Data-Driven Decisions: The Role of Analytics in Sports Marketing

Analytics has become a very popular term in the world of sports. In fact, many “traditionalists” are against the use of analytics to help determine strategies within the game itself.

Without analytics, though, it’s highly improbable that Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors would’ve become an NBA dynasty.

There’s that Brad Pitt movie about the Oakland A’s to thank analytics for as well. These are all on-the-field examples where data use has altered how games are played. Is analytics also part of the business world of sports?

The Role of Analytics in Marketing & the Business Side of Sports

The way that data is being used on and off the field is actually very similar. Ironically, though, certain off-the-field aspects have become more complex than strategies within the games themselves.

Most of the marketing departments in professional sports teams analyze stats, such as ticket sales, fan engagement, merchandise sales, and other elements that can help grow the business, that is, the team itself.

Without data collection, any simple-minded person could believe that the most popular teams are the ones that win and that the most popular players play on these teams. The list of the best-selling jerseys in Major League Baseball, though, tells another story. At the top of the list is Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani.

Ohtani is prolific as both a batter and a pitcher, something that hasn’t been seen since the likes of the great Babe Ruth. However, his team finished 17 games out of the playoff race and with a losing record.

Those “analytics” make it clear that anyone who wanted to place a bet in Bet 999 Sportsbook on the Angels this season would’ve been wise to bet on them losing.

Fan Engagement Drives Sales More Than Wins & Losses

Shohei Ohtani’s story is a clear example of what drives sports marketing today. Sales numbers would indicate that Baseball, although a team sport, is driven more by the individual stars that play it. The athletes with the biggest social media following will usually be the ones who can generate more revenue for their respective teams or leagues.

Fan engagement, though, is not always tied to individual players in some sports. That’s also something that the same data, but from a different sport, shows. In the NFL, the most popular jersey belongs to Dallas Cowboys pass rusher Micah Parsons.

Does this mean that Parsons is currently the most popular player in the NFL? Well, social media doesn’t seem to agree with the jersey sale numbers. Parsons boasts only 831 thousand followers on Instagram, while someone like Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has over 5 million. Is fan engagement king or not in the sports world?

Social Media Numbers Are Not the Full Fan Engagement Equation

In many industries, the person or brand with the biggest social media presence can be crowned as king. Despite what many people believe, professional sports still happen outside of social media. This means that even though fan engagement may still be the most important analytic that correlates to sales, sports get fan engagement from other places.

This can help explain why someone like Micah Parsons sells more jerseys than Patrick Mahomes. Just looking at the social media numbers, it wouldn’t make sense either. Mahomes has more Instagram followers than the Dallas Cowboys’ official page. However, when the Cowboys took the field to face the 49ers this season, 26 million TVs tuned into the game.

Those 26 million viewers marked the largest TV audience for an NFL game at that point in the season. Even if a large part of the audience were 49ers fans and maybe others were watching because they bet on the game online with using their Metamask wallets, the audience that a brand like the Cowboys generates is massive.

What Analytics Are Really Saying to Marketers in the Sports World

Marketing teams in the world of sports will obviously analyze way more data than these tiny bits that have been talked about here. The Othani-Parsons comparison, though, can clearly show that what sells or gets people to seats in one sport may not work well in another.

There’s another interesting element that seems to be unique to the NFL and speaks to the power of the teams as brands. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is 5th on the list of most popular jersey sales. Travis currently has a popular podcast with his brother Jason.

That sparked a TV series based on the lives of the two that’s streaming on Amazon Prime. Last but not least, he’s dating music superstar Taylor Swift. All that didn’t seem to be enough for him to overtake a Cowboys player on the list of top-selling jerseys, even though all of the other elements around Kelce seem to indicate that he’s a much more marketable player than Parsons.

It could be argued that jersey sales are a market that caters more to actual fans of the game. Even then, they show that the Cowboys fanbase is one of the most engaged in merchandise sales. This is a stat that marketers would be wise to hold in high value.

Final Thoughts on The Role of Analytics in Sports Marketing

Wins and losses don’t dictate which team will be popular or not, at least not in the short term. Thanks to analytics, marketing experts within the world of sports can figure out what is actually bringing fans to stadiums and having them purchase team merchandise.

There’s a whole element to the Othani story that wasn’t necessarily explored. That’s the fact that he’s Japanese, and that means he has an entire “extra” fan base almost to his own. This phenomenon already occurred in the NBA with Yao Ming in the 2000s.

Sports is still one of those industries that can’t be fully understood by just looking at social media numbers and taking that as the entire picture. There is perhaps too much data that marketers can access, and that could lead them to overvalue certain things. Ironically enough, in football, it seems that the best thing marketers can do is stick with the teams as the most important element.

The fans of those teams will then do their part to anoint one of their players as the next idol. In baseball, though, it could be tougher for marketers to find what’s truly getting people to turn on the TV. They may have to play a bigger role in propping up some of these rising stars.

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