With a stirring upset win over Penn State and an unexpected 4-0 start to the football season, Temple University is finding fans the school didn’t know it had.
For the first time, the school now has a way of tracking these fans to know where they’re coming from and how long it’s been since they last attended an Owls game. Temple also can determine whether those fans have bought hats and T-shirts, donated to the athletic foundation or if their children have attended a camp at the school.
Temple is aggregating this fan information through a data and analytics service run by New York-based technology firm Circle Media. Randy Eccker, who formerly ran XOS Digital and started the SEC Digital Network, launched Circle Media two years ago with the help of GSV Capital, a publicly traded venture capital fund that primarily backs big data and analytics firms. Eccker also brought on ex-Van Wagner executive John Libro and Heather Voight, formerly of XOS and Fanatics, to help lead a 13-person team and exploit their college contacts.
Circle Media is hitting its stride now with six college clients — California, Louisville, LSU, Rutgers, St. Joseph’s and Temple — that are using the company’s data and analytics service called Fan.dex, and more are on the way, Eccker said.
The service compiles information from multiple databases and combines it all into one, but it’s not alone in the college space. Circle Media, whose service runs from the low five figures up to $100,000, will run into competition from Spectra, whose specialty is ticketing software, and SSB, a data management firm, each of which have college clients, too.
“Think about everything that schools have outsourced for years — ticketing, development, merchandise, concessions, sales,” Eccker said. “Nothing’s integrated. That’s created all of these disparate data sources that are not accessible or actionable. Now the technology has evolved to the point where we can aggregate all these databases efficiently.”
Temple’s a unique case. It uses Spectra’s ticketing software to sell tickets to home events, but for home football games at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, Ticketmaster is the ticket service of choice. Circle Media’s data gathering pulls together ticket buyers from Ticketmaster and Spectra (formerly Paciolan) into one database for the Owls to sell and market to.
Temple sold out its Penn State game, and its Oct. 31 game against Notre Dame is expected to sell out as well, providing the Owls with a unique opportunity to collect information on Temple fans and general college football fans in the Philadelphia area.
“The timing is perfect for us,” said Patrick Kraft, Temple’s athletic director. “We’re capturing information on fans who haven’t been in our building in a long time, maybe ever. Then we’ll have to see how we capitalize on that in the future.”
Rutgers, one of Circle Media’s first clients, uses the service to aggregate databases of fans who donate, buy tickets on Spectra, buy merchandise on Fanatics, and send their children to on-campus camps. The Fan.dex service then enriches each fan’s profile with information like residence, household income, number of children and any other demographics to provide a deep set of data. It also adds in the social media reach for the fans based on Twitter followers, Facebook friends and other digital metrics.
Rutgers now has access to 300,000 profiles on the Fan.dex platform. Circle Media started with just 24,000 people in the school’s main ticketing database.
“We’re getting a much more robust view of our fans and who they are,” said Geoff Brown, Rutgers’ chief marketer.
“Instead of sending out every email to every fan, we can hit certain demographics and market more directly.”
Eccker also believes sponsors will find the combined database useful. That’s why multimedia rights holders, in some cases, are buying the service for their schools. Van Wagner, for example, is paying to have Circle Media’s baseline service installed at some of its schools, such as Florida International, Georgia State and Stony Brook, each of which plans to integrate the service. Circle Media also is working with Rockbridge Sports Group and Outfront Media, and it’s in discussions with Learfield Sports and IMG College, Eccker said.
“When you know everything about your constituents, their level of engagement, their likes and dislikes, you can target more efficiently,” said Van Wagner’s Mike Palisi. “You can really cut through the clutter.”
