#75 The Ballketing Letter
How BeSoccer is changing sport through data & analytics, Tottenham´s Net Zero strategy, igniting B2B growth, & more!
Hey there Ballketers,
Welcome to post #75! This week, you are receiving a reduced edition of the newsletter. For several reasons, I have only had enough time to prepare the weekly case study and only review in detail a few pieces of content, but I still hope it helps you gain further insights & lessons:
We analyze how BeSoccer is changing the game of football for fans, clubs, and media through data & analytics.
Tottenham Hotspur is a clear benchmark for other sports businesses looking to embrace the fight against climate change. You can learn from their example below.
And, of course, the resource center is updated with the latest business content, you can find the link below.
Let´s get down to business!
How BeSoccer is changing the football industry through data & analytics
Data & analytics are at the forefront of the spectrum of opportunities that executives across the sports industry look to maximize in the near future.
Data helps sports organizations understand and, in some cases, even monetize from fan behaviors. In addition, a robust analytics practice is key to making transfer decisions that elevate the quality of any given roster, and finally, it can even help elevate athletic performance on the pitch/court. Today we want to share the example of a business that has been able to understand this dynamic and position itself as one of the leading data & analytics providers in the world of sport.
BeSoccer was initially designed to be an app that helped football fans monitor the scores of football games all around. Today, it has evolved into a massive business that provides a wide portfolio of businesses across the entire scope of the football industry.
Origins: Combining passion with skills and market needs
Manuel Heredia was an aspiring futsal player living in the region of Málaga (South of Spain) that after a serious injury and a series of stints in the corporate world, decided in 2008 to combine his two passions, coding and football, to build a web that would help its users track the results from their favorite teams.
In a sense, this is a great example of someone that was able to match his passion with a unique set of skills (coding) and a gap in the market which he was able to monetize.
The initial concept behind the site? A “Wikipedia style” community for football fans where users would collaborate in uploading scores into the platform but would also be able to add their comments to any given game. Initially conceived as a web page, between 2008 and 2012 the business experienced remarkable growth but in 2012, new market dynamics lead to a plateau in the acquisition of new users.
These market dynamics were none other than the introduction and mass adoption of mobile phones, which lead BeSoccer to pivot and start offering the same service but through an app, rather than a desktop web page. This was a key decision, as it unlocked new levels of growth between 2013-2015. At this time, BeSoccer was able to increase page visits from 30 million to 500 million within that time frame and it is no wonder that Yahoo tried to acquire them, but BeSoccer rejected the deal.
The lesson here: Be on the lookout for shifts in the market environment and look for opportunities to match the value your business provides to them.
If you read Andrew Chen´s book, The Cold Start Problem, you will notice that popular products like Zoom or even Clubhouse did the same.
It was in 2015 that BeSoccer started to establish its presence internationally across markets in Africa or the United States. This helped them become the biggest database in football by the 2017-2018 season, being able to achieve 2.000 million impressions. At this point, they had been able to add any score in history for any given match, provided it had been uploaded to the web at some point.
Becoming a data analytics provider for professional football teams and the media
By 2019, BeSoccer had been able to gather tons of information from teams and players across the world, which is why some pro teams started to ask them for scouting reports and “hidden talents” across the world.
Their first customer was Málaga C.F (the local club), who inquired about the possibility of receiving such a service. When the time came to close the deal, Málaga, a club that regularly plays in the 1st or 2nd division of Spanish football, proposed BeSoccer to become the main kit sponsor in exchange for the consulting services. They accepted and this was key to generating awareness but also to get other clubs interested in what BeSoccer had to offer.
As a result, a spinoff was created, BeSoccer Pro, that today works with top-tier organizations such as Betis, Alavés, or the Spanish national soccer team and they essentially offer specific data sets and tech consulting to professional football teams.
Similarly, several leading sports media players also started to understand the value of the service behind BeSoccer´s technology, and they negotiated an agreement in which BeSoccer´s API would connect with their own databases used to generate content, reports, and analysis.
This evolution is similar to the one that FlyFut, which we discussed in The Ballketing Letter #72, as they were able to get their feet into the professional football space after developing an outstanding product for the mass market.
Key business results: Scaling at a remarkable pace
Some of the most relevant metrics of the business include:
11 million unique users per month and 400K daily impressions.
They hope to reach revenues of €15 million in 2022 and double to €30 million by the end of 2023. Just for context, in 2013 they earned €150K and €6 million in 2019 which helps you understand the rate of scale.
They have diversified their sources of revenue quite well:
50% still come from advertising in the app to its users
BeSoccer Pro is, so far, responsible for 20% of the revenues
15% is sourced from the data sold to media publishers through the API
The remaining 15% comes from other verticals: BeSoccer academy (Scouters, data science, and so on), eSports, etc.
Looking into the future of BeSoccer
As mentioned above, one of the keys behind BeSoccer´s success was its ability to adapt to changes in market dynamics, new user behaviors and embrace emerging technologies within its business model. In past editions of the newsletter and in our blog we have described this as “The Innovation Flywheel” framework and BeSoccer is certainly a prime example of it.
This is the reason we are not surprised to see them launching innovative services such as BeSoccer Brain, an exceptional AI-powered voice technology that will help reduce friction for users trying to find a specific set of information. What is remarkable is the capacity it has to comprehend complex inputs from the user (vs a simple queries), taking the user experience to a whole new level.
Some rumors in the industry even point to them launching their own OTT, although for now, it does not seem to be within their strategic priorities. Whatever the case, we will keep you posted with future developments from this outstanding business, that is helping shape the future of the industry at an amazing pace.
Sport businesses embracing the fight against climate change
Tottenham Hotspurs´ road to “Net Zero”
Tottenham is recognized as one of the leading organizations in the fight against climate change. This episode of Sports Pro´s podcast helps understand how they approached Game Zero against Chelsea and, how, overall, they are embedding climate change within the sports business strategy, the challenges and tactics they use to empower their fans to do the same.
The key insight for us is that they do not have a “Head of Sustainability;” each role in the organization has “sustainable goals” included within their performance standards.
Taking your marketing game to the next level
The basics of “affiliate marketing” and how it can drive business results
This episode of Inbound Success breaks down what affiliate marketing is, who it is, and is not right for. It also goes into detail on strategy, tactics, and tips to build an amazing program that can help drive results.
This episode can spark a few ideas for any sport or fitness business out there…
How AI powered solutions help upgrade video content game for media companies
An “in-depth” review in StreamTime podcast of how WSC Sports offers AI powered solutions for sport media businesses that can take the quality and scale of video content to another level.
Not only that, it adapts to different sports, it offers sport businesses monetization opportunities through the content and in the near future it will even connect to “intent based” searches on the web.
The future of connected fitness?
It seem gyms are coming back and, sometimes, “outsiders” of the industry provide some the best perspectives with regards to trends and opportunities in the space. This is the case with this episode of The After-hours podcast, which shares some thoughts into the future of connected fitness, with a special focus on Peloton.
It also questions Microsoft's acquisition of Activision so there is plenty to get out from it.
McKinsey on igniting B2B growth
A fantastic piece of research from McKinsey that shares insights to drive B2B growth. Some of the highlights include:
Offering an omnichannel experience is a must.
Businesses need to embrace the rule of 2/3rds within the buying journey (traditional sales vs remote sales vs self-service).
Decision-makers are interacting with B2B suppliers across more channels and demand an excellent experience across all of them.
The 5 must-dos of customer loyalty are performance guarantee, product availability, enable purchases from any channel, agile customer service and consistency.
Finally, some recommendations they share:
Become journey orchestrators
Integrate the entire experience
Personalization using big data
And that does it for The Ballketing Letter #75! Thank you if you made it to the end of the post and, if you have any feedback, please reach out. If you crave further resources and enhance your learning, be sure to check out our resource center!
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Keep safe.