One traditional benefit of sports property (e.g., team, league, and event) reward programs is that sports leaders can observe real fan behavior in action. Fans collect and redeem rewards to buy products, services, and experiences with a property’s expectation that earning more points will increase fan loyalty and drive future purchasing activity.
A traditional challenge, however, is that activity occurs and rewards are earned only within that ecosystem. Points are accrued and activity is primarily visible within the sports property’s or rightsholder’s direct channels.
While securing fan data within a first-party shopping and points network has substantial value, it can have less utility for sports property and rightsholder partners. It is helpful to know what fans purchase to activate partnerships within this ecosystem (i.e., brands can target fans based on where they spend their dollars and time with a sports property).
It can be even more helpful for partners to see fan spending both inside and outside the sports property ecosystem. That is what makes the announcement of Louisiana State University’s (LSU) digital fan rewards program, Geaux Rewards, so notable.
Created in partnership with Uptop, Geaux Rewards enables “a fan [to] link their existing debit or credit card (for free), earning points when shopping at eligible locations, which include Tiger Stadium and the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, as well as at LSU sponsors Albertsons, Take Five, Community Coffee and Hancock Whitney. Fans can earn more points by engaging with the LSU app.”
Financial product–based partnerships have been a common and very successful collaboration in the sports industry for years. They provide financial institutions with a key point of differentiation because fans are often more likely to sign up for their favorite team-branded credit or debit cards.
The promise of Geaux Rewards is that linking property rewards with shopping experiences enables LSU to observe real fan behavior both inside and outside its ecosystem. This allows the school to demonstrate to current and potential partners how much and how frequently fans spend with partner brands. LSU’s executive director of analytics, Gabe Merville, asserts that having this level of insight creates a novel “regular seven-figure revenue stream” from partnerships.
ROAR’s Smart District as a Service (SmartDaaS) platform employs a similar approach to Geaux Rewards by using fan data to drive partnership revenue. In addition to credit card transaction data, SmartDaaS integrates clickstream (mobile and web traffic), foot traffic, ticket sales, food and beverage data, and CRM data to create holistic fan profiles.
This type of data analysis solves two of the most common questions ROAR hears about partnerships:
– Is the fan of a sports property a current or potential customer of my business?
– Is the fan of a sports property a current or potential customer of my competitor?
ROAR’s approach enables its property, brand, and agency clients to identify better fit and more valuable partnership opportunities. Observing actual fan consumer behavior lower in the purchasing funnel allows buyers and sellers of partnerships to directly address these questions. This analysis then facilitates data‑driven strategies and activations that maximize incremental revenue growth by revealing which companies will gain the most value from partnering with specific properties.
LSU is not the first time Uptop has deployed this type of rewards program. It currently has similar partnerships with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons. This is, however, the first time Uptop has been deployed in college sports, and our expectation is that this type of fan rewards program will quickly become standard practice across the sports industry.