Data is key to personalizing the user experience (UX); no matter whether it’s used to tailor sports events and digital content to segmented audiences, implementing workflow efficiencies based on employee needs, or how athletes leverage their own performance data for competitive gains.
There are parallels that can be drawn from the data strategies of every department within a sports organization and how data helps drive things such as fan engagement, operational efficacy, and athletic performance. Foremost is how – once an organization is able to collect data – it is used to generate value across the business without creating data disparities and impeding the user.
Mounir Zok, N3XT Sports Chief Executive (CEO), recently moderated a panel session on sporting innovation at the World Football Summit 2023, held in Seville, Spain, which debated how the industry can democratize the use of performance-analytics tools and what learnings sports entities can take from athlete-data management. “The move from data to information is a delicate one,” he said. “Anyone working in grassroots sport is strict about their priority list, so they can focus on getting the foundations right and building on top of that. If you think about all the different types of data you can collect on and off the field, the question is then: how do you decide where to start?”
Speaking at the event, Mounir was joined by several executives working in athlete and sports-data management. Dave Mace, a Principal Sports Consultant for Amazon Web Services (AWS), said that data “needs to be contextualized” to avoid overwhelming its intended users. “There is a lot of technology and data illiteracy, and if we’re not educating on that … they won’t be able to respond to the data,” he continued. “If you take two football clubs that use the same data and technology systems, for example, they will have a completely different output [depending on their process]. It’s about how you use the data and then contextualize it.”
Understanding the needs of the individual will drive results for the wider team; a statement which is true for any department and their personnel. For competitive sports teams, one way to overcome this is to take an “athlete-centric” approach by providing each player with personalized data that serves to their individual style, rather than a universal process that spans every team member.
Augustina de Giovanni, Mental Performance Coach for Major League Soccer (MLS) club DC United, is an advocate of “personalized training programs” that “put the athlete first”. “Everything goes back to the first step: understanding,” she explained. “Going back to the athlete and their teams, the important thing is to train their mind to understand the information that will help them perform the way they want to perform. By putting the individual person first … then you will garner results.”
SPORTS ORGANIZATIONS CAN TAKE LESSONS FROM HOW ATHLETES USE DATA
Ben Smith, Head of International Business at Breakaway Data, a global athlete data company, outlined the importance of “keeping the key stakeholders central to the process” when it comes to delivering data analytics and new technologies to clients. While athletes, for example, are usually “critical of data” by their nature, there is an opportunity, he says, to “prepare the athlete to use the data” in a way that allows them to differentiate themselves from the rest of the field and speaks to their own, unique ways of training and preparing for competition.
“By putting the athlete at the heart of the experience, they can then make choices about how they want to move forward,” he continued. “They are able to take control and navigate their own journey. So, the ability for data and technology to support and accelerate that process, rather than to take nine or ten years to reach a level of maturity … you know how to take key information, really good advice, and assimilate it to become the best version of yourself.”
By comparison, this is no different within an organization’s front office. Change management is “very low” in sports business, so sports properties are faced with sourcing technologies that serve the employee experience (EX) and simplify dataflow. How an organization unpacks data to the benefit of its workforce requires a similar tact. Just as athletes will take to different types of data learnings and technologies compared to their competition, it’s just as important for sports executives to understand the types of data sets that will drive value and improvements for the individual user; whether they are an athlete, coach, or somebody who works in the front office.
For example, the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), which recently won the Best Digital Transformation Initiative 2023 category at the WFS Awards ceremony in Seville, last year launched a dedicated member portal to empower its members to manage their own data, while the organization has also rolled out an employee portal adapted to the needs of its workforce.
Antonio Gonçalves, Junior Consultant at N3XT Sports, spoke about the need for sports organizations to prioritize the employee when undergoing digital transformation. “Where a sports organization has multiple employee tools, but no portal to access them, that’s where the operational process becomes disjointed and unorganized,” Antonio said. “Technology is an enabler,” he added. “It’s here to facilitate people’s processes, not to dictate them.”
WHAT’S N3XT?
When it comes to data management and technology integration, there are key learnings that every department within a sports organization shares. For example, while athlete data can drive commercial opportunities, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models are also making it easier for stakeholders to understand their different types of data – on and off the field of play.
Speaking on the subject of athlete development, Rob Scotland, Head of Brand and Communications at Veo Technologies, which provides AI-powered camera technology to coaching and playing staff, stated that, “like any good technology, when the structure is right, you can mould it to what you need”, adding that the “technology is used to facilitate [the customer], and not to dominate”.
While this is true of the sports executive – and not only how an athlete, coach, or team leverages data and technology to improve their performance – there are key learnings that every department within a sports organization can take when it comes to data management and technology integration.
“In competitive sport, putting the player and the athlete at the heart of the equation and how we can involve them in the design and development process is a key takeaway,” Mounir continued. “As someone who has worked with elite athletes in the past and now with many organizations, including at a grassroots level, there are amazing technologies on the market that are making a massive difference in sports at every level.”
Our team at N3XT Sports works tirelessly to develop and implement data and digital transformation strategies across a multitude of sports properties at federation level, competition level, and club level. To find out more about how N3XT Sports can serve your organization, fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch. Our goal is to drive the digitalization of the sports industry and our clients.