Juan Iraola is the Chief Innovation Officer at Real Sociedad. With an MA in industrial engineering obtained from the University of Navarra, he has over 25 years of experience as a consultant and project manager in different sectors, including sports.
In this interview, we will take a deep dive into Real Sociedad’s digital transformation journey. What led the club to pursue this journey, what are the goals they have achieved, the importance and benefits of digital transformation for the club and what is the club working on are some of the topics that we cover throughout the interview.
1. Juan, why did Real Sociedad decide to begin its digital transformation journey?
One of the reasons behind embarking on a digital transformation journey was the stadium’s renovation in 2016. The leadership team realized that in order to upgrade the stadium we needed to incorporate a digital strategy aligned with the corporate one. Our main two goals were to transform by improving the processes of the whole club – from fan engagement, to stadium experience, to performance and business area – and to innovate by exploring and activating new products and services as new revenue streams for the club.
2. What are some of the goals that Real Sociedad has achieved by going through a digital transformation process?
The benefits that a club gets from going through a digital transformation journey are huge. There were many goals that we were able to achieve. Firstly, we increased the average stadium attendance per game from 22,000 to 30,000 and increased the number of season ticket holders from 23,000 to 35,500 members. Secondly, we started interacting more frequently with our fans and engaging with them on a personal level thanks to adopting a mobile-first approach and to developing our own app. Thirdly, we were able to improve internal business processes by deploying Office 365 across the club and by deploying new Points Of Sales that allowed us to measure the purchasing behaviour of our clients. Lastly, in the sports performance area, we implemented a new automated video recording solution, developed a new sport management solution to track the performance of our players and developed a new app for the scouting department.
3. Can you tell us how this journey helped the club in exploring new revenue streams?
Exploring and activating new revenue streams through digital was one of our goals and we successfully achieved it. Before the 2019-2020 season, Real Sociedad got zero revenue from digital assets. Thanks to our digital transformation journey, we generated an 85% increase in revenue on our eCommerce and started monetizing our Youtube channel. We are currently exploring and working on other ways to increase our revenue streams, which hopefully we can announce really soon.
We have defined a strategy to activate these new revenue streams for the club, it’s based on 5 areas:
1. New ways to connect Brand, Fans and Club. That means new ways to deliver publicity and campaigns using new digital assets:
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- Smart tag. NFC tag attached to the kit, fans will read the tag during match days and they will receive coupons from active campaigns in their mobile phones.
- Augmented Reality. Deliver AR experiences to the fans, experiences sponsored by brands.
- Chatbot. Introducing a new concept of conversational marketing using the interaction offered by the chatbot to deliver promotion.
2. Content. OTT could be an example of it, with 2 alternatives: a subscription fee to see some premium content, and publicity insert in the video content.
3. Knowledge. Football clubs can generate by themselves and with the support of third parties, a big amount of knowledge that could be delivered using an e-learning platform, creating a new way to engage with fans and also a new revenue stream.
4. Physical products. We are exploring with a company called Stredium, a new category of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), NFTs tied to real and unique sport objects. This offers clubs a new opportunity to tokenize & monetize the museum objects.
5. Solutions IP. Collaborating with vendors or even creating a startup LAB, clubs can make money participating in part of the IP of the solutions built by third parties to solve clubs’ challenges.
¨Before the 2019-2020 season, Real Sociedad got zero revenue from digital assets. Thanks to our digital transformation journey, we generated an 85% increase in revenue on our eCommerce and started monetizing our Youtube channel.¨
4. What’s N3XT for Real Sociedad?
In the past years, we have focused on the fans that are physically present in the stadium while disregarding a very important detail: even with a full house, there will be many more fans watching the game from the outside. When Covid-19 hit, it compelled clubs to divert their attention outside of their arenas to keep fans engaged through tough times. Real Sociedad’s goal is to become a fan’s “second screen” at home. It will enable fans to easily access our digital media at home because of our updated recordings of matches, highlights, and practices.. LaLiga’s business intelligence and the analytics department provided us with a control panel capable of monitoring data. Using the gathered data, we are trying to come up with the best digital solution to increase the number of stadium attendances by offering personalized services and initiatives.