#226 How Sports Teams Should Use Data | Neil Schwartz, SBRnet

Welcome to episode 226 of Sports Management Podcast.

Today's guest is?Neil Schwartz, President of SBRnet, one of the leading sports business data providers focused on fan behavior, monetization, and engagement.

In this episode, we break down the difference between passive fans and active fans, why storytelling is the real skill behind data, and how teams can turn insights into revenue across tickets, merch, sports betting and more.

Let's get into it.

SPONSOR:

Listeners of the?Sports?Management Podcast?get an exclusive?20% off?on?SportsPro+ with the code?SMPOD20.?All you need to do is head to?sportspro.com/membership?and start exploring today.

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Time stamps:

00:00 Intro

00:59 What sports teams can learn from Disney

01:50 What SBRnet does: business-side sports data

02:46 Doing data before data was cool

04:25 Data is now traded like oil + early pushback from execs

07:28 Black box data vs transparent methodology

08:44 "If you only use your own data, you repeat the same mistakes"

09:29 Data is like making soup

11:16 SWOT analysis as a decision framework

12:57 The hardest question: "Why?"

16:41 Cross-fandom + cross-category sponsorship strategy

19:31 Active vs passive engagement explained

21:07 Neil's Dolphins example: passionate but passive fan behavior

22:49 Turning passive fans into active fans

25:08 Good data use is good storytelling

27:52 When teams reject data because of anecdotal bias

30:45 Privacy + anonymized data + integrity standards

35:14 Pandemic: removing live attendance questions to protect trend accuracy

37:15 AI fears + why people must stay in the decision-making equation

42:20 Career advice: internships + networking + better outreach emails

48:43 Sports gambling needs guardrails

52:31 Gambling growth plateau

53:19 Underage gambling problem

54:45 Guest recommendations

57:00 Outro

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