Today's sports world is indistinguishable from the past. Gone are the days when your only hope of watching your favorite player play was from a nosebleed seat. Now you can catch them live on social media, use a microphone in a game, or even meet them face-to-face in an AI alternate reality.
Change is occurring at a similar pace for the financial leaders supporting these businesses. “We're not just selling tickets, we're not just selling sponsorships, we're not just selling television rights in bundles,” said the four-time Olympic champion and founder and former CEO of Sports Innovation Lab. Angela Ruggiero spoke at the inaugural Financial Accounting Technology Expo last week. “It's really a consumer business, a live entertainment product. And it's also a change in the way sports have traditionally been viewed as an industry.”
She was joined by Kelly Mahncke, CFO of USA Hockey. Pauline Philippi, National Women's Soccer League CFO. and Tim Nadi, CFO of Savannah Bananas, discuss the intersection of sports and innovation. While their perspective naturally tends to be more athletic, their advice can be extremely helpful for CFOs looking to explore their technology stack. The main focuses when getting the most out of technology are:
Putting the fans (or customers) first. The fundamentals of fandom are changing, with the rise of what Ruggiero calls “fluid fans.” So how can you capture the attention of a more fickle audience?
Ask yourself, “What makes the deal easier for fans?” Nadi said. “How can we be relentlessly resourceful?” For Savannah Bananas, that meant taking on some things themselves. These include investing in its own ticket sales platform and paying shipping taxes and fees on fan purchases.
But don't push players to the side. New technology not only helps your business, it also helps your employees.
“Whether we're talking about players from performance analysis, injury prevention, or fan engagement, these AI algorithms process real-time data to optimize training and recovery protocols to help players last longer in their careers. , reduce injuries,'' Ruggiero said.
Mahncke uses this to “gamify” the training process. “We're actually creating a configurable LMS… where we have officials and we're going to put them almost in virtual reality… so it looks like they're actually on the ice and the live game is “It looks like it's progressing. I'm going to make a call,” she said.
After all, “our most valuable asset is our employees, and we should probably treat them the same way we would treat our external clients,” Nadi said. “So while we were working more efficiently from an external perspective, we also looked internally and asked, what can we do as a finance department to alleviate the day-to-day frustrations of our employees?”
Understand how your data is used. “There's an analysis paralysis that many organizations experience,” Philippi says. “Where you can invest in all the data but have no idea what to do with it,” she added. “I think the most important thing is to take advantage of this data that you have and set goals with KPIs that are actually measurable.”Otherwise, it just becomes a fact. No one who deals with it does anything. ”
Feel free to join the game. “We have under-invested and under-invested in technology for too long and have accumulated a tremendous amount of technical debt, which is more expensive than investing in a good product,” Filippi said. Ta. “So now we've built a really strong team… and we're investing a lot more in operational efficiency. Sure, we want to be profitable, but… If we want to keep our business moving forward, we have no choice but to invest now.”
