Sports guidance to brands from three sources: Keep the fan top of mind and you might just win

HS&E conducted research around sports and AI, which Digiday had the chance to review prior to its publication. In short, the study stresses the idea that brands and sports properties need to apply AI with great caution, lest they alienate fans through erosion of trust.

Technological advances in production, in in-game refereeing, in analytics and data — even the assessment of athletes’ abilities — all represent ways AI has found valuable use. According to HS&E’s research, More than 75% of sports fans say they are aware of AI being used in sports, with the 3 most common use cases being: On-screen graphics, automated stats/analytics during games, and automatically generated recaps/summaries. But. only about 40% say they understand how AI actually works. 

“This leads us to believe it’s not an implementation problem — it’s an understanding problem,” reads the report. “Few industries are as sensitive to authenticity, fairness, and emotional investment as sports. That makes the sports ecosystem uniquely capable of revealing where AI enhances the fan experience — and where it risks undermining it.”

The study digs deeper by looking into where exactly fans are comfortable seeing AI put to use — and where it’s best avoided. Between 60-70% of fans said they support AI when it’s used for stats, insights, performance analysis, or personalization. But support drops by more than 20 points when AI is perceived as autonomous, abstract, or part of decision-making. In short, AI is more trusted when framed as assisting humans, not replacing them.

Chris Weil, co-CEO of HS&E, who took part in a virtual event Digiday hosted on April 23 called “The Sports Marketing Playbook,” addressed the issue. “No surprise, the same thing that’s happening in AI writ large is happening in sports. There’s a trust issue, right?” explained Weil. “People are not sure they like it. They like the future, the thought of it, but there’s also a trust issue. And that same thing’s happening in all the research that we did in AI for sports… So it’s going to be an interesting couple of years.”

Strategizing around fandom is exactly why media agency Canvas Worldwide and its principal sports fan, CEO Paul Woolmington went out and hired an ex-NFL executive to expand its already busy sports practice, Digiday has learned. The shop brought onboard Steven Graciano as svp of sports strategy, a newly created role that reaffirms the fact that sports marketing is an imperative value proposition for clients.

A veteran of Fox Sports and the NFL, Graciano brings experience from the league and media partner side, having crafted partnerships and media strategies where content, distribution, and marketing all meet to harness fan enthusiasm.

“The mindset of the sports fan is a lot more receptive to a brand that’s involved in the sports experience,” said Graciano, who said this is the first agency-side job he’s held. “There’s a way to tap into that… When you’re involved in sports, you get an unlock to go through that lens of culture and other things that come along with sports.”

Which Woolmington elaborated on. “If we’re a custodian of a brand’s investments, then what we have to be looking at is, how does it obviously work at the outcome,” said Woolmington. “But also, how does it work within culture, within the broader marketing spectrum? So I think this triangulation is important to understand as well… It’s actually a really incredibly powerful tool in a world of division.”

Unlocking value in sports partnerships from more of a B2B point of view is an essential element to Sport Beach, formed by holdco Stagwell four years ago as a beachside activation at Cannes Lions — but made a formal unit within Stagwell in January of this year. 

Beth Sidhu, a longtime head of brand and comms for Stagwell, was named its CEO when the business unit was formed. Sidhu also took part in Digiday’s Sports Marketing Playbook event, But Digiday spoke with her recently to elaborate on how it’s evolving as a marketing vehicle for brands, athletes and rights holders. It’s all in service of connecting them all to fans in ways that work for all. 

“The athlete is as important as the CMO who is as important as the league officer,” Sidhu said. “That in and of itself, is unusual, and most of the time, the brand is writing the check so everyone else is kind of chasing them, and that’s fine. What we’re saying this is an ecosystem, and we’re going to treat those elements equally.”

It’s the neutrality of what Sport Beach brings to the marketplace that is its main selling point, said Sidhu during the event. “We’re not agents. We’re not taking a piece of the deal. We’re not selling meetings,” she noted. “We genuinely want to be Switzerland and to provide that platform for these amazing opportunities to come together.”

Of course, agencies and brands — anyone attending Cannes Lions, in fact — will get the chance to experience Sport Beach in its fourth year, and will feature a raft of athletes from all major sports, from Lindsey Vonn to Carmelo Anthony and Naomi Osaka.