December 14, 2020

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Pandemic Effect on Sports Industry

The year has witnessed a series of unprecedented changes due to COVID-19. And, the eventual lockdowns have put the casual outgoings to a halt. This even applies to the Sunday visits to the stadiums to witness our favourite players playing. The pandemic has hit the stadium attendance to a significant level. However, the scenario didn't have a great shape even before the pandemic.

According to Fortune's 2018 report, Major League Baseball (MLB) has faced the lowest attendance rate in the 15 years. During the 2019 regular season of the National Football League, the teams witnessed an average of 66,648 fans, the lowest reported figure since 2004.

Does this mean that the sports are losing out on their fans? No, this is not the reason for the decline in-stadium attendance; rather it is due to declining in fan engagement at sports events.

Modern-day technologies have made sports consumption a more leisure experience that could not be fulfilled as an in-person fan experience. People do not feel the urge to leave the comfort of their living rooms and watch the game in the stadium.

More than 80% of sports viewers navigate through their smart phones or laptops to search for player stats, visualizations, live scores while watching live matches on TV. Therefore, there is a need for more convincing reasons for the fans to move out of the comfort of their homes and go to the stadium.

Further, we will explore data as one of the reasons and how data can be used to increase fan attendance in the stadium.

COVID Effect on Sports Business

A Stimulating Experience: The integration of data to sports can help in driving the fans to the stadium and can play a huge role in achieving this goal. Data can give fans a unique experience that would instil in them the game day match excitement and experience that fans crave. Data can satisfy the fans and could give them an experience that is valuable for their money.

Huge Scoreboard Screens: Most of the time, in-stadium fans spend in their seats. So, it is important to keep them engaged while they are there. Therefore, to keep the fans engaged, many stadiums have started to hang huge scoreboard screens above the match field. Such arrangements would amplify the viewing of the fans.

The amalgamation of Advanced Metrics:  Along with the current score, these score-boards can show an account of sports data solutions that will offer a unique insight to fans. Further, the addition of the match and player stats, using some advanced metrics, can give a new definition to the game narration, thereby engaging fans in new ways.

Fun Challenges: If the game is slow the attention of the fans can still be attracted via data-powered interactive quizzes, competitions, and fun challenges on their smart phones.

Brand Promotion: Furthermore, data can be used to attract advertising revenue from different brands and sponsors. The stadium screens provide additional sponsorship space to feature new and improved opportunities for brand promotion. The brand content integrated with the quality data using certain metrics enables to differentiate the output and increase the relevance to the sports fans.

Future of Sports

The development of smart stadiums is a certain step in the evolution of the in-venue sports experience. The momentarily drop in the fan attendance to zero, have provided the opportunity to stadiums to integrate the data to the stadium, which will act as a driving force for an enthralling fan experience in sports in the coming years.

Leveraging on the abundance of sports data that firms have collected over the years could boost fan engagement to a new level which is exactly where services offered by sports data providers like Data Sports Group comes in the picture. Driving the super fans back to the stadium with a more enriching experience built on data but with a new outlook in mind to hold their attention and generate revenue in the process.

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