Rockhouse Partners’ Sr. director of Business Development, Brian Bauer, presented “NASCAR by the Numbers: How Motorsports Moves the Needle with Digital Marketing,” at the University of South Florida’s first Sports & Entertainment Analytics Conference (SEAC) last week. He met with some of the best and brightest people in entertainment analytics. Here are some of his takeaways:
1. Convert Your Fans At A Young Age for Increased Sales
Individuals who become fans as children often stay fans for life. Young fans are also more dedicated fans throughout their life. According to Rich Luker from ESPN Sports Poll, fans that attend their first ball game by age five will go to a whopping 58% more games each year than someone who didn’t step foot into a ballpark until age 14. Connecting with families is essential for the long term success of your sports property.
2. Measure Brand Value for Sponsorship Success
Matt Wolf, Associate VP at the NBA, gave a wonderful presentation covering everything from season tickets to suite pricing to email effectiveness. He offered some killer insights on sponsorships. The NBA A/B tested product packaging with and without a team’s logo to prove value to sponsors. The result? Effectiveness improved 36% after the team logo was added to the packaging.
3. College Football Fans Don’t Live Close to their Schools
David Coletti, VP of Digital Media Research & Analytics at ESPN, shared that college football is the most popular sport in America after the NFL and MLB. Interesting, most college football fans are not found close to their schools. More than 80% of fans live outside of designated marketing area for their favorite team. It’s important to conduct fan base analysis and hyper-targeted marketing based on geography to reach these fans.
4. Sports Fans Are Consuming More Media on Mobile
Today, sports fans are increasingly watching videos on their mobile phones. David Coletti’s shared that mobile video usage on ESPN.com is up 125% year-over-year. Those numbers demonstrate a huge opportunity for brands to create and share video that their fans want to watch.
5. Leverage Search Engines to Sell More Tickets
According to Brian’s NASCAR presentation, a consumer’s path in purchasing tickets takes an average of five touch points. 81% of fans that use a search engine to research an event will end up buying tickets. Read more about how Rockhouse Partners and its parent company Etix leverage Google to boost revenue:
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