The roar of the crowd, the last-minute goal, the synergy among teammates and fans. These are some of the things that likely will never be replaced by AI. But some of Ottawa’s professional sports teams are increasingly using the technology to facilitate operations, while maintaining the human touch. In the east end, the Ottawa Titans […]
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The roar of the crowd, the last-minute goal, the synergy among teammates and fans. These are some of the things that likely will never be replaced by AI. But some of Ottawa’s professional sports teams are increasingly using the technology to facilitate operations, while maintaining the human touch.
In the east end, the Ottawa Titans had 51 regular season home games this year and, according to general manager Martin Boyce, his front office has had its hands full, from marketing and member outreach to partnerships and game-day operations.
That’s where AI has been a great help with specific tasks, he said.
“When it comes to automating (sending) emails, not writing them, it’s very valuable. Whether that’s a survey post-game or a welcome to your first Titans game, all of those things are things that take time. They can be done with automation and done effectively without compromising the message or importance of the human element,” he told OBJ.
While the team doesn’t have a strict policy on which software to use, Boyce said his front office typically uses ChatGPT and Claude for email send automation as well as marketing data analysis.
“How many tickets is a person buying? What kind of package do they have? It’s to create groups of the most optimal people that should hear our message and analyzing data in terms of ticket sale trends, purchasing trends, food and beverage trends, merchandise trends,” he said, adding that the Titans would never use AI to generate marketing material or personal messages to fans.
Plus, the minor league baseball team needs to be conscious of how it’s spending its dollars.
“We need to see a very obvious ROI on (tools we use) and that’s why the automation of sending emails and analyzing data is good and easy to evaluate because you see (the returns) right away … We’ll explore it more, but we’re a minor league sport, so we don’t have the resources to go and develop all of these things that are custom to what we do. I’m sure Major League Baseball has plenty of AI tools that evaluate the players,” he said.
While the front office is not developing bespoke tools for analyzing athletes, Boyce said it has worked with a team at Carleton University’s technology innovation management program to develop business-focused automations.
“I think the sport (side) would be interesting because … it could be a difference-maker. In sports, you’re always talking about marginal gains. How can you be just 0.5 per cent better? I’m sure, in the future, a lot more of those things will happen and maybe there’ll be a company in Ottawa that would be a perfect fit to develop something,” he said.
Over at TD Place Stadium, Morgan Young, chief marketing officer for Atlético Ottawa, said the city’s professional men’s soccer team is utilizing AI to enhance the fan experience. She also said the team’s front office is using the AI functions within programs and services they already use to optimize operations.
“It’s hard to find marketing tools now that don’t have AI embedded within it. So for us on the marketing side, every tool that we’re using has AI capabilities. Things like MailChimp, our email marketing system. It’s good from an audience segmentation perspective, understanding fan behaviours … We also use a tool called BlinkFire, which has been incredibly valuable for our partnership and sponsorship measurements,” she said, adding that data collected inform future partnership strategies.
Sports and other forms of live entertainment will always be a people-first business, Young said, but using AI has helped her team enhance the fan experience through better research.
“Our supporters, our fans, come for the atmosphere, the sense of community and the connections they have with the club and with the city. When you look at that, technology and AI can’t replace that, should never try to and simply won’t be able to. So the value of AI for us is more so focused on what happens behind the scenes. It’s helping us accelerate research, build better data-driven decision-making so that our people spend less time focused on repetitive day-to-day tasks and start using the information (AI) collects to build better experiences for our fans,” she explained.
Still, Young said Atlético Ottawa is cautious of adapting new tools without proper research. “It really comes down to governance and responsibility. Given the fact that we have international ownership, we have access to very sensitive data that we need to be careful with. As these tools evolve, I think it’s up to us to protect that information. We need to maintain human oversight.”
For a lean front office, Young said the greatest advantage that AI provides is “levelling the playing field.”
“We don’t feel like we need to be the biggest club in the city to operate efficiently and intelligently. We’re recognizing that if we’re thoughtful about the way we use these tools, our team can accomplish work that would have previously required much more resources, more individuals,” she said.
The Ottawa BlackJacks basketball team is still figuring out its approach to AI, said Jason Winters, the team’s president.
“We’re definitely growing in that space. From an operations side, (we use it for) communicating with fans. We’re taking a hard look at how to mass communicate with fans to ensure that the proper information gets to them.”
From a marketing standpoint, Alex Forbes, brand and creative brand manager at the BlackJacks, said he’s leveraging what AI can provide, rather than completely relying on it to get things done.
Forbes said the team is using ChatGPT and Codex to help ideation for marketing campaigns, while also thinking of ways to stay visible to fans, present and future, on AI platforms.
“A lot of people are using ChatGPT and other AI tools to actually replace Google search. AI is changing our approach to things. On our website, (we’re) making sure that it’s SEO-friendly, that Google is picking it up, but it’s also thinking, is it AI-friendly? ... How do we get the Ottawa BlackJacks within those queries?” Forbes said.
The team is working on building an AI agent to help with ticketing queries, Winters said.
“One of the issues we ran into last year, like all parties, is working with Ticketmaster. A lot of people have a Ticketmaster account, but … a lot of people don’t necessarily understand how to use the Ticketmaster app to direct them to their tickets. So we’re working at creating an AI bot hotline where (the bot) will walk them through how it works,” he said, adding that the team hopes to launch the hotline next season.
The real value of automation for the BlackJacks, Winters said, is creating a repeatable experience for fans.
“If you go to a franchise, for example a McDonald’s or a Kelseys, you get the same food, the same recipe every time … Obviously, the game is played out by the athletes, so we cannot change that, but if we knew that a customer would have the same, perfect experience for them to get their tickets, parking, get into the venue, get concessions if they so desire … that’s the level we want to get to,” Winters explained.
While AI helps to empower small teams such as the BlackJacks, Winters said he doesn’t want AI to replace employees or prevent capable people from finding a role, because, as Forbes puts it, what people love about sports is the human element.
“Professional sports … it’s one of the last things that I feel is authentic. Once the game starts, what happens is out of your control. I think that’s the excitement, that’s what brings the emotions into play, that human connection to the players. So using AI as part of your brand, relying on it too heavily to communicate with your fans, it takes away from that authenticity,” Forbes said.
