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Getting the signal

Teams, venues turn to simple beacon technology to customize the fan experience

Travel this road to get to the game faster.
Click here for a video welcome from the team owner.
Hurry now to Section 101 and get your free T-shirt.
Find the shortest line for the women’s restroom.
Special price: Hot dogs $2 off through the end of the game.

That’s some of the messaging brought to you by location-based technology, which is trending at sports facilities. Teams are taking the next step for customizing the fan experience by sending targeted messages to their patrons’ mobile devices.

Several teams have installed beacons at arenas and stadiums, which are essentially small radios powered by Bluetooth low-energy technology, programmed to pick up signals from mobile devices and send back customized messages for informational and commercial purposes.

They are also tapping into geofencing, a form of GPS technology, by marking territory outside the venue through Google Maps to provide fans with the most efficient routes to the facility. After the fans are on site, teams send welcome messages as the fans approach the building.

Both tools can also hit the road as teams and colleges keep in touch with loyal fans traveling to games in other markets (See related story).

The Cleveland Cavaliers use a variety of beacons at Quicken Loans Arena. Fans download an app to opt-in to receive alerts and exclusive content.
Photo by: Cleveland Cavaliers
It’s all part of the new movement in proximity marketing, an extension of what’s taking place in the retail world. In sports, the technologies go together as teams search for new and creative ways to connect with their fans in the age of mobile technology.

To this point, most teams use beacons primarily as an informational tool for distributing video content connected to destinations inside the venues, as well as for premium giveaways such as locker room tours and discount offers for food and retail items.

They present those messages as “surprise and delight” moments for their fans without focusing too much on the revenue aspect — recognizing the fine line between boosting the experience and annoying customers by bombarding them with what they may perceive as spam messages.

“It’s like anything else, you have to make sure you’re not getting overly intrusive,” said Phoenix Suns President Jason Rowley, whose club installed beacons this season as part of its deal with Verizon to upgrade wireless technology at US Airways Center. “You can go overboard with this stuff.”

It’s also a work in progress for teams using location-based technology to pinpoint the shortest lines at concession stands and restrooms. Without full adoption of the technology among mobile users, they’re finding out that it takes more than beacons to make that determination with certainty.

The Miami Dolphins, for example, one of the first NFL teams to use beacons at Sun Life Stadium dating to 2013, have installed high-tech cameras aimed at food stands to gauge volume at a particular location, which when paired with beacons, provide greater information on wait times.

“The cameras can tell me how many heads [are in one spot] and the beacons can tell me how many [fans using mobile] apps are dwelling in that area,” said Tery Howard, the Dolphins’ senior vice president and chief technology officer. “We want to make sure we can accurately say the beacons can tell me dwelling times, so therefore I can tell you, ‘There will be a 10-minute wait if you go to this concession and line up. Here’s your best alternative.’ That’s what we want to get to. We have modeled this data, collected it and analyzed it … and will build this into our 2015 app.”

Connecting in Cleveland

The Cleveland Cavaliers use video camera analytics and beacons connected to their new mobile app developed in tandem with tech firms YinzCam and Gimbal, a leading beacon supplier. Overall, the Cavs have been one of the most aggressive teams on the proximity marketing front in working with team sponsors such as Nike, H&R Block and ’47 Brand merchandise.

As part of rolling out their new app last fall, the Cavs placed 100 beacons inside Quicken Loans Arena to build a complete “curb-to-curb” experience, said Mike Conley, the team’s vice president of digital.

Beacon messages point Cleveland Cavaliers fans to where they can buy tickets for 50/50 charity raffles.
Photo by: Cleveland Cavaliers
“With mobile technology, one of the great benefits is our fans have a physical screen with them nearly 24 hours a day and they keep it almost three feet from their body at all times,” Conley said. “That’s a way for us to build on fan affinity and deliver meaningful content to fans.”

For all teams using beacons, fans must first download the app and turn on the location-based services function to activate the proximity marketing piece. On Oct. 30, opening night in Cleveland, those opting to receive messages could view a short video segment the Cavs filmed with team owner Dan Gilbert. He thanked the fans for going to the arena and explained the technology behind receiving the video message. Most importantly, Gilbert stressed that the beacons are intended to build on the fans’ experience and not deliver spam-filled messages.

“Our approach going into this was content first, experience first and money follows,” Conley said. “We were very careful not to put any revenue-driven messaging into the app until we built a sound enough foundation with the content we were distributing. We didn’t want our fans to feel like they downloaded the app and opted in for this and all of a sudden they’re getting retail offers. It’s about supplementing content with offers that make sense and are seamless … that we layer in and start to recoup some of the hard costs tied to the platform.”

The Cavaliers’ marketing platform for beacon technology charges sponsors by the message or as part of a larger integrated deal, Conley said. To drive revenue, team officials work with partners to carve out messaging opportunities, including out-of-venue with geofencing.

The standard beacons are about the size of a deck of cards and powered by four AA batteries. No wiring is required. The total investment to place 100 beacons at an arena runs anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000, covering installation and software licensing costs depending on what they’re used for and the number of users, said Brian Dunphy, Gimbal’s senior vice president of business development and partner.

The Cavs would not disclose their investment but six months later, the team has seen a payoff through the more than 170,000 downloads of the new mobile app, Conley said.

On any given home game, the Cavs send messages to an average of 3,500 fans via the app inside the 20,562-seat arena. For the Easter Sunday game against Chicago, the number increased to 4,328 people receiving messages among a big holiday crowd watching two NBA playoff qualifiers.

Those messages include alerts sent to mobile devices from smaller beacons worn by arena workers selling 50/50 charity raffle tickets. The Cavaliers have seen a 66 percent increase in sales over last year, in part due to the beacons, Conley said. The money is split equally between the winning ticket holder and the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

The mobile tech effort first started with educating a new generation of Cavs fans by embedding videos connected to historical moments at old Richfield Coliseum, where the team played for 20 years before moving to Quicken Loans Arena in 1994. Pieces of the old arena’s floor are positioned in different areas around the Q and as fans walk by they get a message that delivers a unique video highlight tied to the moment on that floor. Fans can touch the floor piece, providing some real context for key moments in team history, Conley said.

The experience aspect extends to the upper deck, which the Cavs call “Loudville,” home to some of their most raucous and hard-core fans. Beacons placed at the arena’s highest level trigger messages for fans to swipe their devices to view short videos such as a screaming goat and Mel Gibson’s motivational speech from “Braveheart.”

The videos encourage fans to “bring the noise” while adding a touch of humor and creating a sense of community for those sitting in the cheap seats, especially younger fans who spend a lot of time communicating through social media, Conley said.

On Dec. 19, about two months after the beacons were first activated, the Cavs moved ahead to the next step for producing revenue by teaming with Nike to create buzz around the release of the new Kyrie 1 sneakers, branded for their star guard Kyrie Irving.

Inside the arena, Nike set up a pop-up store to sell a limited number of shoes before they officially went on sale at retail. The store itself was a digital wall display where fans could order shoes, design them through a customization portal powered by Nike and have them delivered to their seats.

That night, because the arena concourses were filled with multiple sponsor activations, leaving little space for additional displays, Nike’s pop-up was placed behind the wall of a food court on the west side that draws little foot traffic.

To drive awareness for the shoe promotion and to direct fans to the right location, the Cavs programmed the beacons at arena entrances to send a message informing fans that the first 150 people to stop by the display would receive a free Kyrie 1 T-shirt.

The shirts were gone in 15 minutes, and Nike sold 140 pairs of shoes between the digital wall and the arena’s team

store, from the time the doors opened at 6 p.m. through the end of the third quarter. It proved to be a more effective tool than just delivering a straight coupon, Conley said.

“We had to educate fans on where to go,” he said. “We were able to modify the behavior to drive fans to an area they wouldn’t have otherwise gone through incentivizing them.”

Where is the technology headed?

The Cavs are working toward a point where they can tie beacons to their CRM database to send specific messages to individuals compared with blanketing larger groups of fans.

“It’s trying to find those refined touch points that resonate with the fan and continue to build that loyalty with the team,” Conley said. “One of the gaps we have with the integration of the technology is we can’t tell exactly what percentage of our app holders have opted in for the beaconing. What we get is raw numbers. We’ve pushed both YinzCam and Gimbal to deliver us the percentages, from an analytics perspective, so we know exactly how many people have downloaded the app, active users and those that have implemented the proximity marketing piece.”

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