NBA shoots for data analysis

Computerworld - As the league's best teams battle for the right to play in the championship series, the National Basketball Association is trying for a long-term marketing slam-dunk with its 50 million-strong customer base.

The high-profile league, hurt by a drop-off in fan interest since the departure of Michael Jordan, is rolling out a customer relationship management system to bring back paying customers. Using applications from San Mateo, Calif.-based E.piphany Inc., the far-flung, multimillion-dollar implementation, will serve both the league and its 29 teams, said Bernie Mullin, senior vice president of marketing and team business operations.

Parts of the system will be operational by July, but full implementation will take a number of years. Upon completion of the system, "we're going to have a 360-degree view of the fans and customers of the NBA," said Mullin. "We've never had that before at the league or team level."

While the NBA has gathered some information about season ticket holders from Los Angeles-based Ticketmaster and other sources, it has never combined the data to devise strategic marketing campaigns.

Mullin said E.piphany won the NBA's business because it had the most comprehensive sales force automation, business intelligence and campaign management product suite available to help the league "understand our fans' needs better than before."

The product will take data about ticket-buying fans from around the world from a variety of sources, including the Home Shopping Network, All-Star nomination ballots, the NBA store in New York, individual team databases and the NBA.com Web site. That data will then be used to craft personalized sales pitches.

Each team will get access to resources, depending on what they negotiate with the NBA. All of the teams will have access to the data warehousing, e-mail and campaign-management services, but the call center and direct-mail services will be a premium offering.

A key area will be data analysis. The NBA will be able to determine if some fans attend games only at a certain time of the year or only when a particular team is in town, said Mullin. Some fans will get e-mail containing streaming video of messages from up-and-coming players.

Mullin said the NBA's challenge with CRM was the same as that facing other companies. "When you do a full integrated system, you change the way you manage and run the business. It's not simply software," he said. "There's a lot of resistance to change. You've got to have departmental buy-in."

Despite the obstacles, Mullin said, the increased ticket and NBA merchandising sales should pay for the system