BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Did our partnership assets reach the target audience or demographic? What is the broadcast media value of a jersey sponsorship? What is the impact on customer retention and acquisition? Those were the questions FlyQuest Sports was thinking about as the team headed into the 2018 North American League Championship Series (LCS) for League of Legends (LOL).
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Even though we have Block in our name, Block Six Analytics is not a blockchain company. However, we do see blockchain technology impacting our business in ways that are likely to surprise many in the sports industry. More specifically, blockchain could alter sports media and sponsorship in counterintuitive ways.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Famed management consultant and professor Peter Drucker is arguably most well-known for the axiom, “What gets measured gets managed.” That is one reason why the results of a recent study of sports partnerships by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) are so surprising. The ANA found that only “37% of respondents reported having a standardized process for measuring their return on sponsorship.” So why are so few sponsorships being measured?
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
If there is one place where analytics should be settled science it is baseball. That is what makes a recent New York Times article titled “The Analytics Guy Failed to Compute One Thing: How to Be Accepted in Mexico” so surprising.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
In a post titled “Which Football Sponsors Get The Best ROI?,” Brandwatch examined the value created by kit (or jersey) partners over the past year on Twitter and Instagram. Its primary methodological flaw is that is only looking at the quantity of the images posted rather than the quality of posts with those images
BY BLOCK SIX ANALYTICS
Block Six Analytics (B6A) is excited to announce that David Falk has joined its Advisory Board after making an investment in the company. Falk will now take a leadership role in growing the company’s sports corporate partnership and player valuation offerings.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN & ROSS CHUMSKY
Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve won the American League MVP Award this year while posting the highest batting average in the sport and leading his team to its first World Series title in franchise history. But from an economic standpoint, baseball’s most valuable player is Aaron Judge, who finished second to Altuve in MVP voting. Judge drives the most revenue for his team according to the Revenue Above Replacement (RAR) model developed by my firm Block Six Analytics (B6A).
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
For years, sports organizations have been investing millions of dollars in mobile technology with a particular focus on app development. One of the criticisms of this technology is that these investments are difficult to monetize. Cyber Monday shows this is increasingly not the case.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Humans can now learn disruptive practices from machines rather than machines “waiting” for disruptive ideas to come from humans. Computers can think “outside of the box” (even though the machines are often contained in boxes) because they do not think like humans. Humans can and should leverage the power of machines to come up with disruptive ideas to gain competitive advantages.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN AND JOSH HERZBERG
It has been a whirlwind ride for New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge. From setting a new rookie homerun record to leading his team to the playoffs to unanimously winning the American League Rookie of the Year award, Judge has had a terrific year. His on-field success has helped translate into off-field partnership opportunities with companies including Rawlings, Under Armour, and Fanatics. It seemed like a no-brainer for PepsiCo (full disclosure: PepsiCo is a Block Six Analytics (B6A) client) to take a swing on an endorsement deal with Judge announced on Monday.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
The Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs demonstrate that there is not a single way for teams to win in baseball. Both teams rely heavily on analytics, and the data shows that each team should take a different approach in building their rosters. What is the lesson learned for buyers and sellers of sports sponsorship with this analysis?
BY ADAM GROSSMAN, ALEX CORDOVER, ALBERTO RIOS & JOSH HERZBERG
Block Six Analytics (B6A) is pleased to announce the addition of optical character recognition (OCR) capability to our Ensemble Training Process (ETP) within our Media Analysis Platform. Adding OCR to our best-in-class logo detection in MAP increases the overall accuracy and speed needed to identify the time, location, prevalence, and value of images in videos and photos for specific brands for specific activations.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Cynthia Frelund joined NFL Network in 2016 as an analytics expert, providing her unique insight into the game on NFL Fantasy LIVE and GameDay Morning. She is also the co-host of the Game Theory and Money podcast. Prior to joining the NFL, Cynthia worked at ESPN and Disney. She graduated with a Masters of Business Administration and Masters in Predicative Analytics from Northwestern University.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of the late Steve jobs, is reportedly “buying a significant stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), a sprawling $2.5 billion complex that includes the NBA Wizards, NHL Capitals and Capital One Arena.” The article by The Washington Post business reporter Thomas Heath contains two interesting insights.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
Content is king” is a familiar refrain in the media and entertainment industry. More specifically, compelling content enables companies to attract large audiences regardless of the distribution channel. The fact that Amazon is potentially breaking the traditional monetization model is what makes its new over-the-top streaming deal for Thursday night football games particularly interesting
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
How do you know if a naming rights deal for a venue is working? It is a question we are often asked by our clients. FirstEnergy’s naming rights deal with the Cleveland Browns is a good example of the results a company should be achieving through its partnership.
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
The Golden State Warriors have reportedly reached a $20 million per year jersey patch agreement with Rakuten. The Japanese tech company will be featured on the Warriors’ jersey for the next three seasons. The fact that the Warriors would sign the most lucrative jersey patch deal in the NBA is not surprising. The fact that the team received nearly double the amount of the second highest team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the fact that the deal is with Rakuten, a company few people in the U.S. have likely heard of until now, is surprising. Why would Rakuten spend this amount of money for a jersey patch deal?
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
NASCAR has typically been in the forefront of using new technology to help improve its sport. So it will likely not be surprising to many that NASCAR is one of the first sports to fully implement automation into its officiating process
BY ADAM GROSSMAN AND ALEX CORDOVER
August 25-27th was officially #PlayersWeekend where each player could use whatever nickname he wanted on the back of his jersey. Why would Major League Baseball (MLB) decide to have #PlayersWeekend with nicknames as “interesting” as “Chicken Strip” and “Wild Horse”?
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
The future of autonomous vehicles is complex depending on your point-of-view. Today, however, autonomous vehicles are used as compliments to rather than replacements of cars. The Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers are good examples of teams that have determined novel ways to leverage autonomous driving.
