The Merriam-Webster definition for “trailblazer” is “a person who makes, does, or discovers something new and makes it acceptable or popular.”
So it only makes sense that Portland’s NBA team — the Trail Blazers — is committed to embracing new technology that helps improve the fan experience, sell more tickets, and much more.
Members from the Blazers front office met with reporters last week at the Moda Center in Portland to detail some of the team’s innovation strategies and recent partnerships that utilize technology, from mobile apps that help solve parking problems to a pilot program with Microsoft that uses Cortana and predictive analytics to improve customer relationship management.
“It’s sort of cheesy, but we try as much as possible to take the term ‘trail blazers’ to its literal translation,” said Dewayne Hankins, senior vice president of brand strategy & digital.
And it’s not only the team’s nickname that is spurring digital transformation — its owner, Paul Allen, is certainly a tech innovator himself as the co-founder of Microsoft.
“The culture, because Paul Allen is the owner, is that we should always be at the forefront of these types of things,” Hankins added.
For the past three years, the Trail Blazers have made an investment to both upgrade the infrastructure at the 20-year-old Moda Center with new DAS and WiFi technology that helps fans stay connected at the game — 25 percent of fans are logging onto the network per game, on average — while also rolling out a new digital strategy that focuses on its smartphone app given that 70 percent of the team’s online traffic now comes from mobile.
For example, the Blazers recently allowed season-ticket holders to use the team’s mobile app to renew their contracts for next season, becoming the first franchise in professional sports to do so. Vincent Ircandia, senior vice president of business operations, noted that if the Blazers tried something similar even three years ago, “we would have gotten incredible pushback.”
But now fans are more comfortable using their phones as a remote control for their lives, and the Blazers are responding. It took a lot of horsepower to activate this feature, with a mobile app partner, the renewal site developer, and Ticketmaster all participating, but the team is happy with the investment.
“We had 95 percent of season ticket holders renew, and 5 percent did so in the app,” Ircandia said. “We think that is significant. That is a lot of money.”
Speaking of the team’s app, the Blazers also invited a few of their partners to show off their innovations that are incorporated into the app itself. They included Citifyd, a Portland-based startup that originally launched as an “Airbnb for parking” but has since expanded, partnering with professional sports teams like the Blazers to help improve their parking offerings. Citiyd recently developed an app that lets season ticket holders pre-purchase parking, transfer their passes, and more.
“Parking is part of the fan’s journey,” noted Citifyd CEO Sohrab Vossoughi.
Other partners include Digimarc, the publicly-traded Beaverton, Ore.-based digital barcode company that enables the fans to scan programs, posters, and other physical objects with their smartphones and have relevant content surface on their mobile devices. The “FanScan” technology also lets fans use their phones during Blazerdancers routines to find out what song is playing.
Seattle-based startup Footmarks also showed how their proximity beacons installed throughout Moda Center help engage fans on a 1-on-1, contextual basis. Footmarks, which also works with other teams like the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints, as well as companies like Starbucks and Nordstrom, noted that its product lets teams offer more targeted advertising opportunities while also providing data and insights about fans inside the arena.
Much of the digital transformation happening within the Trail Blazers organization can be applied to companies both within sports and outside of it. The team shared one diagram that detailed the “fan journey,” showing how technology can help improve the experience for customers depending on their level of engagement with the team.
“We are measuring the different paths along the fan journey process, and are serving up the right marketing to help them engage with us the way they want to engage with us,” Hankins said.
Asked about the balance between providing technology for fans at the game and making sure they stay interested in the actual basketball being played — which is why they pay for tickets in the first place — Ircandia said the team needs to cater to what customers are demanding.
“They want to be more engaged and have their mobile phones enhance their experience,” he said.
Looking ahead, the Blazers are exploring other technologies like virtual reality that can help grow their fan base beyond folks coming to the games in Portland. Ircandia also noted that the customization of content and offerings for fans will continue to improve as more data becomes available to teams.
“You’ll be able to get the right messaging at the right time,” he said. “We really see the mobile devices being your key to unlocking the full experience at our campus.”
