How Sports Teams Market to Fans, Not Customers

0:00The main thing that is different is that we don't have customers, clients or users that other sectors have, but we have fans. And having fans is so much different. The fans is very, very demanding. That's something that really changes the way you approach marketing and digital marketing. Marketing two different sports under one organizational brand. What have you noticed in the difference between basketball and soccer? Baskonia and basketball fans are a little bit more younger than the football fans. With the football team, you need to be a little more traditional. So we need to be very careful with the segmentation.

0:31I mean, we still have like separate, you know, ways of communicating between Baskonia and Deportivo Alavés. What would you think is your number one priority for the next 12 months? Is to have everything centralized and the data perfectly synchronized between different systems. I really want to build a robust source of truth with all our customers because we have a lot of cross-selling. Hey everybody, and thank you for listening. My name is Andes Figueira and I'm going to be your host for the day. This show is brought to you by The Global Talent Company, helping fast-growing teams hire exceptional remote talent from Argentina, South Africa, and beyond.

1:07We connect companies with world-class professionals who bring skill, reliability, and global perspective to every role. So if your team's looking to grow with proven remote talent, head on over to theglobaltalent.co and just see how we can help. And with me here today, I am speaking with Daniel Perales, head of digital marketing at Baskonia Alaves Group, a company that develops and organizes sports events, corporate social responsibility programs, and educational initiatives. So, Daniel, it's a pleasure to have you here, man. How's it going? Nice to meet you, Andres. Happy to be here and happy to answer all your questions.

1:42That's great. That's great. And Daniel, just so that we can start digging into the substance of what this episode is going to be about, would you be able to tell us a bit more about your background, where you come from, and what Baskonia Alaves group does, like in your own words? Yeah, perfect. So I started, you know, trying to learn more on the communication side. I made some work on the radio here in Spain. But then I moved to learning about marketing. And that was my first master's degree on marketing. And then I moved to e-commerce sector. That was pretty cool. But then I moved to Ticket Beach that we sell tickets from sports and also concerts and all around the globe and more on the marketing side.

2:32I was focused on the digital marketing side. Then I moved to data and I was working one year just on data and then on product management. That is something that I also love. But I specialized on digital marketing from there. I worked also in product school that it was a startup in Silicon Valley in San Francisco I worked remotely from Madrid I went there four or five times and it's awesome it's another world it was great on the education sector and we sold courses on product management for example and then I moved to IE there's a very big private university here in Madrid and in Spain we gather people from all countries but my passion always was sports.

3:19I mean, I loved sports since I was a kid. I played basketball when I was 10 years old, something like that. And then I had the possibility to do an NBA with La Liga, that is the main soccer football league here in Spain, of course. And then I joined the Bascone Alaves group that we have is like a conglomerate of sports you know things and we have basketball i was main a basketball team that's called basconia that if you know about basketball i mean i'm sure that uh you will know because it was pretty big on the early 2000s we went to some euroleague finals and everything but then basconia was the first there was the first team that uh at least i don't know if in the world but pretty sure that in Europe that actually acquired a football team.

4:13So it was a basketball team acquiring a football team that in this case was Deportivo Alaves. That's why the name is Baskonia Alaves Group. So we have basketball, we have football, and then also we have other sectors. Like, for example, we have a bag that is like a gym, and we have paddle, and we have swimming pools, say, more like a sport complex that we have there in the north of Spain, because everything is located in Vitoria, that is in the Basque country in Alaba, and we have more things, we just launched an international academy we launched a residence right now for students that come to the country and to learn Spanish or to learn things about in the university that we have close to the stadium uh yeah so that's pretty much what we have in the in the group right now okay danny and tell me a little bit more then so you are in charge of the digital marketing for the basconia team the what is the number of the soccer team that you mentioned deportivo a la vez so you are also in charge of the digital marketing for those teams yeah for actually i i managed to do the marketing for the whole group which is something that is pretty pretty interesting because you know we'll We'll talk later about that.

5:31But yeah, it's having like a conglomerate of different users and how to cross football with basketball and with the gym. And that's really cool. Really cool. When I'm hearing you speak, then I feel like you have a lot of your plate. And what I would love to start speaking about, like beginning this conversation is what does your team look like? Do you have help with all of this or are you just like a one man army? No, yeah, we have a team. We have a big team in marketing. But in terms of digital marketing, we have someone like smart on the email and the paid media uh content uh and all that but also we have agencies i work with agencies for for i don't know for the web development for example or for the seo and uh our data so i manage like different agencies and different in-house people uh but yeah that's that's pretty much what we have in in our plate that is a lot and danny is it um is there a difference between marketing digital e-commerce like the regular one we're used to versus marketing professional sports teams that you've noticed that you would let that you'd be able to highlight for us?

6:31A lot, a lot. I mean, for me, as I told him, I come from a background on the education sector that I worked for six, seven years. And then when I joined the sports sector industry, and it was really, really different. Because for me, the first thing that is different, and the main thing that is different is that we don't have like customers, like our clients or users that other sectors have, but we have fans. And having fans is so much different because in the end, the fan wants to learn more about you and wants to hear about you and about the team, about the players and everything. And it's different on the other side, on the education sector, that you need to gather people that maybe they are interested, but they are not so, you know, I don't know, they are not on the day-to-day basis talking about you or, you know, it's very different.

7:23and the fun is very, very demanding. And that's something that really changes the way you approach marketing and digital marketing, of course. And then there's another thing that's very important for me, that is you depend a lot on the results of the teams. Because, yeah, and that's something that you don't control and that doesn't happen in other sectors. It's like if you lose on a Sunday match or you win, the things that you need to do on the Monday, on Monday is going to be, are going to be completely different because the tone is going to be different. The way you approach, the way you do, you write your emails or you create a campaign.

8:03So, you know, it's, it's really different and you need to adapt to, to the scores and to the momentum of the teams. So for me, those are the two things that, you know, and I can understand then that you need to be ready for one of two scenarios, because it is true that winning or losing will affect the type of message that you emit. And I love how you pointed out the difference in between a normal and regular consumer versus what fans actually represent because I feel that a lot of the the work that needs to be put into the marketing for a regular company is that they gotta gain the consumer's fidelity or the client's fidelity to have them come back but fans already have that fidelity integrated in how they feel about the team but it does turn into this kind of like toxic relationship where they already have you already have their fidelity, but they want to be kept entertained and they want to feel that it's worth something.

8:54So that is a great obstacle to highlight. Oh my goodness, it must not be easy. No, no. I mean, it's super, I mean, they're super demanding. I mean, you need to be top notes. I mean, if, because if the club does something or the marketing side, I mean, you, I don't know, you use something that is not very correct with the team or they're very picky, you know, with details and so you need to be very careful when you when you do things for for a sport no and yeah and i would imagine as a fan i'm a fan of other sports teams and stuff but fans feel like they know everything because of all they've investigated and for how long they've been fans for so you got to deal with that as well and okay danny and in terms of then marketing two different sports under one organizational brand what have you noticed in the difference between basketball and soccer besides the the obvious fact that they're completely different sports but um is there a specific way of of messaging or or having to lead the fan base to make sure they stay with you guys really good question yeah because in our case it's really as i told at the beginning it's very different from other clubs that are more integrated because we were a basketball team that acquired a football team and sometimes i mean it's it's not like the the real thing but sometimes there are people in the football team that they don't really support the basketball team.

10:16That can happen. I mean, it's not the other way around. I mean, it can be someone that is like a season ticket holder for both clubs at the same time. So we need to be very careful with the segmentation. Usually we don't send emails from a group perspective. I mean, we still have like separate, you know, ways of communicating between Baskonia and Deportivo Alaves because, for example, Baskonia and basketball fans are a little bit more, I mean, they're a bit younger than the football fans because, you know, we have like more modern and more international sometimes. So the basketball team, the communication is a little bit more, you know, I don't know how to say, but techie or, you know, more...

11:00Okay, it's more specific. It's more specific and more with technology and then it's more updated. but with the football team you need to be a little more traditional because there are still a lot of people that you know they're like I don't know maybe we have in the database people with 80, 70 years old that they are 50 years old season ticket holders they saw the team when they were like in the fifth division in Spain so it's different than from the basketball fans that are more younger, they are younger so you need to can communicate different to both brands. Danny, in terms of conversions and obtaining revenue, how is it that you guys are, you're managing these two sports teams and you're creating events around them and that is, and how you're getting the fans to come and to spend money and to generate revenue for the group?

11:57Or would you be able to elaborate a bit more on that? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we have, I mean, the source of revenue in the sports teams is kind of complicated. I mean, it's different also to other companies because, for example, in the football team, it's not only the tickets. I mean, tickets are very important. Tickets are important. I mean, people need to go to the different matches. But when you really do the money, it's with the season ticket holders. I mean, actually, when there is no matches is when we work more on the marketing side, because you need to try to convince the users that they need to buy their season ticket for the whole season.

12:39And then is when all our efforts are harder and you spend more money on campaigns and everything, because you have a very solid base of fans with the season ticket holders. and then you do also extra money with the tickets. But apart from that, it's super important also to all the merchandising stuff. The merchandising, we have our own Basconia Alaves store. There's a very important source of revenue for the group because actually in the last five, six years, I mean, I know that the group, you know, give a lot of importance to the merchandising because people want to have like new t-shirts every year and they want to wear the, you know, the retro t-shirt that the club had 25 years ago.

13:22Now the retro is super fashion. Vintage has come back. Vintage has come back a lot. In sports, I mean, you see different clubs in Spain, at least. I'm sure that, I don't know, 75 % of them have now retro T-shirts. So yeah, merchandising is also a key revenue source for our fans. Okay, okay. And in terms of then generating that revenue for seasonal ticket sales, for merchandising, what channel in your marketing is the one that's working best? Do you have a specific one that you say, hey, posting things here is going to lead to the most conversions? It's assured. Or is it just like a gamble and you're checking it out to see what works best?

14:07Yeah, I mean, that's a very good question. I mean, for me, it's a mix of everything. I don't believe like it's one channel that, you know, is going to drive tickets just by himself. himself i mean we have a strategy of having everything like properly combined no it's like we have our search campaigns we have our display campaigns demand generation campaigns on meta also is working very good for us uh also also tiktok in some places i mean tiktok also uh ads work very good for the younger uh generations you can't sleep on tiktok and if bostonia has a younger demographic then you gotta be on there yeah especially for for specific events because Last year, for example, in Baskonia, we talked about show and having this Baskonia land, that it was this attraction theme, because it was more than basketball.

14:58You have music, you have magicians coming to the Buesa Arena, to the stadium, and that drove a lot of hype and people sharing things. or, okay, I'm going to go to the Bues Arena to see these artists because I don't care that much about basketball, but I want to go there because it's going to be a show and it's going to be, you know, these kind of things. So TikTok helped us a lot for those kind of audience. And then, yeah, all the paid media, but also the social media is super important, like the organic traffic that we have from there. I mean, we have a communication department that is great, and they are also trying to find new ways of you know engage with people i mean i don't know from interviews with the players to different actions that we can do for i don't know to make like drop i mean like raffles to uh try to meet with uh the new signing for example meet and greet with the with the people so you need to do a lot of different stuff and all of that combined email of course the website i mean all that also the the offline marketing i mean it's not on my plate because i'm the digital marketing one but of the offline team and they do a lot of things like activations on the city and uh you know like the the posters that you put on the streets okay okay i get everything everything combined is what really drives things so i don't see the isolated uh tactics like working properly i think everything is is combined okay that is so cool and i i just love getting a bit more specific do you have a recent campaign that you know drove strong results that you could let us know about or just give us that as an example yeah i mean i always when i speak about this i always put the the disassemble because it was pretty cool last year as i told you we we had the the season ticket campaign it was basconia land that it was it was you know it makes a basket with a theme park something like that and then uh and then we launched on on christmas we we wanted to start with the gamification uh projects no it's like oh gamifying the whole thing yes for me everywhere it's like if you get this amount of points then you'll be able to reach these rewards and you'll get a discount or or whatever okay okay i love that i mean personally like a customer i love it and I do all the gamification stuff that I can.

17:24I play games every day. But I wanted to put that on the sports side because it wasn't done before on the group, before I joined. And I really, you know, push to that. And then we launched the first Christmas roulette, we called it. So we launched like a Christmas roulette. Like all the people can, you know, you can spin the wheel three times per day. And then you can win. You have more. The more you spin, the more chances you have to win different prizes each week. So that was super successful. We multiplied by 10 the number of leads that we gather normally in a month. So it was crazy. And people were talking about that on social media.

18:11I forgot to spin today. I had luck and I didn't have luck. And also that helped us to combine with the sponsorship team. That is also very important. So because the prices that we gave were from sponsors. So, you know, sponsors gained visibility and they had a lot of visibility. And we won a lot of leads. That's what we wanted. Leads that are qualified and they were engaged with the brand for one month. And then we can sell them a ticket when the Christmas was gone. I mean, you didn't win with the lottery or with the roulette. but you are going to have a discount just for being a loyal player this month something like that so that i love that that way that campaign was great yeah that was great okay no that is an excellent example and i do love the fact that you're trying to incorporate gamification into the whole process because i'm a true believer that that really works especially because i fall for it every time it whatever app i like it if you tell me i have to reach a certain threshold to be able to get further bonuses, I'm going to try and do it because it's just like a game.

19:17I'm also always after work. I'm playing video games and I have a game called my cell phone. So I do understand the appeal. And I think it's very cool that you're trying to apply that because it's something that's happening today. And it's a way to stay relevant with all the other types of marketing and different brands that might not be in the same industry. Exactly. Yeah, and I believe that also gamification, it really fits with the sports because in the end it's a game also so it's like for me in my head it was like this is going to work i'm completely sure about this and uh yeah and it worked it worked that's lovely when you have an idea that you believe so much in and it actually pulls through it's beautiful because all your your instincts are validated it's like i was right yeah yeah totally and we and from there i mean we started doing these games uh in a in a much more i don't know structure basis no i mean And we, for example, this year, this season, we launched like the monthly game.

20:13So we created one game that actually we already have it designed by our team. And we are going to launch one game every single month. A different game. We have a puzzle. We have a memory. We have a catch the prize. We have a lot of different games that we use with a platform. And then we are going to launch every month. So we are going to also use the scoreboard. I don't know how to say it. like the scoreboard in the stadium to project like the QR codes. And then people in the stadium can just scan the QR code and they can play on the stadium. Wow, that is so cool. Like at halftime, you'll show the QR.

20:53Exactly. People have something to do while they're waiting for their... Okay, that's an amazing idea. Give them something to do with their dead time. Yeah. Okay, okay. And Danny, in terms of AI, which is like the trending topic of the moment, How are you guys leveraging AI to help your day-to-day work? Or maybe you found some novel way that you're using it that really helps out in the sports industry specifically. But just giving you an open space to let us know how you're working with that. Yeah, for me, I mean, AI is like the trending topic, of course. I mean, I spoke about this a lot because I love AI.

21:29When it started to boom a couple of years ago, something like that, I started working on that from my hobby like something for my hobbies because I like to aside from digital marketing I also love to create things like music or trying to create new games or whatever in a creation mode and I started using it for images and also for music and for this kind of journey or chat dbt or whatever so I started using it for my hobby but I didn't see it for the company but in the last two years since that appeared I mean it really, I mean, explode. And now we are thinking about using AI, for example, for doing this kind of AI agent that can help you find the perfect gift in the merchandising store, something like that.

22:24And you can create a chatbot and you can... So we are thinking about things. It's true that we don't have, I don't have a specific example for you that we are using right now, but we are investigating that. But also, I want to say about the AI that this is my hot take, very unpopular opinion, that in the last months, I'm seeing in the last month, last year, that all the platforms have AI. I mean, everything is AI right now. Everything. You can see a platform about one thing and they have AI. AI, whatever. I mean, and it's a little bit tricky for me because it's like, if everything is AI, nothing is AI.

23:02I mean, you need to really, really investigate the tools because in the last month I saw dozens of tools and not all of them are for your use case or not that good. Or maybe, you know, they are overpromised because they have AI on their name. So I really, you know, try to investigate tools before we apply them to a specific business case. No, I understand that completely. and and when you started to tell me where your interest for ai came from it really hits a note with me because i also i make music i love games i've used chat gpt and open ai for soda and to make like different album covers for my song i have this whole cartoon character that i created that i use and i i put it in different scenarios with chat gpt and it's amazing but i do feel that i agree with you the fact that ai is being it's it's like a word and a term that's being just placed everywhere just to make sure that you're keeping up with the trend but you might not be using it at its full potential or in the proper way and you're just making sure that you're checking ai off your list and saying yeah this company uses ai and it's just a normal bot that responds to questions that might not even reply well so i totally get that and i understand why you must be a bit wary and making sure you use it in the in the correct way although although having a bot that helps you out with um choosing the perfect gift from the merchandise store that's Super cool.

24:26If it knows you like retro things, it could be like, hey, just sent you an email that says that this new shirt arrived, that it could be amazing and generate further conversions. Okay. Now, but I get that you guys are investigating it, but nothing has been set in stone completely. So that's perfect. And Danny, in terms of digital marketing for Baskonia La Best Group, what would be your or what would you think is your number one priority for the next 12 months? Like in 2026, what is going to be your main goal? Yeah, for me, I'll say that as I told you at the beginning, we are a very big group and we are launching new features and new products, new brands last year with different targets.

25:08So what I really want to do this year, and it's what we are working on, is to have everything correctly centralized and the data is perfectly synchronized between the different systems. For me, that's super important because from what I saw in the past in previous companies also, it's like sometimes there's a team that they have their own CRM, their own database, and they don't talk with the other department. They have their own database. I mean, I really want to build a robust source of truth with all our customers because we have a lot of cross-selling. It's like I told you, I mean, we have like someone that can buy a ticket for Baskonia, can buy a season ticket for Alaves, and then they go to the gym, but they stay on the residence.

25:52But then they are going to buy a T-shirt in the store that is in the city. But in the end, it's the same guy. We need to really have that same guy with their interest to personalize. That is the second part of my goal. I mean, for me, the goal this year is to centralize everything, having everything, all the systems, talk the same language, and then personalize having that. That, for me, is the most entertaining thing to do, to be honest with you. I mean, when I need to create something in digital marketing, when I can think and having different messages for different people depending on their interests, and that works, I mean, that for me is the more rewarding feeling.

26:35It's like, okay, I did. And I do understand that because it happens to me when I'm looking at a product in a page that I already visited. Or if it's something that I usually go back to the algorithm that these pages have or the AI that they use or whatever methods they have. They truly do get to know you. And what they suggest, it's helpful. But I think that the main take there is that it makes you feel special. It's like, oh my goodness, these people are paying attention to me. they're looking at what i'm doing and they're aware and it's like if they are so attentive to me then i could actually just purchase this and see what it goes to so i get i and i understand that that would be your goal for the next year if there hasn't been a a norm of like a general source of truth where you can get that information because it is important you could even then put that door link that source of truth to an ai and have it recommend the products for the merchandising store for example for example yeah yeah we step by step we are working on the on the right direction yeah yeah that that's beautiful that's beautiful but i love that you're taking your steps slowly but surely instead of just going fast at it and and putting whatever on the website or wherever you guys are doing that in order to just get check it off the list which i don't think is the best idea yeah yeah that's the thing it's what i said i mean as they are so picky and they're so demanding i mean you cannot do things like in that way i mean you are going to launch something it needs to be good because you know the team is going to be what is my team doing with this.

28:02And Danny, and in terms of digital marketing, are you guys also tackling platforms such as like Twitch or Kik to stream the games or are you looking into streaming as well? Or is that a... That's a good point. I mean, that's more on the communication side. I mean, I know that they had the idea of doing that, but it's true that it needs a lot of resources and You need a lot of strategy for having streaming. It really adds value. I mean, right now, we are not doing Twitch or Kik. I did it for myself, but not in my company because I love streaming. You too, right? Yeah. And also, I would like to have a podcast.

28:43I mean, I know that we started doing a podcast for the last season, for some players to tell about their story and their backstory more than the typical... You know, in sports, one thing that happens is the press conferences are very straightforward. The questions are more or less always the same, but what really fans want to know is what's behind the player. I mean, what they grew, what they're interested, interesting things that they did, or this kind of content is what really works the best in Telforce Sports, and the communication team is doing a great job trying to do that content. And I think that maybe, yeah, I don't know, maybe Twitch or Kik or something like that could be the next channel.

29:33I'm even imagining you guys taking one of your athletes and putting them to stream and playing games and even just like, because I'm from Argentina, so I've seen people like, I don't know, El Cunagüero, who became a streamer, and it's huge and it creates this whole trend and lore around him and people go to his team. So I was just wondering if you guys were looking into that or not. But I love it. I love it. And Dani, I know we're almost at time, but I did want to give you the opportunity to let anybody in the audience who's listening to us know how they can investigate further about Basconia team or the Deportivo Alaves.

30:11How they can look into purchasing tickets, the merchandising store and just give them the directions if they want to find out further. Of course, I mean, for following the teams, I mean, you need to follow, for the basketball team, Baskonia, you need to check the Euroleague. That is the most important league that we have for basketball in Europe. And also for the Alaves, you need to check the La Liga. Actually, we are eighth right now, since when we are recording this podcast, that's great for us. I hope that we can keep that position or even improve it. And then for processing tickets, you just go to the website.

30:46you can go to basconia.com or deportiolaves.com and you can buy tickets. So yeah, I really hope that you find the teams attractive and we can have new fans. That is what actually is my main goal is that we have more fans and the fans, you know, purchase whatever they want from the team. So yeah. That's amazing, man. And I can assure you guys that at least one more fan you've gained today. And that would be me because I'll go ahead and I'll follow you everywhere so I can see what you guys are up to when you win. And I can also check out the gamification once it starts to be further implemented.

31:23I'll have a blast with that. Great. I'll see you on the database. Oh my God, I'm going to laugh so hard if that happens. But Dan, I really wanted to say thank you for hopping on the episode. Really appreciate you taking the time to answer all of our questions. And yeah, just really appreciate you showing up, man. Great. Thank you very much, Andres. It was a pleasure. No problem at all. And to everybody who is listening to us, thank you so much for staying on the episode. I hope that you return to keep on learning from different personalities that we bring on and to keep seeing all the different industries that we will be speaking to as well.

32:00So with that said, I hope everybody has a great rest of your day. Bye-bye.