This latest fan data deduces answers to the many, many, many questions plaguing sports marketers right now.

Chris Wise & Chris McAdoo explore the findings from Ignite Fan Insight’s exclusive Fan Sentiment Tracking Study, conducted during the sports suspension caused by the pandemic. The study began March 25, and subsequent research will continue every two weeks at least through the end of May—all designed to give you additional data insights to keep your fans engaged and ready to return as soon as action starts.

Chris Wise, GM/Director of Research for Designsensory Intelligence has been digging deeply into the minds of fans and consumers for three decades — unearthing solid behavior triggers and offering well-informed recommendations to those involved in the sports business.

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Chris McAdoo:

Our host, Chris Wise, is the brains behind Ignite Fan Insights, with a commitment to research and innovation for over 30 years. He knows the right questions to ask, and more importantly, what to do with the answers. Get ready for engaging in-depth conversations with sports industry leaders that will inspire you to take action and connect with your fans. I’m Chris McAdoo, and this is Fired Up.

Chris McAdoo:

Hello everybody, and welcome to Fired Up. Ignite Fan Insights, by Designsensory Intelligence, began tracking the sentiment of the American sports fan back in March 25th of 2020. Now, we’re having this conversation May 11th, so this is wave number three of this research, and we’ve just found out so much about where the sports fan sits, which of course, right now is at home.

Chris McAdoo:

I’m recording this from my home studio. Chris Wise is also joining us from his home here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We’re excited to share this information because, Chris, I feel like, as like I said, it’s May 11th. Things are starting to open back up in some areas of the country and we’re doing that, hopefully, with the right amount of caution, right? But folks are, there’s a calmness, there’s a thankfulness, but at the same time, right, there’s a frustration growing of, when do we get to “go back?” And when that comes to sports, of course, that is when do we get to go back to the stands? When do we get to cheer on our teams? When do we get to be with our brothers and sisters in sports arms?

Chris McAdoo:

So, Chris, if you want to talk a little bit about this wave three, the questions you asked and what you are seeing in terms of that American sports fan.

Chris Wise:

Good deal. Thanks, Chris. It’s been very interesting to watch the evolution over this short period of time as we all live to learn, learn to live in different ways. The sports fans are sports fans. They love sports, and there’s no denying that. They need it. We’ve talked before about it being part of their DNA, and it’s we need it as human beings for competition, friendly competition, for a distraction from our daily lives. So we have all along been tracking, just having an understanding of what are the emotional attitudes or feelings of folks. That serves as a keystone then for every question we ask after that.

Chris Wise:

We continue to see a rise in positive feelings. It’s slight, it’s not major, but people are being more hopeful and calm, which is surprising, and then showing some thankfulness for what they do have. There’s some appreciation for stopping and thinking about what their lives really are. The same time, we’ve seen people have always been a little bit anxious. That’s been the number one negative for emotion all along, but we’re seeing frustration, being depressed, which continues to weigh on people’s minds. That’s important as we start to unpack all the other information.

Chris Wise:

What we have come to understand is that people really want to go back. I mean, they’re anxious. So this wave, we collected information when right after NASCAR announced that they were going to start races back. They’re going to get a full season in. They’re going to start in Darlington with no fans in the stands and making sure that the teams are appropriately distanced and taking care of each other, so everyone stays healthy. And we wondered, will fans actually pay attention to that? Will they watch it on TV? And when we asked that question, nearly 70% of people said, they are likely to watch the NASCAR races on TV, which is interesting because people also said, 10% of the people we talked to said they’ll watch any sport on TV, whether they’re fans of the sport or not.

Chris Wise:

People stopped watching reruns. They’re not really interested. We talked last time about how positive the response was to The Last Dance and that continues. And that was evidence of people just hungry for fresh content and really wanting to see new competition. So they’re going to see it. So NASCAR is going to benefit from some new eyeballs to the sport, and hopefully that bodes well for them down the road as new people come to the sport. Many sports or are looking to find a way back, and they may start on TV and they may not have fans in the stands, but they’re going to find a way to execute. It’s just going to be a little different for a while.

Chris Wise:

And the other thing that we learned was people are going to go back, but right now, they’re still feeling they need to feel a sense of safety. The number one and number two reasons that people will go back is that they know there’s a vaccine or a treatment or that the pandemic is over. Pardon me. Obviously that’s nothing the teams, leagues or venues can do to deal with, but they can deal with safety in other areas.

Chris Wise:

And so, fans have told us, what can be done? Well, every staff member and every fan must be required to wear a mask. There must be appropriate distancing in lines so people can’t congregate and that social distancing would be reinforced. They just need to feel comfortable and confident that their safety is first and foremost in everyone’s minds, and that that would be executed. We believe that, again, teams and leagues know this already and that they are working hard to try to make this work. And we know though that as soon as possible, fans are going to come rushing to the sport in any fashion that they possibly can.

Chris McAdoo:

Well, I heard a really great interview with Philly 76ers and New Jersey Devils CEO, Scott O’Neill on Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman, which I encourage, for those of you who are out there looking for this kind of direction, in addition to this podcast. That is a great interview, but he said something just which I thought was very straightforward. But he said, “It’s not about a date. It’s about the data.” And that’s where I feel like, Chris, so much of what happens in sports happens according to the date. Right? This is when this sport will be played. It will be at 8:00 PM, and the lights will go out at 11:00 or whatever.

Chris McAdoo:

How do you think and/or what are some steps that folks are taking in the sports arena, or what do you feel are good steps to take to deal with that uncertainty? A lot of folks in the sports world, well, in life in general, you like to know that something is a yes or a no. But we are awash in “maybes” right now.

Chris Wise:

That’s the truth. Yes.

Chris McAdoo:

Yeah.

Chris Wise:

Yeah, we are creatures of habit, aren’t we? We are used to seasons starting and stopping on specific dates. Games or events happen at specific times or they’re on the air at this specific time. I think this disruption has caused us to, maybe we still want to cling to some of that habitual behavior, but at the same time, our hearts are open to different approaches. Because we’re being driven, not by the date so much, but is the understanding and the data that says, It’s okay, and here’s how we’re going to go with this. So I can change this a little bit.” I truly think that will drive everything that goes forward. Data will always be important. We’ve seen data creeping, creeping…. Sports is totally driven by data at every level. We just don’t necessarily see it when we’re in the stands. We don’t really think about that, but that data and that understanding is what’s making it work.

Chris Wise:

And so, we’ll adapt and things may change and it may be temporary. I think most of it will be it’s taking away that sense of unknown. So if there’s a maybe, it’s how do you temper that maybe with a, “Okay, we’re maybe here.” So it’s constant communication, keeping people informed. So they can deal with the maybes as they understand conversations and dialogues and some of the decision-making process without going too deep in the weeds, just that they know that their voices are being heard and that emotions are being felt and that the teams and leagues have everybody’s back, but just communicate that.

Chris Wise:

What will be interesting is we’ll do one more wave in a few weeks, and it will be after Darlington runs and some Charlotte runs. And who knows, maybe there’ll be some, see some other sports start to creep in there. I think the Major League baseball is close to announcing what they’re going to do. We’ve heard some announcement out of the PGA, and football and basketball are still working on it as well. So they’re all working hard.

Chris Wise:

In a conversation with one of those sports at the league level, the number of iterations that they have gone through to deal with the possibilities and the maybes on their end has been phenomenal. It’s not just one or two scenarios. There are multitudes of scenarios that they’ve been looking at to make it work for everyone. So they’re hard at work. They want to be back. They’ve got the business of sports to run and those athletes want to be athletes. And we want to be great fans that support those athletes and cheer them on and cheer against the other people that are trying to beat our team or our driver or whomever it may be.

Chris Wise:

It’s going to happen. We’ll just see how it unfold. I can’t wait till the, see where we stand after things have actually gone live again and how people are feeling about that and how they’re gravitating to it. We’re going to have some questions around anticipation and how that weighs on their emotions and their behavior. So that’s where we’re going to go.

Chris McAdoo:

All right, man. Well, I feel like just as we get these key data points and we learn more about what our fans are feeling going through this particularly unprecedented time… There you go, that’s the word that you’re going to hear and you have heard for the last several weeks I’m done with it. I just want things to be precedented, Chris.

Chris McAdoo:

Like you’re saying, what we are learning is that most people know this was the right thing to do. They know this was the [crosstalk 00:12:37] right thing to do. To cancel sports, to cancel these seasons, to do what we are doing, these are not decisions that folks are taking lightly. Right? This is months of income disruption. This is empty tracks, empty fields that folks are just dying to get back to. So I think that it’s interesting, and I think the next few months, and maybe the next year, who knows. Again, it’s not about the date, it’s about the data, dealing with, like you said, Chris, all the “maybes.”

Chris Wise:

Yeah.

Chris McAdoo:

Is there anything else that you would like to share to our audience, Chris, coming from this third wave of research going into the fourth, to give some light [crosstalk 00:13:34] at the end of that tunnel or maybe just the middle of the tunnel, wherever we are in the tunnel?

Chris Wise:

Just to reiterate that people are going to, they’re going to consume sports any way they can, and we’ll see that on TV, streaming or broadcast or cable, doesn’t matter. I think we play into that whole hopeful and thankfulness that serves as an underpinning for how they’re going to continue to support sports. They’re not going to go away. Again, we need it as a cultural psyche that it supports. Yeah, that doesn’t deviate at all. Anything we’ve learned, that has stayed constant, that there was a great appreciation. There is a great appreciation for suspending sports but that they’re frustrated it’s not back yet. I think that’s part of our own cultural problem in that we want it fixed and we want it fixed now, but I won’t go there on this.

Chris Wise:

This is going to take time, and again, just that knowing that as soon as something’s on TV or where you can go see something live, we’re there. We’re going to be there. So it’s we just have to continue to weather the storm, so to speak, and keep moving forward and looking to that light at the end of the tunnel, because it’s there. And I think people are starting to see it with some greater clarity, but not total clarity, obviously. Yeah. That’s where I am with the data right now and we’ll continue to learn as we go well.

Chris McAdoo:

That’s great. Chris, thank you so much for reaching out to these folks, to giving folks a better understanding of where that American sports fan sits. And if you’re listening and you are interested yourself in seeing that data and getting those reports, you can go to ignitefaninsights.com and subscribe to the mailing list where you will receive, not only these reports, but also quarterly updates on just general sports overall trends as things come back to “normal,” whatever that looks like.

Chris McAdoo:

Chris is just on top of that conversation, and it’s just really fascinating. And to me, it’s nice to know that you may not know exactly the direction things are heading, but it’s nice to have a compass. Right? And so you can look at this information and this data as that compass for you. Anyway, I am Chris McAdoo. This has been Chris Wise as well. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Wise:

Thank you, Chris. Take care.

Chris McAdoo:

Take care, everybody. Again. This has been Fired Up, a podcast from Designsensory Intelligence. We’re based out of Knoxville, Tennessee. We love sports and we can’t wait to see folks in the stands. But in the meantime, we hope to figure out the next steps until then. Again, if you want to learn more ignitefaninsights.com, and you guys keep doing your great work. Thank you.