What is A.I.’s proper place in sports marketing? An insights driven look at the battle between high-tech, frictionless delivery of everything from tickets to tee times, against high-touch, customer-centricity in an impersonal world seeking deeper connection.
Not that many years ago, I warned against seeing sports consumer values strictly through convenient generational lenses. There was a “sandwich generation” that we defined at the time as late boomers/ early Gen X, who saw the world from the vantage point of both cohorts and toed the line when it came to the rapid rejection of older boomer values in favor of shiny new personal computers. The group in reference, was old enough to remember typewriters but young enough to tire kick the first generation of PCs. A similar phenomenon occurred with the ultimate overreach of the dot-com bubble.
Today, history again repeats itself, as I can conclude with near certainty that if I had $10,000 for every marketing presentation or article pushing the transcendence of AI over the past two years, I could buy a professional sports franchise without outside financing. But before you incorrectly put me in a box as an old-school relic, recognize that just as in the examples of the previous two “technical revolutions,” the impact of marketers’ current favorite two letters likely falls between the transformative embracing of today’s new toy, and a skeptical dismissal of the hype. And that has big implications for how we in the sports business adopt AI.
In research conducted with sports fans, we saw a statistical dead heat between those who felt that AI would transform the country in significantly positive ways/have moderately positive effects — and those who saw it destroying the country or having a more negative than positive impact. Predictably, the skeptics skewed older, while the optimists tended to be younger.
So, what does this mean in a sports marketplace infatuated with a next generation of younger fans, yet mindful of the fact that the preponderance of spending power remains among those further along in their careers? It suggests a more measured approach. Companies marketing both participatory and spectator sports need to better understand their customers’ respective sensitivities. It amplifies the battle that we see between high-tech, frictionless delivery of everything from tickets to tee times, against high touch, customer-centric delivery as a differentiator in an increasingly impersonal world still seeking real connection.
Perhaps the best manifestation of the high tech/high touch balance is seen among the most rational sports properties focused on the benefits of automating back-office functions, freeing up staff to be more customer-facing, while bringing more choice to the customer. Some want to be embraced by other human beings at every step of their customer journey, while others seek to avoid human contact from transaction initiation to service delivery. The point, as it often seems to be, is that if you run too fast, you alienate high-value, less malleable customers — but if you stay totally still, you get left behind.