Newsbyte: The NBA's Charlotte Hornets Bring Fan Engagement to a New Level with SAP and Phizzle

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Aug 25, 2016, 09:00 ET

WALLDORF, Germany, Aug. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and Phizzle, an engagement automation software company specializing in fan engagement platforms, have partnered with the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA) to provide them with a holistic picture of their consumer and fan data to maximize revenue and to enhance the fan experience. With Phizzle's FanTracker™ API and data management solutions, powered by SAP HANA®, the Hornets have a real-time, cross-channel data profile for their 9.5 million fans.

Since the implementation, the Hornets not only identified that more than 50 percent of their fan records were duplicates, they also aggregated over 25 million fan and consumer interactions. The organization saved more than $1.5 million and 10,000 hours of consulting and added additional revenue in ticket sales.

"The real challenge is in consolidating fans into a single profile," said Christopher Zeppenfeld, the Hornets' senior director of business intelligence. "Phizzle, powered by SAP HANA, does that better than anyone."

Like many professional sports franchises, the Hornets struggled with a heterogeneous data landscape from multiple third-party providers. The Phizzle FanTracker API and algorithm, phz.io Middleware and phz.io Best Practices for SAP HANA allow the Hornets access to current and relevant behavioral data on each individual fan including sentiment, purchase history and interactions across an omnichannel landscape.

"With 50 billion devices capable of connecting to the Internet, sports teams are challenged with making sense of massive data quantities, but with SAP HANA the Hornets can achieve a single fan identity across a diverse landscape and understand their fans in real time," said Frank Wheeler, region vice president and general manager for SAP Sports and Entertainment North America.

"Phizzle's solutions are driving digital transformation for teams like the Hornets, enabling them to identify and enhance the economic value of each fan," said Ben Davis, CEO of Phizzle. "The phz.io API allows us to provide a streamlined integration solution that avoided disruption to the Hornets' daily operations and showed an immediate significant return on their investment."

The Hornets plan to extend the use of FanTracker to incorporate more data sources, such as mobile and food and beverage, and to introduce metrics to increase their e-commerce business and provide tailored offerings to consumers.

A detailed case study can be found here: www.phizzle.com/hornets-case-study. Visit Phizzle or follow on Twitter at @phizzle.

For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

Media Contacts:
Jackie Montesinos Suarez, SAP, +1 (786) 325-0568, [email protected], ET
Beth Trier, Trier and Company, Phizzle, +1 (415) 285-6147, [email protected], PT

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SOURCE SAP SE