Sports fans are ever-evolving but often their loyalty spoils sports leagues and teams into thinking that they don’t need fan engagement initiatives. What’s vital to note here is while sports loyalty may be affected by various factors such as habit or lethargy or peer pressure, fan affinity comes from the heart and minds of the fans. It’s a more conscious emotion that triggers a strong association with a sports league or brand. So what can sports leagues and associations do? They need to keep an eye on the changing fan psyche apart from constantly evolving in terms of strategy and ideas. Team Vinfotech shares three such ideas that every sports league and association must know for 2017.

1. Seeing fan engagement as a culture

A lot of sports leagues, clubs or teams see their fans as consumers. But is that how fans see themselves? Not at all. Fans invest in a mindset, a whole lot of their emotions when they like a sports team, a league, a music label or an entertainment channel. That’s called affinity. Guess what world’s most successful sports and entertainment brands do? They know the exact touch-points of fan affinity. It’s time sports leagues and clubs start seeing fan engagement as a culture and build a strategy around it. Leagues need fan relationship management and affinity reward schemes in order to naturally involve fans in anything and everything related to their team or league. The Golden Street Warriors, an NBA, team consciously built a culture around its fans. Their campaigns such as ‘We believe’ and ‘Strength in numbers’ were more than just marketing gimmicks. They really talked to fans, got their emotions expressed on various platforms and genuinely reached out to them.

2. Finding ways to give easy access to fans

A lot of sports leagues miss out on the finer details of reaching out to fans. That includes making memorabilia easily accessible to fans locally. Sports leagues can tie up with local startups in order to make their merchandise available. Even content should be distributed locally with platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. Sports leagues can organize live prediction matches on a rewards-based platform. They must constantly study fans and alter strategies based on analytics. Of course this kind of engagement must be accompanied by monetization.

3. Keeping an eye on 2017 trends

In 2017, it seems the world is recognizing that a lot of social dollars of various brands and enterprises are going to platforms instead of businesses themselves. Moreover, millennial fans and consumers are allergic to blatant advertising. These were some issues that CES Sports Business Innovation Summit panel mulled over a few months ago. One of the key take aways of the Summit discussions was the realization that sports clubs and leagues cannot depend on social media platforms for a real-time and measurable fan engagement. Manchester United has 640 million fans in Asia alone. How can it take steps to engage these fans continuously. The Summit discussed the possibilities of exclusive platforms such as mobile and VR platforms to further make the fan engagement deeper. In 2017, more and more sports fans would expect sports leagues and associations to become more savvy in terms of reach. These brands need to create exceptional mobile engagement experiences, tap the VR trends and find newer ways to engage sports fans beyond the social media channels.

The biggest sports brands, leagues, clubs and teams truly care for their fans. They stay away from the pride of their brands and genuinely try to tap empathize with fans worldwide. If you need help in fan engagement concepts or ideas, we are around to help you anytime.