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Discussing Affinaquest's Partnership With UC Athletics

The data analytics company is helping to streamline ticket sales and much more for UC athletics.

Author:
Russ Heltman
Aug 5, 2022 8:27 AM EDT

CINCINNATI — UC is turning over every stone possible to maximize its fan experience heading into the Big 12, and one of the ways they've done that is through a new deal with Affinaquest. ]

A CRM, data management, and data analytics company specializing in collegiate athletics and higher education that struck a deal with UC back in June.

We caught up with the company's Executive Vice President of Collegiate Athletics, Steve Hank, to learn more about how Affinaquest is helping UC tailor individual fan experiences with predictive analytics.

What exactly is Affinaquest, and what does your role entail?

I've run our collegiate athletics division here, where we work with 45 of the schools in the Power Five conferences and the Group of Five to help build, as our name implies, help build affinity with their fan bases.

Now there's been a lot of questions, and a lot of things where people are talking about everything from multimedia rights contracts, TV contracts, name, image and likeness, and other elements, but when you boil it all down, the foundation of collegiate athletics is built upon two things. One is the student-athletes themselves, and then the fans. And so what Affinaquest's role in collegiate athletics entails is helping institutions deliver the fans what they want and what they need for the most personalized fan experience possible.

So designing and having offerings and communicating to them in ways that are relevant to them is important. And to do that, you have to understand who they are and for athletic departments, we as fans provide a goldmine of information about who we are, in terms of when you make a merchandise purchase, etc. So they have all of this information, but it's sitting siloed in systems that do not communicate and do not talk to each other. What Affinaquest does with our central intelligence platform is we bring all of that information that has been voluntarily provided together into a profile so that when Cincinnati communicates with its fans. It communicates and it understands who you are.

It knows where you are at your point in life. It knows where your seats are located. It knows whether you're buying a mini-plan, full-season group tickets, or single games. It knows whether you were an alum and what dorm that you lived in. So when you take all of those interests and you put them all together, it allows that communication to be relevant.

How is this going to change what UC football does for fans?

It engages the patrons. Our platform helps people deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time because everybody needs to be treated like an individual. And that's what we all want in our lives to be treated as an individual on the relevant things.

The needs of a young alum that has just graduated from Cincinnati are very different from somebody who's starting a family and has two young children. They might like to sit in the venue versus somebody who's older in their life and is looking for a little more comfort and looking to maybe entertain some people from a business perspective.

Does this ultimately boil down to college programs wanting to sell more tickets?

Selling tickets is a byproduct of Affinaquest. It's really about building a connection. Is that the goal? No, that's not the goal. The goal is to build that connection and to have people feel like they're part of something.

There's nothing better than getting into a stadium, getting into an event, and enjoying being a part of something. So yes, is selling more tickets and creating a fantastic environment a byproduct of building affinity? It is, but it is not the end goal.

The end goal is to build those relationships, and that's what Anthony Di Fino and John Cunningham want—they want to take the passion and leverage that to take Bearcat nation to a whole new level.

What's an example where you're technology has been a huge success?

A great example is what they've been able to accomplish down at the University of Florida, where there are fantastic numbers of people that were buying prodigious amounts of merchandise that hadn't purchased tickets to come to a game at The Swamp.

Many of them just because they thought that tickets weren't available. I think everybody knows that there's been a changing of the guard in collegiate athletic tickets. You know, the powerhouse programs across the country—everybody from Ohio State to Michigan, to Notre Dame, they have tickets now.

It's about communicating to the people those opportunities, but it's also about finding new fans and connecting with them. Florida found over 80,000 people that had purchased merchandise that were not in their database and is now able to communicate easily with them. It resulted in thousands of ticket sales.

So it's about uncovering where your fans are—and then when somebody feels that their need has been met, it becomes a two-way relationship that is symbiotic.

Check out the full video chat below.

*This conversation has been edited for clarity.

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