Two giants of Australian sport will achieve a world first by merging fan data across ticketing, membership, merchandise, and participation to create a comprehensive understanding of engagement, buying behaviour and grassroots involvement in the sport of cricket.
The partnership between Ticketek-owner TEG and Cricket Australia is the first time that a such a comprehensive view of fans’ behaviour has been developed for a sport anywhere in the world, making it possible to deliver a more effective digital experience to millions of Australians.
TEG’s leading data-rich analytics business Ovation has built the data platform that will connect with Cricket Australia, using Ovation’s engineering, data science and digital teams to deliver the first stage of the program in time for the men’s Vodafone Ashes Test Series and KFC Big Bash League (BBL) competition in the summer of 2020/21.
Building on Cricket Australia’s ecosystem of leading digital products and platforms, the new customer data platform will measure fan engagement on an anonymous basis by considering multiple touchpoints: whether an individual attends a match, purchases merchandise, becomes a BBL member or participates with a community club.
Cricket Australia’s digital platforms draw high frequency engagement and millions of unique users throughout the season. Ovation will bring this de-identified data together with Ticketek’s 16m authenticated users to build a more complete understanding of the profile of cricket’s fans and participants and enable optimal digital interactions with the sport at every level.
Geoff Jones, CEO of TEG, said: “TEG has invested many millions of dollars in our data analytics and data science capabilities over a decade to create Ovation, and we are thrilled at this partnership, which is a terrific example of Ovation’s deep capabilities.”
Nick Hockley, CEO of Cricket Australia, said: “This is an enormously exciting collaboration, furthering our mission to make cricket a sport for all Australians. By connecting the digital interactions of our fans and participants as they engage with our sport, we can understand and meet their needs, improve their experience and provide a seamless user journey. We look forward to working with TEG’s Ticketek and Ovation on this game-changing partnership.”
Andrew Reid, General Manager of Ovation, said: “The new data platform will deliver on our mission to increase revenues for cricket, generate new fans and get people along to see the game who have yet to experience the magic of the live cricket. It represents the holy grail of higher engagement across all channels and between us we can sell more tickets, increase fan spend on merchandise and foster greater participation in cricket at the grass-roots level.”
