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A Whole New Ball GameMLB Advanced Media automates America's pastime with SAS®Boasting about 1billion page views per month, MLB.com is a hit among fans of two of America's favorite pastimes: baseball and the Internet. And the Web site's owner, MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, is a hit with the teams, too.  Check out this video to learn more about MLB.com and its successes with SAS. View Video (Runtime: 5 mins, 39 secs) See the ad featuring Bud Selig Commissioner of Major League Baseball View Video (Runtime: 30 secs)
Joe Choti
Chief Technology Officer, MLB.COM View Video 
Justin Shaffer
Vice President and Chief Architect, MLB.COM View Video 
Kristen Fergason Vice President of Marketing, MLB.COM View Video 
Christopher Sun
View Video 
Bob Aylward
Executive Vice President, Business Operations, Seattle Mariners View Video 
David Curry
IT Director, Seattle Mariners View Video 
Jerry Drobny
DIrector of Interactive Marketing, San Francisco Giants View Video (Requires Windows Media Player 6.4.7 or higher or RealPlayer 6 or higher) Using SAS, MLBAM has expanded its marketing efforts by extending customer intelligence capabilities to give individual teams a 360-degree view of their fans. The expanded deployment extends the power of SAS Marketing Automation to include vital information generated in the stadiums and over the phone, creating new business benefits through more effective use of customer intelligence. "With SAS, we'll be able to better educate our customers so that they'll care more about our products and develop an emotional bond," says Bob Aylward, Vice President for Business Operations for the Seattle Mariners baseball team. "We're not selling nine innings or balls and strikes. It's an emotional involvement, a passion." MLBAM is a thriving young business that brings fans and their favorite teams closer together through the Internet via cell phone products, fantasy leagues, Web subscriptions, e-mail, e-commerce and other points of contact. In fact, MLB.com is considered one of the premier sports sites on the Web from both a technical and content perspective. Hundreds of millions of fans from around the world go online night and day to interact with Major League Baseball and their favorite teams – buying merchandise or tickets and watching or listening to games. And, because MLBAM uses SAS, fans receive customized information in real time based on their activities at the Web site, so Major League Baseball's 30 teams get to know their fans in an entirely new way. "It's knowing what the fan does at the ballpark; it's knowing what the fan does online and offline – which club is his or her favorite, how many times they've been to the ballpark and where their favorite seats are," explains Joe Choti, MLB.com's Chief Technology Officer. "SAS Marketing Automation is the holy grail that lets us use that knowledge to meet and greet customers as they enter the Web site or the ballpark and make them a real-time offer based on their unique preferences to enhance their visit."
Thinking outside the park
With SAS, MLBAM gets sophisticated reporting capabilities and the newest generation of predictive analytics for state-of-the-art data management and data discovery capabilities. From that information, teams gain an exhaustive understanding of their fans' desires for anything baseball – even when they're away from the ballpark. By combining data from the Web site with data gained from ticketing partners, MLBAM uses SAS to predict what fans want from the Web site and other MLBAM offerings as well as from their favorite teams, which makes their relationship with baseball even more meaningful. With SAS, MLBAM can look at real-time customer behavior against longer-term data and know what the customer is most likely to be interested in next. That way, MLBAM can offer that customer appropriate promotions or opportunities. "It's a huge win for the fans, it's a huge win for baseball, and it's a huge win for the clubs," Choti says.
Real-time marketing is a hit
"Whether it's to get them to read another news article, to buy a jersey, to let them know their favorite team is playing in their town or to let them know their favorite seats are available, our goal is to look at each individual in real time and surface campaigns for them to convert," Fergason says. "We don't know of any other site that's as personalized in terms of those upsells and campaigns, and we're really excited about it." To make that happen, MLB.com needs a software solution that can respond instantly to the company's analytic needs. "The response time – the ability to integrate with our live Web site in a production environment at the drop of a hat – is what we're getting with SAS," Fergason says. "We think they excel at that."
Creating more brand loyalty
SAS also has allowed MLBAM to increase e-mail output five times over – from 300,000 an hour to 1.6 million an hour. With SAS, MLBAM can pore over its customer database to create customized e-mail marketing lists automatically so that no work is required from the technical side of the office. "Our customers are more interested in receiving e-mail from us, and they're more responsive, as long as they're receiving offers and information they want to receive," explains Justin Shaffer, MLB.com's Vice President and Chief Architect. "And there's an open feedback loop so they can tell us what they're not interested in. That way, we can target them even better and create more brand loyalty." In just a few years, Shaffer says, MLB.com has come a long way in understanding what interests fans most and what they're most likely to do next on the Web site. Today, MLB.com not only offers unique promotions, it also gauges their effectiveness in real time, which enables better decisions about future marketing efforts. "On the technology side, SAS has significantly reduced a lot of the time that our database administrators and developers have spent manipulating our customer data," Shaffer says. "MLBAM is absolutely making better business decisions today as a result of using SAS." Using SAS, MLBAM built on its Web successes to create effective marketing programs across the league. That seems only fitting, considering that baseball, like SAS, is rooted in statistics. "I've been in this industry for 30 years, and to finally have a full understanding of what the customer wants, how he views us, and to be able to instantly communicate with him is incredible," says the Mariners' Aylward. "SAS is allowing us to do our jobs so much better and please our customers so much more." Copyright © SAS Institute Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
MLB Advanced Media
Challenge:
Get the right merchandising and subscription offers to the right fans.
Solution:
SAS Marketing Automation brings data together from many sources to segment and target fans quickly and intelligently. "It’s a huge win for the fans, it’s a huge win for baseball, and it’s a huge win for the clubs." Joe Choti, Chief Technology Officer Read more:
This story appears in the Third Quarter 2005 issue of
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