off their CSR-programs simply via sponsorships of their CSR-programs or by co-designing tailor-made programs.
• Match day activities are a perfect opportunity for sponsors to get exposure on match days. So, when you organize a fan zone, get your sponsors involved. Ask your sponsors (or local businesses who cannot sponsor but still want to get involved) to pick up the bill, to organize activities like inflatable football pitches, to cover the cost of a magician or a face painter. Or, organize a raffle where the price is donated by a local business.

Solving for data constraints:

Starting a data strategy or data-driven approach can be daunting. Too many vendors, intimidating terminology. Plus it is never cheap; the results often take long and it often exposes educational gaps within the team. Try to solve for these with the following suggestions:

• Again a good reason to contact local universities. Many universities nowadays teach at least one data program, and they are looking for sexy job placements. That’s you, sports organization. You are that sexy job placement, also if you are small. So, provide an internship opportunity to a student and give a clear plan based on your current needs. That can be either to centralise the data from various sources (called ETL) or to build dashboards delivering insights on fan base growth or ticket sales progress.
• Start chasing your own data. Not rarely, sales like ticketing or merchandising are outsourced. But the contracts with these providers often mention something about data ownership or data sharing. Dive into the details of these contracts and discover the right data sharing setup. Often, figuring this out delivers you with a substantial database increase.
• In the influencer industry, there is a trend of increasing importance of micro-influencers. Micro-influencers may not have the largest following, but they provide either depth into a niche audience or high engagement numbers. A similar opportunity is there for small sports organizations. If you can't go wide, go deep. Design your data strategy to focus on a smaller audience of whom you know a lot. This can still be interesting for sponsors, given that this matches their target market. So, if you are a Women’s-only football club or a CSR-focused club, build a deep understanding of your fans and pro-actively find interested sponsors.

The above is a small selection of common blockers at medium or small sports organizations, but they should provide some inspiration how to tackle a few of these issues. If you want to discuss further, please use the comment section below or send me an email.