Panelists at the ’17 Intersport Brand Engagement Summit broke down the ways mobile is changing the fan experience. The discussion featured Seaters Chair Chris Burggraeve, the former CMO of Anheuser-Busch InBev; Umbel Senior Partner of Strategic Services Dave Cedrone; Google Head of Industry, Ticketing & Live Events Michal Lorenc; and AT&T Assistant VP/Corporate Sponsorships Ryan Luckey. Luckey started the talk by describing AT&T’s emphasis on mobile. “For us, it’s really important to think of this,” he said, holding up his cell phone. “This is the first screen. For many years, people have referred to it as a second screen, but for the way the millennial generation and Gen Z are wired, everything starts with this. We’re only a few years removed from people saying, ‘I’m not going to watch a full game on the device.’ Well, it’s actually happening. So as long as that’s where the eyeballs are going, as long as 60 percent of our network traffic is video, we have to anchor our marketing mindset to fish where the fish are, and for us, that starts with mobile.”
GOING PAPERLESS: The panelists agreed they would prefer a shift to paperless ticketing, but differed on their predictions for when this might be fully implemented. Lorenc believes it is a matter of time until printed tickets become a rarity. “Think about photos,” he said. “How many photos do we take and how many of them do we actually look back at? It’s the same with the physical ticket. It’s almost like there’s a nostalgia. We want them, but then they’re in the drawer somewhere, and we kind of forget about them, unless it’s this amazing game. ... We’re getting close to 100% mobile ticketing.” Luckey wondered aloud if having fans attend games using mobile tickets, but giving them the option to later print the tickets, would please both sports teams and patrons. Electronic tickets could also make it possible to sell more than just admission to an event, said Cedrone. He recalled a recent conversation with an exec from Cirque du Soleil, who was entertaining the idea of food delivery via drone, among other possibilities e-tickets could create. “They were talking about the idea of it being a pass, not just a digitized ticket,” Cedrone said. “It could be possible after a ticket purchase to get in touch with the buyer on email and give them bundled offers of merch and food, or maybe a photo opp or things like that. As a father, I would imagine it would be pretty great to be able to go to the experience and know that I had pre-bought some stuff and didn’t have to go fight a line.”
THE MOBILE FUTURE: The discussion concluded with each participant describing his biggest concern regarding mobile’s role in the business of sports. Cedrone: “It’s our mission to make data the most valuable asset you can own. So I think the biggest concern right now is properties learning to get control of the data, make sense of it and make it accessible to the entire organization. It’s day one on that stuff still, believe it or not.” Added Luckey: “Continuing to make the live experience unreproducible and high-demand. I’m energized when I hear about some of the teams that are leveraging social media data and leveraging some of the social platforms to drive ticket sales. ... Continuing to drive the live game experience will continue to fuel the perception of the healthiness of the industry.” Burggraeve: “Safety. Manchester has shown it again. ... Knowing who is in that stadium or in that event, without people being concerned by it. I think that balance between safety and a phenomenal live experience.” Lorenc: “Safety, but not just physical, also digital. There were some instances in the U.K. where some of the airports were trying to go all digital and they were hacked. You talk about terabytes of data, thousands of people in one place. There are some concerns.”
