FanThreeSixty has become an industry leader in “fanalytics”—the tracking and analysis of sports fans. The company began in 2011 as Sporting Innovations, but redefined its market position and rebranded in 2016. As customer data has become increasingly more detailed, FanThreeSixty has become an essential resource for sports leagues and teams looking to better understand who their fans are, and hoping to use that data to boost engagement.
“If we live in an experience economy, then data is the new currency for that economy,” explained FanThreeSixty CEO Jason Houseworth.
On Jun. 6, Houseworth will join a panel of sports analytics and technology experts at Horizon Summit at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. The conference is being co-hosted by the San Francisco 49ers and SportTechie, and will bring together executives and thought leaders to discuss the most important trends shaping the sports industry.
Houseworth sees value in data being able to immediately impact experiences.
“We use the fan data and the predictive models that we have in order to help our clients transform the way they act on their data in real time,” he said.
FanThreeSixty applies machine learning to its client’s datasets to search for actionable insights that can be used to positively affect fan behavior.
For instance, one of its predictive models addresses the propensity for attrition of season ticket members and the factors driving attrition. So, on an ongoing basis, it knows that if a fan is likely to churn after missing three games, and can help its clients act in real time on someone who has missed two games, offering an incentive to nudge them to attend the next game. FanThreeSixty applies the intelligence and the action so its clients can capture fans at the right moment.
According to Houseworth, many other data analytics companies working in the sports industry focus purely on gathering data and providing reports. In contrast, FanThreeSixty’s goal is to provide insights that can immediately affect a fan’s experience. Houseworth describes this as actionable data versus access to data.
“We deliver those experiences in real time because at a live event, every moment matters,” Houseworth said.
Part of the idea of making data actionable comes down to fan identification. Personalizing a fan’s experience only becomes possible if FanThreeSixty’s clients have a deep understanding of who that fan. is. According to Houseworth, his company has helped teams and leagues increase the size of their known fanbases by more than 50 percent, with some clients more than doubling known fans.
“We like to say we’re the self-driving car for fan engagement,” Houseworth said. “We create fan intelligence, which helps our clients know where to go and how to act autonomously.”
However, Houseworth believes that there remains a disconnect between data and action in the sports industry. Part of that problem is due to a lack of the resources and infrastructure needed to leverage insights from the information.
“I think the biggest obstacle is the status quo and just the inertia around doing things the way you do them,” he said. “There are many teams that view data as a risk and given that they’ve got data across multiple transactional systems, it seems difficult to organize it and make it actionable.”
Houseworth believes data is the new currency of sports, and this is validated by the teams that view their data as an asset. The value created by transforming their data into intelligence is indisputable.
One of the tools within FanThreeSixty’s mobile app allows the system to send out messages to fans intended to impact their experiences. Houseworth sees those notifications—or “nudges” as he calls them—as one of the biggest assets his company can provide clients.
“That is ultimately the result of great predictive analytics,” Houseworth said. “We like to nudge the right fans at the right time. That’s the ‘in-the-moment’ experience that fans expect.”