We are by no means Luddites, but we have never claimed to be excessively easy with technology. We admit to summoning offspring before most team calls; for some reason, without the presence of a 20 year old, the damn thing just won’t work. However, as the son of an advertising man’s son, we have a long history of marketing, so we recognize first-mover advantage when we spot one. As a result, the first book on artificial intelligence and sports marketing is worth noting, and not just because of its remarkable timing for an industry still grappling with AI.
“I was hesitant to publish it, because the space is changing so quickly that I almost didn’t,” said Shripal Shahthe former Redskins senior vice president of marketing whose “Leveling Up with AI — A Strategic Guide to AI in Sports Marketing” was just published.
Given the curiosity surrounding AI, we are confident the demand is there. Shah is now established in retail, as digital director of the rewards platform Shop your way. But like many, he believes that AI will change things globally. “The integration of AI into sports marketing is poised to redefine fan engagement, unlock valuable data-driven insights, optimize critical operations and open new creative avenues for content creation,” he writes.
Shripal Shahcourtesy of Shripal Shah
“Fans are more mobile than ever and more distracted than ever, so from 30,000 feet it’s possible to personalize those thousands of segments that make up a fan base and deliver marketing and content wherever they want it . Simply automating the delivery, design and analysis of how people visit your site should give you more effective ways to reach them.
Shah warned in an interview that the sports industry was lagging behind other businesses in its use of AI.
“They’re further behind than what I’ve seen in retail,” said Shah, an assistant professor in Georgetown’s sports industry management program, where he used AI to generate slides coursework and class discussion questions. “Things that retailers were doing just five years ago with call centers, chatbots and email delivery that all major retailers use. When it comes to generative AI, where you can just tell the AI to do something, the first company I saw using it was “fast retailers” using it to create subject lines (emails) months after ChatGPT opened its APIs to any developer. It seems that sports has not yet caught up with retail.
Shripal Shah’s new book examines the many uses of AI in marketing.
Some of the benefits of AI are fundamental, as with any property sending a constant stream of sales texts or emails. The ease of customization by customer history should enable messages tailored to team or player performance, as well as the time of day a specific text or email generates a message. Personalized, optimized messages should produce optimal results, “changing everyone’s job in email marketing,” Shah said, “but it’s not widespread enough yet.”
Properties are more involved in the content creation industry than ever before. Shah notes the ease of customizing content for a multitude of tasks, from personalized posts and surveys to long-form videos. However, he cautions that AI should always be used with transparency and “remember to always balance AI capabilities with human creativity and wisdom.” Maintain an ethical compass, seek diverse perspectives, focus on improving the human experience. Is everyone at Sports Illustrated listening? “I see AI as an acceleration of human creativity, not a replacement,” Shah said.
It’s hard enough to imagine the sports marketing “killer apps” that will eventually emerge from AI, let alone the future. Shah envisions a hyper-connected world where AI combines with VR, AR and blockchain applications to produce fan engagement that goes far beyond immersive and fan loyalty programs like the Sacramento Kings, the first professional team American to develop a rewards program for fans of cryptographic tokens. which revolutionizes fan engagement by providing transparency, security, authenticity in ticketing, merchandise and fan rewards. Combine AI capabilities with the developing wearables market and things become even more intriguing.
“There’s a bit of a Wild West feel to it, which reminds me of the early days of social media, but when I see things like the new SeatGeek (Fan Up) program, I know it’s just the very beginning of things changing give it,” he said. “At the same time, there are so many little things that AI is going to automate for people, what does that do for overall productivity? This may be the real killer app.
Shah is already working on his second AI sportsbook. “With generative AI, it truly learns on its own, just like its users. It feels like every 30 days there’s a new and important application of generative AI,” he said. “No one needs to be a coder to use AI anymore, and to me, that’s the most fascinating part.”
Terry Lefton can be contacted at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com
