Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesPatrick Smith/Getty Images
By Don White
This is a guest column by the CEO & Co-Founder of Satisfi Labs, who will speak on next week’s episode of SportTechie Live’s The Way Back: Reimagining Fan Communication and Engagement.
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On March 11, the landscapes of the sports and tourism industries were significantly changed when the NBA suspended its season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Other leagues soon followed, with MLB, the NHL, the NCAA and others suspending play. Tourism industries followed, as all Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo closed their doors on March 14. Within a matter of days, sports and tourism went from multi-billion-dollar industries to basically non-existent.
After three long months of uncertainty, many states have finally given these industries the ability to start planning their reopenings, albeit with several restrictions. The virus is not behind us yet, and there are still many challenges that come with reopening doors to large groups of people while prioritizing the health and safety of all guests. These are some ways industries are adapting to the new environment:
Creating a Contactless Environment
One of the many challenges is creating an environment with as little physical contact as possible. Sports leagues have already suggested that any games played in the near future will be completely fanless. While teams can still offer an at-home experience by broadcasting their games, it’s not really possible for tourism industries to replicate that experience. Eventually, both sports and tourism industries will reopen their doors to guests, even with limited capacity, and when they do it will be imperative to limit contact.
Controlling the flow of traffic is one way to limit the exposure that guests have with each other. Some museums are exploring the use of AI-powered virtual assistants to provide a personalized guided experience. Rather than allowing guests to control their own paths throughout the museum, the virtual assistant will direct them where to go, can provide insights about exhibits, and answer questions on-demand. Virtual assistants could also reduce staff presence on the floor, further contributing to a limited capacity. Though some guests will still prefer in-person interactions, the assistant can allow visitors to choose how they want to experience the museum.
With all this new technology, visitors will need much more preemptive communication from venues, including how to purchase and access digital tickets, whether they need to download an app, and if contactless payment systems will be used. For stadiums, the most concerning area for controlling traffic is the concourse. At any given moment during game day, fans are exploring this area to get food and drinks, go to the bathroom, or even just to check out the stadium. Large clusters of people walking next to each other in narrow pathways is an easy way for the virus to spread. To limit the amount of time that fans will need to leave their seats, teams have implemented food and beverage finders, telling fans where to get what they are looking for faster and in a more direct way. This will help avoid clustering, and subsequently reduce close personal contact and the spread of germs.
Some teams are exploring cashless concessions to both speed up lines and reduce the spread of the germs that can be transmittable on cash, potentially following the model of the Atlanta Falcons, who went fully cashless in 2019. There has also been more of a willingness to adopt newer technologies around mobile ordering, completely eliminating long lines of people standing right next to each other. Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) has been a pioneer in this space since they debuted their virtual assistant, Olly, in 2018. By 2019, the club expanded Olly’s capabilities onto Apple Business Chat, a new way for users to communicate directly with businesses using the Messages app on iPhones. The stadium also added a feature to allow fans to pre-order food and beverages directly in the chat flow and pick up their food at their convenience, ensuring customers never have to wait in line.
Generating New Revenue Streams
Another difficult task to overcome, especially for stadiums without fans, is the loss of in-stadium revenue. To put how much teams would lose into perspective, the NFL makes $5.5 billion in revenue from tickets, concessions, in-stadium sponsorship ads, parking, and team stores—roughly 38% of the league’s total revenue. Teams must develop new revenue streams that can still be counted on even when fans are not present in the stadium.
As a response, many teams are seizing the opportunity to convert sponsorships from in-stadium displays to messaging app assets. With this adaptation, a sponsor can now own the header ad that is displayed on top of a chat window, which is available 24/7. Additionally, teams can sell sponsored answers to widely asked and hyper-relevant questions. Not only can teams promote their sponsors strategically through a virtual assistant that is already providing immense value, but they can also use it to promote their own merchandise, especially if fans can’t shop at team stores.
Similarly, corporate partnership and promotion are just as important to tourism locations. The Museum of Metropolitan Art, which relies heavily on its many corporate sponsors such as Bank of America, Louis Vuitton, and Morgan Stanley, offers several corporate membership levels with varying benefits, the most prestigious being the “Chairman’s Circle” which goes for $100,000. The virtual assistant presents a collective opportunity to highlight premier partnerships while also providing a high-touch experience to guests. Similar to sports, fewer guests means less eyes on sponsor content, so finding new ways to promote partnerships is crucial.
Keeping Guests Informed
Ultimately, new policies will not be successful if they aren’t properly communicated to guests. Imagine a fan being blindsided by a new policy that will extend the time it takes to get into the stadium, which results in them missing the first quarter of a game. In this case, the team would be in danger of facing decreased brand trust and loyalty from fans. Creating efficient communication is essential to keeping fans safe while also creating a positive experience for everyone.
The difficulty of answering every fan's questions with reduced staff will force these industries to turn to alternative communication methods, such as AI-enabled messaging assistants which can anticipate what questions fans are likely to ask and respond rapidly, accurately, and dynamically. Our data shows that the most popular searches since the pandemic have been about face masks, limited capacity, and general safety measures. AI-powered virtual assistants can also collect data about what information guests are not retaining, in order to inform marketing and guest service departments and help downsized teams improve their communication strategy.
The challenges and pressures that all organizations in the sports and tourism industries are facing right now are unlike anything they have ever seen. Because of that, they must be proactive and creative in finding new solutions to keep guests safe, informed, and engaged, whether they’re experiencing your brand at home or in-person.
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