The Future of Fan Engagement: Blending Digital and Physical Worlds - Samuel Westberg: Co-founder and CEO of LaSource

Ami: Welcome to Sports CTO Talks. In this series, we will be connecting with industry leaders from the sports and technology domain where we will simplify sports for all. I'm Ami, your guide on this journey through the amazing minds of industry leaders shaping the future of sports tech. We will dive deep into discussions and innovations driving the industry from AI to cloud, from cybersecurity to sustainability. If it is tech, we are talking about it.

Today we have a very interesting guest with us. Samuel Westberg, he's the co-founder and CEO at La Source. We welcome you, Samuel, to the podcast.

Samuel: Thank you very much. Glad for you to have me.

Ami: Samuel has an experience of 10 years and a background into the sporting industry, starting with professional football team and evolving into business development roles across various sports, tech and digital startups. His extensive experience has helped him build a strong network of international rights holders, broadcasters, media companies and clubs, along with deep understanding on the global sports ecosystem.

Lasource is a sports consulting agency working closely with start-ups, sports tech companies and sports and media organizations to create and implement business strategies that accelerate commercial growth and shape the future of sports industries.

Today Samuel would be talking more about, you know, the future of fan engagement and blending the digital and physical aspects of the world.

So Samuel, my first question to you is like, you know, you have walked into the domain from many years, extensive work is there. So you know, what are the biggest shifts you have seen back then and today into the sports organizations?

Samuel: First of all, thanks again for having me. I'm very honored by that little presentation that you put together. So what is interesting in the fan engagement space is that fan engagement is a wording that has been in this space for like 10-15 years probably. And then in the last five years, more and more and now everybody's using it to describe different types of elements. And so fan engagement can be a wide range of things, right? But technically it's any way that somebody interacts with the the propriety that they actually like follow. Well, yeah, just like or follow or appreciate. And so fan engagement technology, if I had to take it from my hat, being also a co-founder of Lifelike, which is a proper fan engagement technology, it's about every digital touchpoint that a user might have with a brand or organization that can be turned into data metrics.

Yeah, data or metrics ultimately.

Ami: OK, so like these days there are technologies like AR VR shaping the future, you know, shaping the next generations of fan engagement both into stadiums and beyond.

So how can you maintain raw emotions into the live sports with all this happening?

Samuel: Well, first of all, I would definitely separate VR AR to AI. I think that if you ask me, between 2015 and 2020, innovation was linked to big organizations trying to launch their hardware versus AI is a very, very different angle in terms of how it is actually going to shape for sure the future of how organizations work because it already has started and AI is. Present in some kind of way directly or indirectly in every organization versus having been in the VR space. I can tell you that it's something, it's a market that never picked up. And I'm pretty sure that most of the listeners of your podcast actually don't have a VR or AR headset. I've probably tried it, but have have never had a recurring usage of that technology. So I think that this is very different.

As far as the stadiums are concerned, I think that there are two elements, right?

You can take a look at the technology from a stadium experience or from a media point of view, and in which case it's really different. As far as the venues are concerned, I think that fan engagement will have a hat that is very different than Very focused on VR or AR.

Arguably, I would say that AR is just going to be a small tool of the fan engagement experience.

VR might exist as marketing activations around the venue, but it's never going to be used in venue at a massive level. But then afterwards, just in terms of that trend of the experience being more and more digital, right, think about how we behaved 15 years ago. I now am on my cell phone six hours a day in average, according to my Apple data, right? So it's just the world is more and more digital. So the experience inside the venue has to be more and more digital. I don't think it has to be perceived in a negative way, right? Because it can be used in a way where it's. Educating for the fans, where it's fun for the fans, where it actually drives value for the fans, right?

So there's a, you know, I don't ever think anybody will come to the venue and will watch the game with their cell phone for the, you know, entire match. But popping your phone here and there to have a better experience, to reinforce your knowledge, to reinforce the fun of it, I think is fundamental.

And then afterwards from a media perspective, if we're talking about the at home experience, I think that this is where fan engagement also has a lot of value because it will be for organization to think, OK, what's my core IP and how do I make sure that the engagement layers happen on my platforms versus anywhere else on the web.

And everybody has a specific angle to think about on what fan engagement means to them, what loyalty means to them and make sure that they make the most out of their technology for the fans to consume.

Content on their platforms, 

Ami: Absolutely. So like, you know, when you like we're discussing about AR and we are like what is the rule or what is the like How is Web 3 NFTS blockchain rising? You know, the digital aspect, the ownership, the fan tokens, is it revolutionizing any way the fan engagement process?

Samuel: It's not revolutionizing it, if you ask me, for the very simple reason that behind every new technology there's a excitement of what it might represent from a financial market standpoint.

And so instead of using those technologies as great tools, but in a natural process of onboarding this technology. People throw a lot of money at it, try to force it upon the client and which turns out to have the experiences that have exist. VR and AR, I think it's a very different topic where it's hardware, complicated. There are all sorts of elements that have to be plugged together for it to work.

Web 3 is something where I would be more mitigated in terms of will it work? I think it will work at some point. Just once again, as people start using it as a tool, right? I like to compare it with data, right? It's not about a coach taking every decision based on data.

It's about a coach being helped by data to make the right decision. Web three is a tool.

It's not. Web three doesn't create the loyalty program. But if you have a good loyalty program, Web 3 technology can enhance it, right? And so from the moment people will take take it as a mean versus a result, then the technology can actually be deployed and be of interest in the same way I think that AI. Is starting to be everywhere, will definitely be everywhere in the future. Will it be only about companies being specific on AI or will it be about companies adopting AI in their existing products to enhance them?

I think it will be a mix of both. I just think that everybody has to look at AI in a way that not everybody has to look at Web 3 and in a way where I would recommend people not to.

Think too much about VR and AR as part of their core key offering or at least in our space, right, sports media spins, that landscape.

Ami: So like when we are talking about everybody, like how do fan engagement strategies differ across the regions and you know, what can organizations learn from the like global best practices?

Samuel: Yeah, fan engagement is necessarily very different from one organization to the other. The reality is that we're still pretty early in terms of how people approach fan engagement. I think that the major shift right now is we moved from an industry where it was kind of, I have one activation to justify that I'm doing fan engagement to organizations thinking, what is my global approach on fan engagement? And once again, that's one thing that we're working very hard at Live Like on, which is How do I approach my local market?

How do I enhance the fan experience for the fans in venue to reach certain KPIs, data acquisition, you know, segmentation, all those topics. But it's also very much linked to what do my international fans do? Because when you're a Tier 0, tier one club, it is about your international development much more than it is about your local one, which is kind of already in motion. You still have to work on it, don't get me wrong, but. It's still something that's already in process, right?

So the approach for Tier 0 is very different than let's say Paris basketball in France, which is the new hype club. For them, it's about the data acquisition. They managed to make a fun experience and venue in a nice arena, so people are going to it.

But how do you fill up that database to make sure that those people you know capture good data and make sure that they become fans for the next 20 years versus only for the current season, right? So. The, the, the fan, the, the fan engagement strategy is very different from one organization to another and it's actually for people inside organizations to have your champion of who is in charge of the fan engagement topic. Make sure that inside those organizations, right and to be outside of the club, right, let's 

Take a medium to make sure that the editorial team is aligned with the product team, is aligned with the commercial team so that everybody knows like what they can get from it and have a global infrastructure to make sure that. All the data points are coming into one place to be able to capitalize. from there to grow the business.

Ami: OK. And when we talking, when we talk about growing businesses like digital media, digital platforms are increasing day by day and it is there everywhere. So, you know, how can sports and entertainment brands create meaningful fan experience from that?

Samuel: Well, that is the thing, right? That's another topic that is very hot right now. There's a lot of digital platforms, whether it's digital, Mobile applications, or OTT platforms, everybody knows that they need a digital footprint.

So most and most of the businesses are thought about around like digital, right. I think that what is missing for the moment in the industry is that for the moment it was about having that platform that was robust, that was solid, that could offer a good catalog of content that acquired rights for life content also to keep. Getting people engaged and people excited about the platform. So it was all about the content.

I think what the next generation of digital experiences will look like is one that is much more focused on the experience on the platform and it may vary from one organization to another. But the most evident ones and why we are working in this space that we are working with at La Source with certain technologies. is to me, it's gonna be about how you make it more fun, right? So create some engagement. Nobody wants to have a passive experience anymore.

TikTok, Instagram, you name it, all those social media platforms, it's about the engagements, it's about the likes that you get, it's about the participation, it's about the community, right? So that element we baked into digital platforms is to me a fundamental. And the second element, we accompany a company called Camp AI that does automatic translation, so dubbing, subbing, all of that, I think that that is fundamental also so you nurture to the to your target audience, right? How do you say, hey, I am PSG, I'm trying to touch the Indian market.

It's not about delivering the content in English, it's about delivering in Indian, you know like in all the different dialects that that apply in the territory. Only then will you be able to start touching those international communities and having an offer that can allow you to capitalize on them as engaged fans. And make them loyal fans as well.

Ami: Absolutely. So what do you think, you know, the traditional sports organizations need to learn or need to adapt from esports or the upcoming trends to maintain fan base?

Samuel: That's a good question.

In terms of learning from esports, I think too that esports in some way as to know what their business model is as well, right?

Because there's been a bit of a struggle with this side of the business. And once again, that was one of the sectors that was incredibly flourishing in the early, late 2010s, early 2020s. What I remember as an individual is the fun element at esports events, right? You would go to any of these esports fairs, the fun, the participation of the audience, how connected they were, how much of a party, as much of a sport it was, was something that was fundamental. And so that is what I think is really powerful. But in the esports world, it's not so much that you're loyal to a team, you're more loyal to an individual.

Or you're loyal to a platform because you go consume all your content on Twitch, right?

So there's an element of esports is also one of those where but that that are similar to the to the to the regular sports world, right?

People tend to follow fans more and more and people are on platforms to watch some of the content. It's all that middle ground and how you try to shape it and layer it in the right way as an IP owner in the middle that. That is the really interesting question, but I'm not sure, like, of course, sports has to look at e-sports and some of the trends that are global and very similar. But I wouldn't say that e-sports is the biggest source of knowledge.

You know, when I look at the fan engagement topic, I would  :more look at loyalty programs from airline companies, from credit cards. This is, to me, super inspiring in a way that can be adapted to sports.

Ami: Like that is so true when you say, you know, comparing it with the airline companies, that is so true. So like I just want to understand like like these days there are so many startups coming up into the sports domain. So what are they supposed to take care like you know how to go about into the fan experience or the fan engagement space and what should they they should look after?

Samuel: Yeah. And it's a hard one, right? Because the reality is knowing this space, everybody's looking at talking about fan engagement. It's obviously a very, very exciting topic, right? So there are a lot of companies.

Honestly, there are competitors to the companies that we represent that pop up on a daily basis that say, oh, I can do this, I can do that, et cetera.

And so I would say that for a small organization, If I had to do something, right? But knowing that I have my own company in this in this topic that is pure fan engagement, gamification, and loyalty. So I know the pit halls and like the value and et cetera. And I know the complexity of building a meaningful business in that space. Like any new company on the market, if I was to come and challenge us, it would be because I would try to optimize the usage of AI and the automation.

And start, try to start small in a niche and then listen to your market quite well. I know that I always have this example of a French company that came to bug one of my previous businesses that we were representing in that small kind of small approach, cheap focus on one vertical and then say yes, I can do the next one and offer it and then you add that as a layer to your business.

So I would say if I was to restart another company, I would just try to think, okay, where can AI take it in a way that it automates everything that we've spent a lot of time building, but then the reputation, the robustness, and there's a lot of things that come at play um that are complicated in the space.

And also knowing that somehow fan engagement for the moment is still the easiest budget to cut as an organization because Not that the product and digital space is not evolving in sports, but it's still subject to the CEO decision-making.

And until you can prove that CEO that your digital infrastructure and making the right decisions and putting the right kind of money on your fan engagement topic will mean millions of revenue as an organization, then it will always be the easy element to take for an organization.

Ami: OK. So like when we talk about the startups entering the fan engagement domain, like how do they compete with already the existing sports giants?

Samuel: Can you give me an example of what you mean by sports giants in this question? Who do you, who do you have in mind there?

Ami: I don't have anyone. Absolutely.

Samuel: You don't have one because there are two things, right?

If you talk as sports giants, as in giants that have an arm in sports, like a Microsoft or like those kind of people, what you're going to be fighting against is the economic power of those organizations, right?

But those organizations aren't built to innovate and disrupt the market because disrupting the market also means attacking the margins that they're making elsewhere.

And intrapreneurship is something that I have a tough time believing in because what I know has always motivated me as an entrepreneur, entrepreneur is that there's always the risk, right? There's a cliff. If we don't keep moving, we fall.

If you're actually doing that in a big organization, if you fall, you just get reassigned to another mission or potentially like if you're good enough, we're going to find a role for you in the organization. So it's very different than asking for money to people who trust you, who you want to give the trust back to, all that, all that everything that's linked to that.So I don't think it's going to come from those giants. And I think it's more those giants having to acquire the right technology at the right point versus think that they can't invest the money in building their own technology themselves.

At least when when I'm talking at the scale of a fan engagement, right, I'm not talking at a scale of something that requires billion, then they're ideally positioned to be able to dictate the market in a very different way. So it's not going to be those giants. And it's the same thing in the sports industry. Once you achieve massive scale, right? So I'm talking about any organization that makes more than 50 million ARR.

So just in case annual revenue, you're going to want to keep that market and reinforce that market and make sure that no one can come step on your market. It's not by reinvesting money in new product. It's more about consolidating and expanding, you know, like by plugging bits and pieces. It's not so much about the massive innovation piece.

So I would say that one thing that I've learned not to be afraid of at all as an entrepreneur is the fact of saying, I'm small, there are those, the big ones, why wouldn't they throw money?

Well, I'll tell you why, because it's complicated to make anything move at a level that is incredibly different than the pace at which we operate.

So The big, big organizations isn't what entrepreneurs should be scared of.

Ami: OK. And like, you know, when we are discussing about startups getting involved into the fan engagement space, so what should they they should look after into the revenue making angle, like subscriptions or sponsorships or merchandises or everything as a whole? Or is there something else, you know, if anything new is coming?

Samuel: Well, the first thing you have to do when you think about fan engagement technology, right and how proud the scope is, right. But I like to say it's engagement, it's the community element, it's the loyalty element and then everything is just are just things that you layer on top of. But the first thing is know why you're using this technology. What are your KPIs? Define them.

It might be authentication. It might be, you know, capturing more first party data. It might be for the people at home. It might be for the people in the venue. Wait, so you have to define all those objectives, right? And the second element is you have to be able to measure them, right? Because the truth is that a good fan engagement technology should marginally hit all of those verticals. increase your food and beverage sales by 7%, increase your merchandising sales by 2%, increase. And the combination of that has, you have to have a plan to be able to turn that into meaningful money, right?

But it's about it's about defining your KPIs, being able to measure where you have an impact in a very clear way, and then double downing on where Your strategy has worked and redefining where it hasn't, because it's probably not that span engagement doesn't work on a certain topic. It is probably that you just didn't deploy it well, didn't think it through or change the user story or the user experience. It might be just refining it. So yeah, that's how I would go about it if I was on the other side of the of the picture.

Ami: OK. And like you know we were discussing about like A I is completely different, right. So how important it is into hyper personalization into fan engagement and what role do you think does A I play into predictive analysis and you know especially tailoring experiences from the fan side.

Samuel: Well to me there are two things right tailoring so. I'll start with the Gen. AI piece.

The Gen. AI is incredibly powerful to be able to remove some of the complexities that that an organization might have just because of the lack of resources, right?

Because it's always important to remember that the people that are inside those organizations have an amount on the editorial side, have an amount of work that is linked to the game next Sunday and making sure that you publish an article and publish a video and do so what you want to do is to be able to have a technology that. Remove some of the burden of adding one more task to those people internally, right? So Gen. AI is incredibly powerful to say, hey, instead of creating a quiz, and that's literally what we're doing for clients with is you have to create a quiz on a specific topic. It's great to have the tool to be able to create the quiz, but if you have to spend half a day to think about the right questions, go look for all the information.

All of a sudden you use Jet AI, it populates it. You just have to refine it. You reduce your time spent on it from three hours to half an hour. This is one of the powers. And then the additional element is obviously on the AI agent strategy. By using the AI agents, you are going to be able to have the different people inside the organizations, use those agents to complete the tasks that you need to to have them complete. And so this is something that I believe is incredibly powerful in terms of how to use AI in an organization.

There are going to be some great companies that are able to do that, whether it be at the at the global organizational level or on a topic per topic basis. But I think that those are the two most impactful elements that we're looking at on our side, our AI agents and Gen. AI to remove some of the complexity. And actually AI agents will specifically be there for that, right? This quiz, what question worked, what was the impact? Those can all be questions where your marketing agent will talk to you, editorial agent. to the analytics agent and feed answers to each other in a way where it would have to be fully staffed in the past or a large amount of time from people. It's not that it doesn't have to be staffed because there's always the question of, will AI replace jobs?

No, AI will help people do a better job at a scale that they couldn't do. So it's more like instead of having to hire to do the job right, you're going to be able to do the job right without hiring extra.

Ami: True. So like, you know, when you're talking about AI and the digital world, I want to understand how can the digital and the physical world merge and like what do you see how stadiums are evolving or how will they evolve in the next decade?

Samuel: Or is it going to be your question?

Ami: Sure, like as we're discussing about AI and the digital platforms, right. So I want to understand how stadiums will evolve in the next decade. or whether it's going to be a digital first approach?

Samuel: Digital will definitely be super important. Is it Is it digital first already in some kind of way, right? A lot of those stadiums are actually replacing physical tickets by digital tickets necessarily, if you look at the LA Clippers venue, the Inwit Arena. Our radio over there, it's not only that it's has to be digital, but it can also be by face recognition that you go in there and don't have to pull out anything, but just like walk through the different places, whether it be the entrance at the venue or the OR the store. So I think that digital is already prevalent and if it's not because of the venue, it is just because of the other side of technology, right, whether you're going to pay most of people's most actually that is not enough data backed, but a lot of people pay with their phone, right?

That's already your digital experience. Are you internalizing it? Are you getting value out of it as an organization? Have you thought about doing it? That's another topic, right? But the experience already is digital. And I think that just like in life, we move from spending whatever, 10 minutes on the phone per day,25 years ago, we're now spending multiple hours on a daily basis on our cell phone. And so that usage of the cell phone is going to be at venue as well. And so there are necessarily moments where people will pull out their phones regardless. Are you turning in it to value for yourself or not is the question.

And then necessarily, I think that you're going to be able to do more and more things digitally at venue because it is too obvious and the state of the sports market is in a place where. If you're not starting to capitalize on this, to capture first party data, to know your users, to make them loyal fans for a long amount of time, and just like use that data for your own personal strategy, you're going to sink or you're going to be in trouble.

Except if you're one of the biggest brands. But even there, arguably 20 years from now, any brand could be at risk if they haven't embraced digital at all. So yes, simple answer would be digital is going to be more and more prevalent. I don't think it's by. Trying to remove it from your in venue experience is by making the in venue experience good enough that you only have people take out their their digital tool when you want versus when you don't want.

Ami: OK, last question, like you know like what do you see how digital transformation or how is it, is it going to redefine fan engagement or you know what are the new innovations you see which are prevalent in the next five years?

Samuel: I think that that global loyalty gamification, like making the experience more fun for the user to have a great incentive to fill up your CRM, your CDP, your database. is going to be one of the next big moves. Because as the media rights have started to plateau or go down in a lot of the territories, you're going to need to look at new revenue streams. And this sounds like a great opportunity. It will take a little time because it's not like in the transfer market where you buy a player, you form a player and you can potentially sell him for 50 million now. So that like those margins are too interesting for people not to focus first on that inside organizations. But as you're   goinglook at the additional somehow marginal millions, digital will be fundamental and AI will be fundamental there as well.

Ami: Absolutely. Samuel, we'll move on to the next round. That's the rapid fire round.

I will ask you a few questions. You'll have to be very quick in answering.

Samuel: Cool.

Ami: If you could watch a live game from anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Samuel:In venue pitch side, my best experience to date was with my kids. We watched a basketball game and Paris basketball and what we call the Jack Nicholson seats where we're right next to the athletes. Nothing can compare to that for me as a as a true sports fan.

Ami: Absolutely. Would you rather have front row seats at a stadium or fully immersive VR experience at home?

Samuel: I believe I answered that question with my previous answer, which is definitely front row seat. Like the end venue experience is very is very much something else. However, I will say that the bigger the event, the more I want to share it with people in a comfortable way. So the digital experience at home with with a with a with a enhanced experience on my main screen is what I think I'll still have the most appetite for as a on a regular basis.

Ami: OK, what's one sports tech innovation you think is overrated?

Samuel: VR and AR. VR and AR when it's linked to wearing a headset.

Ami: Okay If you could create a dream partnership between any sports team and a tech company, who would it be?

Samuel: PSG and Lasource.

Ami: What's the wildest fan engagement idea you have ever heard of or you wish existed?

Samuel: An experience where the votes and the participation of the fans actually has value. It's not that it hasn't been done at all, it's just it hasn't been done incredibly well.

And I think that that would be incredibly fun for the fans.

Ami: Your favorite sports player of all time.

Samuel: My favorite sports player of all time. If I have to go back to my childhood and say George Weah, who's the attacker for PSG and first African Golden Boot.

Ami: OK, if you had to explain fan engagement to a five-year-old, how would you do it in one sentence?

Samuel: What made you have fun at the venue today?

Ami: OK, that's nice. Good answer.

Ami: OK, now we'll quickly jump on to the next segment that you'll have to answer this question in 30 seconds. According to you, what is the role of AI in the future of fan engagement, you know, blending both digital and physical worlds?

Samuel: AI's function will be to be able to deploy whatever people have in mind in an easy. in an easy, without hurdles way. There's going to be less and less justification possible to not deploy a vision because of AI.

Ami: Perfect. Thank you, Samuel, for the insights and joining us today on the podcast.

Samuel: My pleasure. Thanks a lot for having me.

Ami: So everyone, let's stay connecting for understanding more on sports and technology in the future. Please share this episode with all your friends, families, and the people who love sports and technology. We will meet next week in the next episode.

Till that, stay curious, stay inspired and keep exploring.