Whether it’s a face-off, a jump ball or a whistle, pro sports are played everyday with thousands of adoring fans cheering on their favorite teams. But what about the countless workers who make those games possible? From the ticket takers, to the lawyers, to the service teams, a massive undertaking exists every night right underneath our noses: game day. Learn about the challenges, efficiencies and technology supporting a modern pro experience.
"Crew call” on game day was always about 6 hours prior to first pitch and I wasn’t the first one there. Throughout my 10+ years working for professional sports franchises there was always someone there before you. Whether it was janitorial, operational or technical employees, the on-site crew was always asked to be there and make things work.
During my four seasons producing the Washington Nationals pre-game show, the team had to set up cameras, test broadcast transmissions and even do hair & makeup many hours before the first fans arrived. A few years later during my four seasons with the Oakland Athletics, game days required staff on-site as early as 12 hours prior to big events like playoff games and Opening Day(s). This complicated process of setup, execution and cleanup wasn’t just a one-off execution at the big league level–it literally happens everyday. With each passing game of a long season, the process generally gets better, but challenges emerge that continue to wreak havoc on the modern pro experience.
Managing Fan Inquiries on Game Day
Perhaps no component of game day operations surprises those on the outside as much as the amount and speed of inbound fan questions as game time approaches. As the kickoff or first pitch arrives, consider how many people have questions or issues in the hours proceeding the game. While working for a second-division pro soccer team, we would average 70–100 inbound Facebook messages alone on game day and that building only held approximately 5,000 people (and that was only Facebook!). While working on a project for the Super Bowl and NFL On Location, my entire company was set up to handle the consumer demand for Super Bowl tickets as well as the questions and the issues for the nearly 100,000 people that attended that event.
This volume of inquiry translated to my workplaces in the form of non-stop phone calls, texts and emails–all being fielded by sales and ticketing staff. More profoundly for the organization was that by answering all these calls and emails, the staff wasn’t able to do any selling and revenue generation. In many cases, staff was exclusively just hunkered down trying to manage consumer inquiry and problem solving as game day approached. In small organizations this was a massive strain on the staff and at larger companies, the impact was astronomical as bodies needed to be there to handle inquiry.
Simple Questions, Hours of Wasted Time
The pro sports experience also has some wonderful traditions, and tailgating is a great example of one. In the NFL, roughly 18 percent of fans tailgate and according to some estimates almost 35% of fans don’t even enter the building. What’s noticeable about tailgating is that it occurs prior to a game. What perhaps isn’t as noticeable is the start time. Consider this: when two teams play a game, every website, app and social media profile shares the start time so everyone knows.
But what about tailgating? Perhaps no simple question & answer is asked of sports front office staff more than “what time do the gates open” or “when do the parking lots open.” This particular information isn’t readily available on every mobile device or platform and fans don’t want to scroll through complex webpages looking for answers. What ends up happening next is a front office nightmare: Facebook messages, SMS text, emails, phone calls and more wasting critical staff resources all answering a question that makes the team no additional money and prevents the staff from selling tickets. Every single front office sports employee can relate to this pain point and no matter how much outbound marketing is done telling fans this information, someone is going to call and time (and money) will be wasted.
Technology to the Rescue?
Within the past decade, technology solutions have emerged to address a number of issues and challenges within the sports space and many appear to be providing significant benefit. Solutions have emerged that can help franchises quickly and effectively make more money and optimize their resources. Examples of this would include the progress being made in dynamically pricing tickets to generate better ticket sales rates or even concepts like “smart stadiums” that use real-time visualization tools to help understand in-stadium foot traffic patterns, thereby improving fan experience.
Technology has long offered solutions and innovations to products to improve performance and the convergence of sports and technology is no different. As Tim O’Reilly, noted web pioneer and tech guru pointed out, “what new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done.” Undoubtedly as customer demand increases on game days in the form of more and more questions, the need for a scalable and robust tool like GameOn Technology becomes more apparent.
While customer inquiry in the form of email and calls may never truly stop (and that’s fine), tools like GameOn can be a game changer in a sport full of them.
Matt Perl is the Senior Director of Marketing at GameOn Technology. He previously spent 4 years as Director of Customer Acquisition & Broadcasting at the Oakland A’s, 4 years at ESPN, 1 year as the SVP of Marketing at Orange County Soccer Club (USL), 4 years as a producer for the Washington Nationals and 1 year as Manager of Demand Generation at NFL On Location.
