The Future of Fandom
In today’s digital world, engaging fans isn’t optional—it’s everything.
Future of Fandom is the podcast for sports leagues, broadcasters, and digital platforms who know that the old playbook for audience engagement no longer works. Hosted by the team at LiveLike—the leading enterprise engagement and loyalty platform—this series explores how the most forward-thinking organisations are using gamification, loyalty programs, and community-driven experiences to deepen fan relationships and drive real business results.
Every other week, we speak with senior decision-makers from global sports teams, media companies, and consumer brands about what it takes to turn casual spectators into loyal superfans. We dive into how enterprise organisations are rethinking digital infrastructure, leveraging first-party data, and adopting modular, API-first engagement tools to future-proof their fan strategies.
Whether you're a Head of Product, Digital, Revenue or Strategy, Future of Fandom gives you the insight and inspiration you need to move beyond passive content and into interactive, monetisable, and measurable fan experiences.
This isn’t about chasing trends—it’s about building the infrastructure of tomorrow’s fandom, today.
Subscribe now and stay ahead of the game.
The Future of Fandom
First-Party Data, Bigger Sponsorship: The Fan Intelligence Stack Sport Is Still Missing
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Sport's sponsorship model hasn't fundamentally changed since the 1960s. The data most organisations hold about their fans isn't connected to the products those fans actually use. And the opportunity sitting inside every rights holder's fan base - worth more than most balance sheets currently reflect - is still largely untouched.
Aidan Cooney has spent 25 years trying to fix that. He co-founded Opta, the data business that transformed how sport is analysed and broadcast. He built InCrowd, a data-driven marketing services business helping sports organisations adapt for digital audiences. He created Cortex, a fan data platform built around a single, unified view of the fan. And he now leads Envision Sport Group, the holding company behind all of it.
In this episode of Future of Fandom, Miheer Walavalkar sits down with Aidan at Envision's London office for one of the most candid conversations the show has produced - two founders who have been building in this space for decades, sharing a frank, unfiltered view of where the industry is, where it's failing, and what becomes possible when the data foundation is finally in place.
What you'll learn in this episode
- Why you can't activate until you unify - and what a genuinely unified fan data platform actually looks like in practice, versus the siloed reality most organisations are living with
- The difference between a customer data platform and a fan data platform - and why treating fans like rational, price-sensitive consumers is one of the most expensive mistakes in sport
- Why the sponsorship model has barely evolved since Mark McCormack and Arnold Palmer in the 1960s - and what the hybrid of content assets and advertising attribution could unlock
- Why sports organisations are B2B businesses today but will inevitably become B2C businesses - and what that shift actually demands from the technology stack
- Where European sport is still leaving the fan experience on the table compared to the US - and whether the digital layer is closing that gap or opening new ones
- What AI actually makes possible once the data foundation is in place - and why Miheer and Aidan both believe most organisations are getting ahead of themselves
Question
Aidan's argument is that the fan base is the most important balance sheet item a sports organisation owns - and most organisations haven't started treating it that way. Do you agree? And what would it actually take for your organisation to build the data foundation to unlock it? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
What’s next?
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If Aidan's point about the fan balance sheet made you think differently about how your organisation values its audience - share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
Useful resources
- Connect with Miheer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miheerwalavalkar/
- Connect with Aidan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-cooney-4a284a4/
- Visit https://www.livelike.com/
- Visit https://www.envisionsportgp.com/