Sports Fans: A Tale of Customer Engagement

Sports teams have ready-made advocates called fans (Let’s go Pats!). You don’t even have to be the greatest team in the league to inspire the type of devotion from your fans that they’ll paint their bodies and wear crazy get-up-here’s looking at you Raiders fans.

But what do these teams do to keep these advocates engaged? The fans expect some return on their investment of money (tickets, overpriced concessions, jerseys, etc.) and of course their devotion that can span even the biggest of slumps.

The biggest thing that sports can show us is that customers always have a choice. They can figure out how to survive without you. So you must give them a great experience that has them coming back for more!

Sports Fan Engagement

Here’s the rub when it comes to customer engagement: customers have a high level of expectation from you. Look at sports fans, even when they seem to hate ‘their’ team, they still love them.

Sports teams recognize that everyone impacts the fans experience attending that game! Increasingly, they are trying to provide a consistent, personalized experience that includes not just the players, mascots, and cheerleaders, but one that spans to the team office and the personnel at the stadium.

Look at what VP of Digital and Marketing for the Golden State Warriors team- Kenny Lauer-said in his 2015 VentureBeat article:

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"It's all about how you enhance the experience...It's not just about basketball, but about being an entertainment company...people want to be entertained-- how will their lives be better with the Warriors in it?"

Read more about what sports fans can teach us about engagement here!