This post was created in partnership with EY Studio+
Key takeaways
- Sports organizations are inundated with data, which can fuel fan engagement if used properly.
- Sports and marketing leaders need to find the right balance between using data and AI tools and maintaining an emotional connection.
- AI can help personalize data for sports fans and make different sports easier for new fans to follow.
Sports organizations have more data than ever. The challenge is using it to strengthen fan connections without sacrificing the emotion at the center of sports.
During an ADWEEK House Cannes Lions group chat co-hosted with EY Studio+, leaders from sports, media, technology, and marketing discussed how AI is changing fan experiences, where personalization creates value, and why trust will shape the next phase of fan engagement.
Data should deepen the experience, not distract
The discussion opened with a question about how data fuels fan engagement.
Hanne Jesca Bax, global vice chair – clients and industries at EY, noted that athletes have had access to performance data for years, but fans are now gaining access to many of the same insights. She also pointed to the broader role sports play in building community.
“I think people have even more thirst to come together, and share in the passion that sports can bring,” Bax said. “Sports bring people together.”
As the conversation continued, participants discussed how data can add context to the fan experience without taking away the emotion.
“One of the greatest things about sport is the emotion, right? Because the emotion cannot be scripted, it’s authentic, and that’s what fans love,” shared Roman Di Somma, head of international talent at CAA Sports. “The key challenge for us is to use data not to fabricate the emotion, but to remove all the filters that are in between the audience and the emotion and serve it so that it can enhance the live experience of a sport.”
