Business Model Canvas in the world of Sports: Part III

As we have mentioned before the business model canvas is a unique tool that  helps you create and design a succesful business. The sports entertainment industry is no different than other businesses. We have been building a business model canvas for an imaginary soccer team, to create a business model that provides value both on the field and off it to make our team a profitable business.

Coming up are the “Key Activities” section of the canvas, this section requires us to think about the main tasks we need to do, in order to deliver our value proposition to our customers. So where do we start, first we need to remember our value proposition: give our fans an immersive experience in the world of sports, providing entertainment for them both on the field and off it with related products.

 It sounds daunting but we will start step by step: first we need to understand our purpose, which is to be a team that plays in an entertaining way, with its own identity while transmitting a clear set of values through sport. Real Madrid are a great example of this, their objective is not only to win, but to play an entertaining brand of football, while representing values such as teamwork, discipline, humility and others.  This purpose has made Real Madrid one of the top brands in the world of sports entertainment.

So now that we have our purpose we can analyze the key activities. First we need to have a coach and staff capable of leading our team to play in an attractive manner while communicating the values our team stands for, a great example of this is Arsenal FC, with Arsene Wenger, they have a clear football philosophy engrained throughout the club and that has given the brand more value as cutomers have identified with it.

Then, we need to establish a channel to communicate with the coach, his staff and the players to aid them in representing our brand purpose on the field. It is up to the management team to ensure this, if we can’t get our fans (customers) to understand, identify and align with our purpose then our business will fail. 

In our value proposition section we mentioned that we also wanted to provide great entertainment off the field, so what do we need to do as a key activity to deliver on this promise?

We need to understand that every interaction our fans have with the team is a unique moment where we need to deliver our value proposition. So we need to incorporate as a key activity the management of our distribution channels to provide the best touchpoints for our fans. This includes stadium experience we need to provide the best experience for fans from beginning to end in our stadium, this means from the game itself to access to their seats, purchase of food or drinks. Then our website and social media, we have to manage this channels as an extension of the experience making it engaging and simple for customers to interact with us in the digital world. This means having a good CRM strategy.  

Lastly we need to understand and manage our revenue streams, even though that is another section of the canvas, we can discuss some of them, such as box office, official merchandise as well and concessions, are normal revenue streams for a sports team. So what do we need to do as a key activity, we need to manage those revenue streams, with box office we need to make sure customers can purchase tickets in the most convenient manner, via website or physical locations. This purchase has to be as easy as possible for the consumer, the same goes for concessions. Fans don’t want to miss the game but they want to enjoy a drink, so if we want to generate revenue from this we need to make sure that customers have access to this concessions easily. Also another key activity with our revenues is create metrics to measure how succesful they are, to be constantly evolving  our business and adapt to the needs of our customers. For example key activities regarding merchandise would be: prepare a licensing deal, choose an official partner (jersey supplier) to start selling other merchandise, also set up a special management team that handles licensing issues and analyzes how we could expand this revenue stream.

This are just some of the example of key activities we could have, the canvas provides a very visual tool to understand and manage all of these aspects. Passionis Sports can be an essential partner in helping you develop your sports brand the right way!