You have to offer experiences, not only on the field but also beyond, develop relationships and reputation. Everything matters: the music during the timeouts, the mascot that helps kids to connect with the team, the food, the parking, the wifi. Don’t treat your fans as customers, it’s an audience really. 

The value of digital in sports is huge. Smartphone makes the audience interactive in real time. It’s a dialog opportunity with the audience and all the sport organization has to be digitally fit: digitalization of tickets, ease of payments, traffic information, parking application,… and gather information because when you go paperless, you know who your audience is. Your digital touch points must be used to create anticipation. Furthermore, digital allows to improve the global experience: from traffic information to recognition at sign in, from stats about the team to social involvement and also the ability to buy food or merchandising from your seat. This whole set of digital services can dramatically increase the feeling of fan ownership on the team. 

The optimal use of touch points not only allows to provide expectations but also to exceed them. The complexity of this alchemy is that you have to innovate constantly and use the information provided by your audience in order to create a virtuous circle of success.