More and more people are using their smartphones at Seahawks games and the team wants to capitalize on this growing trend.
Chip Suttles, the Seahawks VP of Technology, spoke at a Seahawks Mobility Summit on Tuesday evening in Seattle hosted by Extreme Networks, a Bay Area-based company that operates the WiFi network at CenturyLink Field which debuted before the start of the 2014-15 season.
GeekWire caught up with Suttles after the panel discussion — Microsoft CIO Jim DuBois and University of Washington Athletics CTO Erik Jones also participated — and he said that the front office wants to introduce a new loyalty program next year that aims to enhance the game-day experience for fans via the Seahawks mobile app.
“We want to engage with you on a 1-on-1 basis and customize the user experience based on your traits and how you’re using the mobile app,” Suttles said.
The loyalty program could potentially award fans with discounts on concessions or Seahawks gear “to express our gratitude for you being a loyal spectator,” Suttles noted.
“Then we want to build on that,” he added. “Maybe if we realize that you like stats more, or if you like the photos and videos more, we want to emphasize that.”
It’s unclear if the team would award “points” to fans that engage more with the app or attend more games, but Suttles said that the program could potentially provide exclusive content to certain users, depending on different variables.
Using technology and data to enhance the game-day experience for fans is a growing trend in the sports world. It’s something that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal talked about at the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.
Shaq noted how the new Sacramento Kings arena — hailed as the “21st Century Colosseum” — will enable teams to engage more with their fans, perhaps knowing what food and drink they ordered during their last visit and asking them if they’d like the same order delivered to their seat.
However, Cuban brought up an interesting point, noting that he doesn’t want his arena full of people looking down at their smartphones for the entire game. He said the “energy you feel when you walk into an arena is the most valuable part of our product we own.”
“I learned very quickly that anytime I have somebody looking down at their phone, I lose a little bit of them,” Cuban said. “We try to do everything possible to keep fans from using technology while the game is being played.”
Suttles also added that the Seahawks continued to test beacon technology this season at CenturyLink Field, which lets the team push out notifications to smartphone owners and provide relevant information, like digital game day guides or discounts at team shops, depending on where they are in the stadium. He said the 250 beacons could be utilized with the loyalty program.
“With that beacon technology, we’re starting to realize the value of analytics — where fans come into the stadium, how many people engage with attractions we have in our concourse, how much does providing information about concessions drive additional concessions sales,” Suttles noted.
The time seems to be right for something like a loyalty program given how many people are online while at the game. Suttles noted that the Seahawks saw record adoption for its WiFi network this season, which had an average concurrent usage of around 25 percent of fans per game. There were 34,000 unique visitors during the Carolina game in October — the average last season was about 16,000 unique visitors — and a record 20,000 concurrent users during the Arizona game in November.
The Seahawks also tested an in-seat mobile ordering service via its mobile app for fans in its 7,800 premium seats. There were 3,200 individual deliveries this season, Suttles said, which generated an additional $75,000 in revenue for the team.
Extreme Networks executive VP of Marketing and Corporate Development Norman Rice III added that two years ago, there was about 1 terabyte of data used by fans on its WiFi network at an average NFL game. That number spiked to 4 terabytes this season.
“That’s a ridiculous exponential growth of data and just a microcosm of what’s happening in the marketplace and the world,” Rice said.
