Igniting Fandom Beyond Game Day
Case Study
Summary
- Client: Premier Sports & Entertainment Organization
- Industry: Sports & Entertainment
- Challenges: Fragmented fan data across ticketing, retail, hospitality, and digital channels limited the organization’s ability to deliver personalized engagement beyond game day and create a connected loyalty experience.
- Ateko’s Solution: Implemented a connected Salesforce ecosystem using Loyalty Cloud, Data Cloud, Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and Agentforce to unify fan data, power tier-based loyalty programs, enable mobile event engagement, and support personalized fan experiences across digital and in-person channels.
- Results & Impact:
- Launched a tier-based loyalty program spanning digital and in-person engagement.
- Unified fan identity across ticketing, retail, hospitality, and digital channels for the first time.
- Expanded measurable fan engagement beyond traditional game-day attendance.
- Improved personalization and targeting across marketing campaigns.
How a Professional Sports Organization Built Year-Round Fan Engagement with Salesforce
A lack of centralized data significantly prolonged calls and What follows is how one of the world’s largest sports and entertainment groups turned one-time ticket buyers into year-round participants. Using Salesforce Loyalty Cloud, Data Cloud, and a connected mobile experience, they built a fan engagement program that works whether the fan is in the arena or watching from across the country.led to system errors.
The Challenge
This professional sports and entertainment organization manages multiple teams, venues, hospitality operations, and year-round entertainment experiences. As the business grew beyond traditional game-day operations, leadership confronted a fundamental question: how do you build personalized fan engagement across every part of the business, not just during games?
The data existed. Ticketing, retail, hospitality, and event systems all generated fan information. But none of it was connected. Engagement efforts were siloed, reactive, and focused almost entirely on what happened inside the arena.
The organization needed a platform that could unify fan data across every channel, extend engagement beyond live events, personalize the in-arena experience, and create measurable loyalty across the entire business.
Fans generated data at every touchpoint, but no single system could see the full picture.
Goal #1
Not every fan attends games regularly. Many live outside the market, attend a handful of events per season, or engage primarily through digital channels. The organization wanted a loyalty program that worked regardless of physical attendance.
The vision: virtual sweepstakes and raffles, viewing parties, digital engagement rewards, early access to ticket drops and merchandise, and points earned through app activity. The intent was to convert passive followers into active participants by giving them reasons to engage between games, not just during them.
Goal #2
For fans who do attend live events, the goal was to move the arena experience from transactional to experiential. The loyalty program introduced mobile validation and tier-based rewards that recognize attendance and participation: barcode scanning at events, point accumulation as it happens, tier-based VIP access, meet-and-greet opportunities, and seat upgrades.
Instead of generic giveaways distributed to everyone, the organization built structured rewards tied to loyalty status. The more a fan engages, the more they unlock.
The Solution: A Connected Salesforce Ecosystem
A connected Salesforce ecosystem became the foundation, unifying engagement, loyalty, service, sales, and data into a single fan profile, with Loyalty Cloud at the core.
Loyalty Cloud as the Foundation
Salesforce’s Loyalty Cloud powered the entire program: tiered rewards, sweepstakes, experiential benefits, and point accumulation tied to fan activity across digital and physical channels. This was the engine tracking who earned what, when, and why.
Mobile-First Fan Experience
Fan engagement happens in the moment, which made mobile integration essential. Custom
barcode scanning built into the mobile app allowed event participation and venue attendance
to sync instantly with each fan’s profile. A fan approaches a VIP lounge, staff scan the
barcode, the system recognizes their tier, and access is granted. What happens at the venue
connects directly to the fan’s digital identity.
Unified Fan Profile via Data Cloud
Salesforce Data Cloud centralized ticketing, retail, point-of-sale, mobile app, hospitality, and loyalty interactions into a single identity. This gave the organization a complete view of each fan: what they buy, what they attend, and what they care about. Every interaction, from a ticket purchase to a viewing party check-in, continuously enriched the profile and sharpened the targeting.
Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud
With unified fan data flowing into Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, the teams could act on what they knew. Ticket upgrades and package offers went to the right people. Pre-event and post-event communications matched the fan’s actual engagement history. Corporate hospitality management, automated renewal campaigns, loyalty reminders, and targeted promotions all ran against the same profile, across the full fan lifecycle.
Service Cloud and AI Automation (Agentforce)
Service Cloud provided structured case management for ticketing inquiries, loyalty
questions, and support requests. AI-powered automation through Agentforce handled high-
volume inquiries and routed complex requests to the appropriate teams, especially during
peak event periods when support volume spikes and response time matters most.
Key Success Metrics
Fan engagement happens in the moment, which made mobile integration essential. Custom barcode scanning built into the mobile app allowed event participation and venue attendance to sync instantly with each fan’s profile. A fan approaches a VIP lounge, staff scan the barcode, the system recognizes their tier, and access is granted. What happens at the venue connects directly to the fan’s digital identity
- Unified fan identity across ticketing, retail, hospitality, and digital channels for the first time
- Integrated mobile barcode scanning into live event operations
- Expanded measurable fan engagement beyond traditional game-day attendance
- Improved personalization and targeting across marketing campaigns
The Outcome
What started as a loyalty program became the connective tissue across the entire business. Attendance, retail, hospitality, sponsorship, and digital engagement all feed into the same fan profile. The platform recognizes a fan whether they’re in a luxury suite or watching from their couch across the country.
The organization went from knowing its fans only when they walked through a turnstile to building a year-round relationship. Fans who had been invisible, streaming from another city, buying through resellers, engaging only through social, became identifiable, reachable, and rewardable. Every interaction now builds on the last one: a sweepstakes entry in January connects to a ticket offer in March connects to a VIP experience in June.
That changes the business in ways that go beyond any single program. Sponsorship conversations shift from “we sold X tickets” to “here’s what our most engaged fans look like and how they interact across channels.” Upgrade offers reach the fan most likely to say yes, not the entire database. And when game day arrives, the support team isn’t buried, because the routine questions are already handled.
The organization didn’t just build a loyalty program. They built the infrastructure to know their fans individually, reward them consistently, and engage them whether the next game is tonight or three months away.
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