Global

The final piece in the jigsaw of data-driven communications is timing – sending the right message to the right person, in the right way, and at the right time.

English football club Leicester City took a data-driven approach to season ticket sales for the 2015/16 Premier League season, with a specific focus on improving communication with groups identified as at risk of not renewing.

The big data of today will be even bigger tomorrow: the importance of data analytics in commercial sport strategy is set to keep on growing as the volume, variety and velocity of information available continues to expand at pace.

The new data sources that have opened up for sports organisations in recent years have been primarily digital, as it is online where the pace of ‘datafication’ has been fastest, and costs of capture lowest.

One of the major challenges currently facing data-driven sports organisations, and particularly those who are new to the game, is pulling together the disparate sets of information to which they have access.

Velocity is one of the key identifiers of big datam and relates to the speed with which the information in question is generated and the speed with which it can be captured.

The focus of data-driven commercial sports strategy has so far been firmly on the fan side of the revenue mix – looking primarily at ticket sales, merchandising and secondary expenditure beyond the stadium gate.

One of the major barriers to the wider utilisation of data throughout the commercial departments of sports organisations is the complex nature of the – often raw – information being presented to them.

When people think of big data, they tend to think in numbers: how many, how much, how often. And the tendency to do so is potentially stronger in sport than in many other businesses: results, records, league positions and personal bests. In the playing arena, it is the numbers that really count, but on the commercial side of the industry, sport remains a people business and its USPs are built around the human qualities of passion, emotion, pride and community.

Uefa president Michel Platini has lost his appeal to overturn his 90-day provisional suspension from taking part in football-related activity, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has today (Friday) ruled that world football’s governing body Fifa must not seek to extend the current measures.

US video games giant Electronic Arts has launched a new initiative that will facilitate global eSports competitions across some of its biggest titles.

A field of 150 cities are set to enter the fray to be crowned the SportBusiness Ultimate Sports City of 2016 based on the prowess of their major events calendars between 2012 and 2020.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that it will launch an independent auditing process for the money it distributes to international federations and sports organisations in an effort to clamp down on alleged corruption within sport.

Financial prosecutors in France are investigating the controversial decision to award the 2021 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships to the US city of Eugene.

On Location Experiences, the revamped premium experiential hospitality business owned by investment firm RedBird Capital Partners, global sports marketing company Bruin Sports Capital and the National Football League (NFL) has made its first move into the music and entertainment sector by acquiring Runaway Tours.

The International Aquatics Federation (FINA) has confirmed the return of Berlin to its Swimming World Cup calendar, with the 2016 season set to switch to the short course format of the sport.