As the business of sports evolves, so does the complexity behind the scenes. From licensing and merchandising to real estate development and fan analytics, today’s sports organizations manage a growing portfolio of agreements, data systems, and revenue streams. The challenge isn’t just managing this web—it’s managing this web as its scale and scope expand.
At Spaulding Ridge, we’ve identified several key areas where sports organizations can improve operational clarity and strategic agility, supported by real-world examples and data from across the industry.
Your #1 Fan
Fan data is no longer just a marketing tool—it’s a direct contributor to revenue. Teams leveraging Fan 360 solutions, Sportradar, and Genius Sports can track fan engagement down to individual plays, betting behaviors, and even in-venue activity. The financial impact is significant. The NBA’s $1+ billion deal with Sportradar underscores the value leagues place on data partnerships, with the NBA receiving equity in exchange for exclusive rights.
But data alone isn’t enough. The ability to visualize, interpret, and act on that data, especially when tied to contractual terms or revenue models, is what creates real value. Integrating fan analytics with planning, revenue, and contract systems enables organizations to identify high-value segments, optimize pricing, and personalize experiences. As a result, they can drive profitability, loyalty and revenue.
One real-world example: When the San Francisco Giants faced challenges with fragmented fan data across ticketing, concessions, attendance, and marketing systems, their ability to derive meaningful insights was limited by data silos and duplicate records. To address this, they partnered with Spaulding Ridge to implement a modern, cloud-native solution centered on Snowflake as their unified data platform.
The new data architecture enabled the Giants to centralize fan data, enhance data quality, and facilitate access across departments. By using Snowflake to consolidate and manage data, the organization accelerated analytics workflows by 50%, giving the team faster access to actionable information across operations, marketing, and revenue teams. In addition, we enabled the Giants to remove the noise: minimizing duplicate fan records by 15%, significantly improving the effectiveness of targeted campaigns and retention strategies.
In the Arena
Venue management is often underestimated in its complexity. Take “The Garden” for example. TD Garden in Boston hosts over 200 events annually, serving over 3.5 million visitors. The operational demands of flipping from an NHL game to an NBA playoff in under 24 hours require coordination across dozens of agreements—union contracts, vendor deals, insurance policies, and more.
Unifying systems of record that showcase interrelated contracting needs is paramount here. A contract lifecycle management (CLM) system may have data around SLAs from a staffing agency, rates from a custodial group, and stipulations from the city authority on working conditions. How does this agreement data unify with ERP or planning data? The answer and visualizations can be provided via a unified dataset in a system like Snowflake.
Outside the Arena
When fans aren’t in seats, check any sports news cycle, especially during the summer lull in North American sports: contract negotiations, holdouts, and new deals dominate the cycle. For sports organizations, contracts generally fall into two categories: high-volume, standardized agreements and complex, heavily negotiated deals. Each requires a different approach.
Standardized agreements—like licensing deals with national brands or memorabilia certification—are often dictated or at least heavily involved by the league’s central office. These contracts are executed at scale and require systems that can track counterparty relationships and capture revenue in various ways.
Let’s take 2 distinct examples from American football. On one end, a local Courtyard Marriott franchisee being able to put up a decal display on sliding glass door entryways to say “the official hotel of the NFL” is less about negotiation and more about execution. On the other hand, heavily negotiated agreements involve nuanced terms, extended timelines, and multiple stakeholders. The EA NCAA Football video game licensing process, shaped by name, image, and likeness (NIL) legislation, settlements, lawsuits, etc., is a prime example. Negotiations for deals like these spanned years, with revenue association flowing from the central office to conferences, to teams, and ultimately to players and their representation.
Ultimately, sports organizations should tailor their contract management systems to the nature of the agreement. High-volume deals benefit from automation and scale, while complex negotiations require robust version control, metadata tracking, etc. This data needs to be tied to a single source of truth regarding revenue, payouts, etc.
The Battery Atlanta: A Case Study in Revenue Innovation
With teams, organizations, and players understanding and realizing a greater value in the past decade, diversification into new revenue streams was inevitable. A recent article from the WSJ highlighted the Atlanta Braves’ mixed-use development, The Battery. It offers a compelling example of how sports organizations can diversify revenue. By owning the surrounding real estate, the Braves created a revenue stream that is not subject to MLB’s revenue-sharing rules – a strategic advantage that has helped them become a top 10 MLB franchise in terms of revenue.
In Q1 2025 alone, revenue from The Battery was up 23% year-over-year, contributing to a 27% increase in total revenue for Atlanta Braves Holdings. Property values in the development rose from $5 million in 2014 to $736 million in 2022, generating over $40 million in tax revenue for Cobb County.
This model introduces new legal and financial considerations, like real estate contracts, hospitality agreements, and entertainment bookings, not to mention the planning and financial close plans required for a publicly traded holding company, but the payoff is clear. A corporation like Gas South, Southwire, or Shake Shack—all with office locations, could have arrangements for preferred hotel rates with the Omni overlooking the ballpark. Corporate ticket discounts directly from the Braves to the area companies could be provided, bolstering revenue (and employee satisfaction). Understanding how these recurring & event-driven agreements compare with fixed costs and tax benefits requires prudent financial planning and data-driven modeling exercises. It’s clear that diversification and new revenue streams require systems and expertise that extend beyond traditional in-game operations.
Final Thought
The modern sports organization is no l
onger just a team; the league, conference, and associated offices are no longer just back-office operations. It’s a conglomerate of media, real estate, a data platform, and a brand—much like any Fortune 500 company. Managing this complexity requires more than just technology. It requires a strategic approach to how agreements are structured, how data is used, and how revenue is diversified. The organizations that succeed will be those that treat contracts as data, venues as ecosystems, and fans as long-term partners in growth.