Steve (00:06.306) It is see-through. April (00:08.218) Cypher it. Steve (00:09.656) Good, thank you. I should have asked, how do you pronounce your name? Seifert. Good, good, good. It's a thing you don't have to pronounce my name. April (00:10.853) Yeah, yeah. April (00:15.045) No worries. Yes. Steve (00:24.078) Excuse me with one moment. Steve (00:44.6) When you think of a society in which the speed of change is happening at a pace faster than the human mind, when you think of a society in which the pace of change is happening faster than the human mind's ability to keep a pace with that change, one great thinker 20 years ago said, the result is anarchy, the result is chaos. When you think about the pace of change and try to think about human consumer behavior in a time and era where there is technological revolution happening faster than the experts in technology can process, the question becomes, how do we understand consumer behavior? And we as brands communicating to a desired target market. How do we attempt to keep a pace with the speed in which they're changing and they're grasping the change? April Seifert, PhD in social cognitive psychology, founder of a very prominent firm in market research and psychographic insights called Sprocket. What a distinct pleasure it is to have you today on the Transaction Report. April (02:11.249) So excited to be here. Thank you. Steve (02:14.325) Likewise, and that quote by a spiritual sage 20 years ago after 9-11 writing a book about the dignity of difference from England, Jonathan Sacks, Lord, Doctor, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, captured something that I apply in business today that I just, I can't escape from. When the speed of change is happening faster than the human mind's ability to keep a pace with that change, all heck breaks loose. We've had a hard enough time understanding how different demographic markets, from baby boomer all down to what might be called alpha, understanding how different demographic target segments over generations behave differently and have different mores, value systems, psychographic interests. When all at once it seems like the world is, everyone is reacting to change. Everyone is trying. to make sense of change. How does you as a social cognitive psychologist leading brands in an attempt to help them better relate to their core target markets or unknown target markets? What have you done to process that shift and stay a piece of that shift and guide them as to the distinct differences of today versus just a few years back? April (03:48.027) That's a really good question. I think a little context will help because, you know, people think about psychologists as being clinical psychologists. And usually, you know, my side of the field is one that people aren't as familiar with. So if we unpack that, I think you'll understand my approach to the question you asked. So social cognitive psychology, if we start at the end, most people know the field of psychology. We are scientists who study the mind and how the mind influences our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, how we interact with the world. So we got that part. The cognitive part of it means that I study how people encode and store and use information. And the social part of it means it's information about people and social settings. So what I study is how do our interactions, how does our movement through life start to get encoded and then lead us to have the mindset, the set of beliefs, all the things that you mentioned before, where do those come from? So when I think about consumers today and you nailed it in terms of the timeline, if you even compare three, four years ago, it's a very different world today. When I think about consumers today, I always want to think about it from the perspective of context. So the context of a consumer today and how that crosses with how they developed their worldview, their values, their everything. And I think we need to think about that a lot. I'll just give a concrete example. You mentioned the generations. And you see it a lot. think the most recent way that we're sort of making fun of younger people these days is to talk about the Gen Z stare. It's been this thing where people say, you'll start talking to somebody in a younger generation, and they just sort of stare at you, right? April (05:53.999) And that is neglecting all context of where that generation came from and where they find themselves today. This is the generation that was born into school shootings, the generation that was born into not technology first, mobile first, and hyper-connected mobile first. This is the generation where social was almost digital before it was in person. This is the generation who is coming into an economic landscape that looks different than what they were told it was going to be when they were younger. And so when we put all that together, and you can do this for anybody, you can do it for any generation, for men, for women, for people of diverse backgrounds, doesn't matter. If you think about what was it that led them to build the set of values, beliefs, operating system that they come to the world with? And how does that match what they're actually experiencing? Suddenly everybody's behavior turns into not, why are they doing that? But of course they're doing that. Of course that's how they're acting. I, psychologists here, I am biased. I encourage brands, teams, any client we take on to think about their constituents, whether it's a fan or a consumer or a donor or whoever. think about it from the perspective of their psychology. Where did it come from? And how do we meet them where they are as best as we can given the current landscape? Steve (07:30.862) So it's really interesting and I've wrestled with this since I'm a kid. And I remember it's going back when my parents were alive and I mean, I'm going way back to when I was a young teen and we came out of a movie and I looked at them and I said, Ma, Dad, how? Can you please tell me how was that movie made? April (07:59.76) Hmm. Steve (08:00.481) That was one of the worst singular films I have ever seen. And I must have been 12 years old. And I couldn't comprehend how not fully understanding the market research that goes into focus groups, test clips, everything to do with how might that movie be perceived. I then fast forward into the political era. How did pundits get it so wrong in their market research? The New York Times, one week before the election in 2016, had a 95 % probability on their barometer that they had on every single day on the front page of the New York Times that Hillary Clinton was a shoe in, 95 % probability of the 2016 election, which she lost. We look at Super Bowl ads, and we do this as a business, it's sports biz. routinely, perennially. And in fact, our producer, one of our producers, Ryan, whom you met, we study Dave, whom you know well, our CMO. We look at ads, not only for the qualitative nature of their performance, but for many other aspects of what did they choose to tie in or relate to the consumer's zeitgeist? And what did they noticeably leave out? April (09:17.905) Yes. Steve (09:20.919) particularly when they're an official partner with the NFL, one of the 42, 43 official partners of the NFL, seven of which approximately have chosen to sponsor a $7 million paid spot, again, spend another six to eight, nine million for the production of a 32nd commercial spot nationally. But so many get it wrong with so much brilliant methodology preceding the launch of that content. Please explain that from your expertise, why we get it so wrong so often. April (09:55.803) Yeah, and I'm just going to give you my perspective. So I don't think any one smart person has the complete answer, but I'll. Steve (10:03.627) If you want to transfer, if you want to just go into like a seance mode and bring Freud into it, or, and many others, we can go there if you'd like, but if it's just you today, we're okay. April (10:07.623) Yeah, yeah Yeah, totally. Great. Okay. Well, I'll try to channel as many smart psychologists before me. I am standing on the shoulder of some serious giants, but the couple of things that I think is that, again, psychologists here, when we think about the way that Steve (10:17.098) Hahaha! you April (10:31.447) humans approach the world, I talk to people about psychology being like an iceberg. There's the stuff that we can see outside of the water, right? And many times that's what we measure. We measure the stuff that is very visible. It's very easy to see. How many times, again, concrete example, how many times a handful of years back did you hear people say, who's your target audience? We're targeting millennial moms. Great, like great. That tells me nothing about what that person cares about, what they're afraid of, what motivates them, what trips them up, all of it. So more so, I think we need to get better. Steve (11:05.015) Hmm. April (11:18.883) at studying the stuff that is below the surface of the water. We need to understand not just who engages or who might be interested, but why. And I think a lot of, just to use your election example, I think a lot of what we missed and still continue to miss. I think we can point to the most recent election and say, there were a lot of people who were pretty shocked. What we continue to miss is that there are basic motives, goals, fears that tend to show themselves in a variety of different ways. But what we need to understand is what's that driving force. So what's below the surface of the water. So that's one big piece of it that I think we don't do a great job of. The other side of it is related, but it's a bit of a different bit of a different piece, is that the reason why we focus on those things that are above the surface of the water is because they're easy to get. It's easy for us to get age and gender on a set of consumers, right? You can buy that data. It's really easy to get. But why do I have a 75-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman who behave similarly toward their favorite sports team, let's say. Why is that? It's certainly not their demographics. It's the reason why they're a fan. That's the stuff that I'm so passionate about. Fan psychographics. Why are people following their favorite team? Why are they engaging with brands who are associated with that team? And when we think about things from the most monolithic way, which My hot take on sports is that we have done that historically and continue to do it. We think about fans as a monolith. When we do that, think about how many people we are leaving out of the equation. So we can't just focus on the easy to get stuff, the stuff that's above the surface of the water. We got to get deeper, especially in a world now where people expect individualized custom experiences. Your move Steve (13:27.533) Mmm. April (13:42.969) movie example is a great one. That movie might not have been made for you. It might be made for a different type of person. Of course you would hate it. You're the type of person who they looked at and said, you know, whatever your interests were when you were whatever age you were talking about. This isn't a movie for people like that. We're making it for a different set of people. And I think we can do that with any brand within professional sports across sponsors. We can take a much more strategic surgical approach if we understand more of the under the water pieces of why those consumers and fans are engaging in the first place. Steve (14:22.807) So here's the interesting as I think about it and no way and shape or form and I am, am I a scholar in this as you, but when you look at, you know, folks such as Edward Bernays or Ernest Dichter, the founders of modern public relations and motivational behavior in the 50s, post-World War II, giving permission. to understand more of a Freudian motivation for consumer psychology, consumer behavior, what drives, advertises to reach out beyond just product benefit as a strict understanding of a motivation of utility to buy a product strictly on the functionality of that product and understand that there can be, if you will, in the most simplistic sense or in the most universal sense, the concept of I'd like to, and I'm gonna forget it in the moment, but I'd like to drink the, what was the famous Coke song in the early 70s? You know, we're literally, people are on a hilltop and it's a community of nations, if you will, where we're all one world, one nation, singing a kumbaya moment together because Coke represents unity and love and the human connection. April (15:33.818) Hmm. Steve (15:45.729) but it's just sugar, water, caramel, and some secret sauce in there going way back. As I understood it, had, Coke had some form of cocaine in it way back in the 1800s. As I understood the original recipe, it had cocaine in it back in the 1800s. So with that said. What is interesting is when you look at the consumer behavior of sports. So if we go to, if we just go for a moment to David Eagleman and you look, I just finished a book by him last week on the human brain. And that's kind of where my brain is at for many years, trying to learn because we're in the world of AI at sports biz and that's our field in sports sponsorship and understanding how to optimize, maximize and really measure and improve upon sports sponsorship. Obviously neural networks are modeled on the human brain and evolving daily. What's interesting is we know that part of what you refer to, April, is first of all, there is a hard code, right? So when you and I come out of the womb, you could be twins with someone and we could have very different predilections, very different. April (16:35.11) Mm-hmm Steve (16:55.585) kind of gravitational pulls, depending on our constitution that we were given at birth, that lends itself to have a certain appreciation for a certain type of music that one over the other might find really antithetical. So we know there's a hard code when you're talking about trying to break down that fan in sport. We at our company really see probably six primary strata April (17:11.963) Mm-hmm. Steve (17:25.293) of sports fans and recognizing from super fan those that will travel to another alien land and city going in harm's way if you're a giant fan into Philadelphia to watch your team. One of our board members literally travels to Dallas. April (17:39.269) Hahaha Steve (17:47.693) or will travel anyway rather conversely wherever Dallas plays if he has the time he'll go and fly with his one of his kids to watch Dallas play. I obviously memorabilia acquisition at the at the max you know engrossed Dallas the Cowboys are an appendage for this gentleman. It's at that level of relationship that certain April (17:58.726) Mm-hmm. Steve (18:16.663) fans have and with your relationship with the Titans and prominently with the Minnesota Vikings for many, many years, building Six Strata, a fan persona that liberated the Minnesota Vikings who are a very forward thinking organization. And we've had many of their leadership on this program and past super players who really understand the business of sport. If we look at Fan Strata, April (18:29.617) Yes. Steve (18:46.579) And here's a question I wrestle with all the time in fan psychology. From your expertise in dealing with this on a daily basis, how, if I am the Vikings, one of my mandates in life will be, one, If we have multiple persona and multiple strata, and one of those strata is someone who came as a VIP once a year or once every few years and had an experience, or that kid who went with a father or mother to a game and it was a one-time affair. It was meaningful, but it stopped there. But they still feel tethered in some way to the Vikings. For me, and I haven't figured it out yet, I want to understand how do we get from the lowest level fandom up to one of my board members, Charlie Boyle's level of super fan? What would be your prescription on that? April (19:55.153) Yeah. Yeah, so I'm going to take your example of fans who travel to other lands where they may not be as welcome for away games. Why? Why do they go? Oh, because they're a fan. But why? But why? Steve (20:16.717) Mmm. April (20:17.327) So I literally yesterday just finished the first swipe through a fan segmentation for another team, for a MLS team. And there is a segment that anybody, anyone in the industry would look at and say, yep, that's super fans. Yep. Very male segment, not all, about 85%. And when we look at his fandom on a scale of one to 10, he's about a nine and a half, 9.5. It's pretty high. There's a segment that is at a 9.3. She's a pretty big fan and it's a very skewed female segment. When we look at what drives them, these are segments based on psychology, based on psychographics. When we look at him, his entire profile lights up. He lights up for nostalgia. He probably had a grandpa or his dad or an uncle who took him to games and he sat on their lap and they like learned all of the chants at, you know, whatever, whatever soccer team he was excited about when he was a kid. He scores high on identity. Being a fan of that team is something that is ingrained in who he is. You hear these fans. I bleed. insert the colors here, right? He, he scores high on other dimensions like ambiance. He just likes being in fun places that are exciting and electric. He scores high on family, on social, on strategy, on stats, on regional, on player, on sport, all of it. He just lights up and he's a huge fan. Let's, and she lights up for ambiance. Steve (22:12.365) And she on the other hand. April (22:17.411) She lights up for family. She lights up for social and for regional. Now, I call her, and I have said this for years, I call her the moon. Because right now, that sports team that I'm studying is the sun. They throw off some serious gravity. He, that big fan, is the earth. He's orbiting that team. That team has serious gravity on him and this goes for every team. I have found this finding over and over and over, which leads me to the work that we're doing these days. But I see that over and over and over. She's the moon. She's orbiting him right now. She doesn't have her own gravity. We're not giving her a reason to have her own gravity. I'm going to use an NFL example. Weaf. Yep. Yes. Steve (23:08.653) Hold on, I need to interject just so I don't want to lose you. Because in the analogy for me, she's throwing off the light of the sun, the sun being the team. So there's April (23:23.525) That's a great addition to this and analog. Okay. You and I need to sit down after this and talk more. Good. Steve (23:28.045) Hold on. So to me, it's not that she's orbiting him. She, although I understand because he is projecting this enormous light of that team, she gravitates towards that and finds that very alluring, very engaging. But it's that... April (23:43.811) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. April (23:54.193) Could be. Steve (23:56.901) shade, it's that projection of the light from the original source where she doesn't need all the component parts that he needs very viscerally. You know, there's an old saying, the first man went out and brought the wheat into the wood of Adam. He went out into the field and he had to, he just had to work the field and bring in these sheaves of wheat and threw it down. And the elevated woman Eve, what did she do? She turned it into a beautiful braided bread. He's going out and he's viscerally engaged in every aspect of that team. But she's very refined about that. And she doesn't need a lot of all of that raw. April (24:30.416) Hmm. Steve (24:45.293) to get her to respond to be a super fan. Not knowing your measurement strategy here and how big a difference 9.3 is to 9.5, but assuming they're in a relatively similar classification, then her value in principle based, again, not knowing your study, I'm guessing from the team side, that 9.3 and 9.5 says we have... a similar gain, a similar relationship cultivated with those two fans that hopefully translate into also a monetary gain for our team. And that point too, we'd like to get her up by another point too and raise him up even another point five, if possible. But anyway, I don't want to digress from your core messaging. April (25:31.737) No, it makes a ton of sense. And so when we look at her, has a reason why she was brought into that, we'll keep going with space, because I really like space. So she was brought into that galaxy via him, via a family, via social, via having fun. Steve (25:43.501) Please, love it. April (25:56.995) If we look at just across the board sports fans who fall in that nine to 10 region, it Steve (26:03.197) April, once she's established that relationships for all of us, is she now independent of him, an individual per se that might have brought her in to the family? Or is she now independently again, off putting the raise of her own relationship with the son, the teen, and no longer fully tethered to the source of the inspiration? April (26:17.617) Great question. April (26:27.121) Great question. April (26:34.041) Okay, great question. Okay, so sometimes, sometimes, and that's such a jerk psychology answer to give, but she can basically create her own orbit. She can create her own fandom that is authentic to her and what she cares about. If we show her that that team, Steve (26:34.434) Ha ha ha ha ha ha hmm April (26:58.105) and the experience and the brand. And I say the brand, not just the game, everything about it is something she cares about. So can I give one, like we talked NFL a little bit and they're kind of the easy one to pick on because like they're so big and whatever, but I use this example a lot. So if we think of, you know, let's move out of the MLS a little bit, we've got the super fan and then we've got the moon, right? Let's say draft is coming up. Steve (27:06.445) speaks for a language. April (27:29.255) We start emailing people ahead of the draft because we want them to get involved largely because we're re-engaging back into the season. We're getting everybody excited. We're getting things going, right? So for him, we say, hey, look at all of these people, here's the colleges they went to, rushing yards, like, here's all these stats and whatever, and we know he cares about that. Her, her, the degree to which she cares about that is about half of what he does. Steve (27:59.691) Deep analytics, hardcore analytics. Steve (28:07.149) Is that representative, just to be clear as we go through this, is that representative of this singular persona or is that representative of a gender differential? April (28:14.213) No. April (28:17.884) no, that's representative of this persona. So she's engaged. She likes the team. Steve (28:23.021) So it's not that females will have a lower propensity to appreciate the analytics. April (28:31.557) We do see that as in general, but what buoys her is the psychographic elements that I mentioned, the social stuff, the family stuff, the ambiance stuff, the regional stuff that gets her in, you know, in the game at all. But what if we could give her even more of her own gravity? What if instead of sending her the email about how many rushing yards somebody had in college, we sent her a video of a mom reacting to her kid getting drafted last year and saying, we want you there to watch us change lives. Like you get goosebumps thinking about it. And so if we can, be smarter. And that's not the only woman-leaning profile we tend to see from a psychographic perspective. But if we can start to give people, not just women, men, we see men on the lower end of the more casual or even non-fan perspective, if we can give them a reason to care that resonates with the stuff under the surface of the water, We're more likely to just take that entire continuum fandom and start to nudge it in the direction that we want it. So no, you might not convince her to be a season ticket holder. She is by the way, with this particular team. We may not get equivalent season ticket account status. We may not get similar attendance across everyone, but moving everybody up a notch by making ourselves relevant. That's what we all want. And on the partnership side, I know you guys work with a lot of brands and with a lot of partner and sponsor organizations. If I was them, I would want this. Don't tell me I got a million impressions if it's impressions of people who don't want what I sell. April (30:33.261) I want to know who are the people who are interested in a brand like mine? Why are they interested in the team that I'm sponsoring? And how do we pair those two things together? Put me in front of her and give her messaging that shows like we have something for you here. That's the rising tide that lifts all the boats, I think. Steve (30:55.097) You know what's so interesting? I read it must be over a year, year and a half ago, a study about when you look at super fans and you look at by do it was Deloitte and it was a study on when you look at certain fans that are more VIP oriented and you look at the spend on an average level between casual fan and avid fan. April (31:14.501) Mmm. Mm-hmm. Steve (31:22.185) VIP fan, fan that might be season ticket holders. And just their consumption of merchandise, concessions, their bottom line contribution to the team is a factor of multiples compared to the average. So when you look at this data, are the teams for which you're working, do you usually have this type of measurable? that by understanding, like you just used the term, if we could nudge that person up to the higher level of fandom, are you also correlating what is that contributed dollar value, if you will, value proposition? to the team itself. Have you gotten into that and are you at a comfort zone now that you know the strata? I understand sports are different and pricing are different, but overall percentiles of as we graduate upward, what we might see in contributed dollar spend to a team value, lifetime value to a team. April (32:26.117) we absolutely do see that elevate. So when we work with teams, here's the historical context. Like I got into sports, started working with the Minnesota Vikings. They were my first team that I ever worked with. And we started on a different project, but eventually got to the point where they asked us to create their fan personas. This was before anybody had fan personas, by the way. So very forward thinking organization. They have such a huge place in my heart. Yes, I'm in Minnesota and I'm biased, but even without that. So we started working with them on their fan personas and we grabbed, I'm a big data hoarder. I'm like, give me all the stuff and I'll figure out what matters. No, I'm not a big data hoarder in the sense that I think I'm going to go brag about all the data I have. I just want to be able to see if it matters. So in the beginning, we pulled a snapshot of their data warehouse. We fielded some primary data collection via a quantitative survey, and we pulled in some partnership and third party data. It was really interesting because then you do have a very full picture of the fan, what makes them tick, historically where they've been at, their spend over time. And we do see that if you can make yourself relevant for a fan, you get elevated revenue from them. Whether it's a man or a woman does not matter. But not only that, and this is where it intersects a bit with where you all are. What does it mean to buy merch? Why do we want somebody to buy merch? I mean, sure, we get the 60 bucks from the sweatshirt that they bought, but that isn't it. They are a walking billboard for our team. It's showing the collective nature of we all support this common thing. And that's powerful. Steve (34:11.117) Hmm. April (34:18.489) And even beyond that, like we worked with the Vikings, we found their fan personas. And I was like, interesting. There's these psychographics that matter, like really matter. Huh. And then we did our next team's fan personas. Shocker. We found similar psychographics. And then we did fan personas for a team in a different league. Shocker. We found a bunch of psychographics that matter. Turns out humans. humans. Humans act like humans. There are basic things that we come to this industry for and it is not basic necessities. No one comes here for food, shelter, something to drink, like basic things, right? They come for psychology. This is a psychological industry. And if we don't have psychological data. So again, I started big, I looked at all the data, the ticketing data, the secondary market data, the resale data, transfer data, attendance, events, mean, literally everything. And what it boiled down to was why? Why are they there? And if we can tap into that, we can raise their fandom, and we can get them to engage in a way that is more than they are today. And what the fan gets out of that? is this higher level psychological experience. I just want everybody thinking, like, close your eyes and remember the game that was just the most incredibly electric situation that you've ever been in. I remember the Colts game against the Vikings when they were down hardcore at halftime. Biggest comeback in NFL history. And we're sitting there and I have video of us like. watching that field goal and like, my God, it went in, you know, it was like crazy. Like I get this little dry load rush right now. And I would not be in that stadium if I didn't see something there for me. And guess what? I don't know the difference between a three, four and a four, three defense. I don't care what your strategy is. I can't name most of the players on the team, but I love what that brand stands for. I love what they're doing in the community. April (36:35.181) I love the standard they set in their coaching, in their leadership, their players. I love that. And so yes, I will go, I will cheer, I will buy, I will recruit, I'll do all those things. And it has nothing to do with the core sport. When you think football fan, you don't think of me. I'm not who you picture. Steve (36:53.293) core. It's so, well, think, let's give a one off that is probably the greatest example of that last comment. You got a Super Bowl watch by 120 million people. At 120 million people, how many people, first of all, the peak audience comes in the middle of the halftime show. That is the largest single audience watching, I believe 112 million in 2025. So that, April (37:20.923) Mm-hmm. Steve (37:21.751) Kiek audience wasn't even watching the game. It was watching the actual concert, the performance. It's interesting, the Deloitte data, as I'm recalling, they had three core strata of the Deloitte data. And so it's interesting, while we have many personas, and in no way is Deloitte the, you know, the Wizard of Oz on all, but absolutely outstanding research. April (37:27.259) Yeah. Yeah. April (37:44.698) No, but they do great work. Steve (37:49.139) And there isn't a lot of other that I think competes with the Delight work. So I'm gonna default to them for the moment. But the study actually had 4,000 people in it, somewhere between 4 5,000 people. And they came up with three strata of fans. What I was calling, I call the super fan, they call fanatics. April (37:52.391) I love it. Great. Steve (38:06.059) What I call that kind of mid-level fan, they call the love of the game fan. And what I call that kind of casual fan, they call the casual fan. And the casual fan had around 40 % of that 45,000 market study sample size. That was 40%. So 2,000 folk among that study, let's just call it, were the casual fan. And that means they watched occasionally. It wasn't really destination-wise. It wasn't something that was part of their routine. It wasn't gonna break up a marriage. You know, I'm watching the games on Sunday and I'm rooted for the day. Do not disturb unless you're bringing in something cold and bubbly. And very low, you know, direct engagement with the family. April (38:44.977) Right. Steve (39:00.525) love of the fan, that love of the game fan, was somewhere around 33 % of course. So you're looking at about 1200 of those 4,000 due diligence in the study. And then 21 % falling into a fanatic level. And again, you can make up whatever you'd like. As long as your data can fit the markets that you believe you're able to influence with a unique message and narrative, that's going to do two things. One, engage them. to feel you care about their needs. And as a result of that, I'm a big believer in call to action. So as a result of that, you've nurtured me with a message, but in that repetitive, not repetitive message, but repetitive ability to reach my mindscape in a way that is natural and seamless so that I believe you care about my passion in such a natural way that I want a relationship with you. April (39:57.659) Yes. Steve (39:58.603) I want to shift from your relationship with teams to our core focal point, even though we do deal with teams. But we're concerned about one of the biggest spenders in the business of sport, which is $100 billion spent globally and rising in the, want a relationship with one of the core tools in sports, athlete teams, leagues. April (40:05.051) Yeah. Yep. April (40:14.609) Yes. Steve (40:23.039) associations, stadiums, and venues, because not all venues are stadiums. Golf courses are not stadiums. Although I must say my colleagues have educated me in a way that I thought I knew golf very, very well. I used to own a lot of pro golf tournaments. But when I look at the WP and a few other tournaments, they've built stadia in, I mean, almost towns on some of their fairways and greens. April (40:43.61) Yeah. Steve (40:51.959) With that said, but not all venues are stadium. And then of course, events. So as a brand, I might want to use one or more of those to reach April with a very meaningful message. Because for April Seifort, she cares about that. And this is my best strategic tool to use the business support of sport as a strategic business tool. So as a brand, let's invert it for a moment. April (41:12.817) Yes. Steve (41:20.531) I understand a bit about the team strata persona. If I'm working with a team, I might be working with a Vikings, and by the way, have full disclosure on my board as a guy who was 20 years the CMO of the Minnesota Vikings, Steve LaCroix. So, have an obligation to share that. April (41:41.785) Steve. Hi Steve. I love Steve. Good, good. Steve (41:47.853) Just with that said, as a New Yorker, it's the closest thing I have to appreciating another team that's not from my hometown. So you and Dave Wharton and others, Steve LaCroix have brought me closer and I'm one of our clients, CHS, so that brings me even closer to many teams in Minnesota. But from a brand standpoint, if I'm working with a team or a league, I mean, if I'm working with the NFL or NBA, I might have 40 to 50 other brands. And talking about strata, we have super brands that sponsor sport. I we have brands that are national and global using their sport that can outspend another brand 10, 20, 30 to one. So when we look at brands using a team to reach its desired target market or more than one target market. Is there any process they need to go through from your expertise in the consumer behavior relationship that is wholeheartedly different than when you might be advising a team in its target market? April (42:59.931) The process isn't as different, but the reasons why are. So let's go back to, and I'm not even gonna just say the Vikings, but any team that we've created a custom segmentation or persona solution for. We delivered one to an NFL team two years ago in December, right at the end of the year. They were coming up on some partnership renewal agreements. And the very first thing they did was wrote their persona data into their pitch decks or their renewal decks. They said, Steve (43:39.873) How many points of data is that by the way? April (43:43.235) my God, thousands at that point. mean, it's a, it's a lot. We're measuring certain factors on people and those are comprised of other elements. I mean, it's a lot. It's a, we either get it from the team, we collect it first person, or we get it from third party. So. Steve (43:53.997) And who's inputting that data? Steve (44:03.353) So you might be going to a fan of the team or a consumer that is acquiring that particular soft drink or that car and they are spending time with you to the tune of thousands of data points? April (44:10.971) You got it. You got it. April (44:16.613) We get so much, yes. And what's in. Steve (44:19.725) Give me a moment here. Can you just walk us through that process for a moment? If I have to fill out a form of one page, and first of all, we figuring, I presume we're using computer to input that data? Okay. Because after one page, my hand gets exhausted. So that's number one. So we have individuals who are part of April (44:24.462) It's Arduous! April (44:35.793) Mm-hmm. April (44:40.943) Yeah, yeah. Steve (44:48.021) some form of market research engagement, they are incentivized to participate in that market research sometimes. What percent of sometimes? April (44:55.023) Sometimes, yep. April (45:02.361) It's not so much percent of how often they're incented. It's that most times, most times we can put them through a sweepstakes and we can get a ridiculous response rate. It's incredible. Steve (45:07.765) At a thousand people, I serve them. How many people? Steve (45:13.933) You got a magic wand. with that said, you got a magic wand. So April, just help me with one thing. Sample size, I know it differs case to case, but if you were looking at one of your more robust engagements for six persona types, what are we talking about sample size? April (45:31.847) Usually I would say a more robust engagement, five to 8,000. Steve (45:37.023) Okay, five to eight thousand and this is done by third party organizations. April (45:43.641) No, so some of the data elements come from the team. Some of them are from instruments that we have that we collect. So that would be closer to like survey data, other things like that. And then we've got third party data that we also connect up with all of that. Steve (46:00.333) Could you just help us understand? I remember back in the GMATs or some other exams, you were given a little break for a moment just to breathe. I don't think I filled out thousands of answers. April (46:10.138) Yeah. April (46:15.009) No, you don't have to fill most of that out. You're just filling out the first party data. But what's interesting about sports, so we have clients that are outside of sports, they would sell their soul for the response rate I can get from a sports team. It's hilarious. Steve (46:29.485) So when you're getting that data for the five to eight thousand sample size, those individuals who participate in the survey, you're saying there are thousands of questions. April (46:44.519) No, there are thousands of people. There's probably a hundred questions. And then we pull, yeah. Then we pull a bunch of additional data that gets appended on those people. But honestly, this goes back to something I said before. We do this because we want to give a full picture and profile of who the fan is. What matters most, truly, I have, I can't even describe how many models I've run, is why they're a fan. Steve (46:49.421) Okay, thanks. Thank you. Steve (46:56.461) Thank you. April (47:14.573) I can yank demographics out, can yank behaviors out, I can take all of it out, and psychology still wins. Steve (47:14.733) So you. Steve (47:18.487) But. And most of the time we are not talking about there was a touchdown scored and it was there was just players on a field and I'm in love with Tom Brady is the QB. It's usually to your research from what I've studied of your research. It is not the functional actual output of a sporting competitive athletic event. And by the way, asked you that question earlier. April (47:44.537) No, no, this isn't a functional relationship. Steve (47:50.445) and I didn't listen well enough. asked you how many data points there were. You told me correctly, but I didn't ask you how many questions the actual staff I was just thinking, do you house them in a hotel for a week or how that works? I'm more interested in the operational aspect of the execution. 50,000 people in 3,500 questions. April (47:52.101) No, you're fine. Yeah. April (47:59.771) Questions, yes. Usually it's less than 100. Yes. April (48:10.247) There's 30 or 40 that really matter and then the rest of them is just helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Steve (48:19.305) I mean, how did you drug them to do that? April (48:22.001) To be honest though, I've almost got it down to 12. Like I think I could do a B plus, like a B plus job of figuring a person out as a fan in 12 questions. Steve (48:35.927) Can you give me some of those right now? April (48:38.405) So some examples are, like if I'm curious about, like nostalgia. So we'll say, I have nostalgic memories about watching my favorite team. Yeah, about the Mets. A big part about why I enjoy the Mets is the experience and energy of game day. Steve (48:41.569) No, please ask me the question. Yeah. Steve (48:51.629) The Mets, I do. I went to the World Series in the late 60s with my dad. Steve (49:04.457) used to be that way, not today, because fans have become so European in their consumption that we Americans having spent 15, 16 years overseas with one year out of London working with, I used to represent 150 Premier League soccer players. And I can tell you, I had never seen more grotesque fan consumption live. And then when I came back to the States after one time, 13 years in the Far East, and I went to a game with my kids and I went. my God, this is a dangerous outing for my kids. They are going to frankly a religious school, yeshiva. The guys around them are pounding the beers. They're using language that they never hear in the home. Fights routinely break out. And so it, you know. April (49:35.46) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. April (49:42.885) Yep. April (49:48.795) Yep. So let me ask you another question from there. One, true or false, one of the reasons why I am a fan of the Mets is because it is something that I can share with my family in order to spend time together. Steve (50:04.941) So, doctor, and you are a doctor. Not a psychoanalyst, but with that said, you know, as I told you, one of the big expressions I have in my life is that of being an extreme mountain biker. if I had full admission, not exactly, but... April (50:32.091) That's helpful though. That's helpful though. Steve (50:34.283) The truth to be told, when I matured and started to recognize that being a father doesn't mean I get to do what I want every Sunday, any time I want, then the answer is, when I brought, I used to play college ball, D1 lacrosse, I was a goalie. When I brought my kids to the New York Lizards, when they were still extant, before the star player, Paul Rabel, went and started a new professional lacrosse league. April (50:45.703) Thank Steve (50:59.917) I must say to you, for me to bring my kids to the Yankees, I didn't bring them to the Mets, by the way. I brought them to the Yankees, because we live not far away in Riverdale. And I brought them to lacrosse game. And there's no question as a father, that experience, and I brought them to a soccer game, for me, although it was never repeated often, and to the Knicks, for me, there's no question that experience with bonding with my kids, having something meaningful in New York, that goes a long way. Yes. April (51:05.295) Hmm. April (51:28.643) Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so that's just a few dimensions. We go into about 12 of them and the combination, the unique combination of what makes you tick and what motivates you to keep coming back is what I care about. I care that we understand from a psychographic level, what do you get out of being a fan? Because they're not It isn't basic needs. It's so much deeper than that. And in a psychographic industry, it is crazy to me that you mentioned $100 billion, right? Like you mentioned how large this industry is. In a psychographic industry, we have gone way too long making very large expensive decisions without psychographic data. But the reason why we don't have it is because it's under the water and it's hard to get. And so we're going to get it. By the end of the year, we should have the United States typed on 12 psychographic. measures, we'll have a psychographic fan segmentation done that is standardized and sport agnostic. So to go back to your question about brands, if you are Toyota or Charlotte Tilbury Cosmetics and you want to sponsor a team, one, should you? Two, which team? Three, which fans? Four, what do you say to them? That's what you need psychology for. So the standardization of the tool that we're developing allows Charlotte Tilbury, Toyota, and every single team in the league to start to compare, okay, my customers as Toyota, do they look at all like the fans of the teams I'm considering sponsoring? How about Charlotte Tilbury? April (53:27.729) From a motivational psychographic perspective, do the fans of a particular team look like my customers? Because that's who I want my impressions from. And I want to be able to get in front of those fans and know what to say, to position myself to say, I have something for you. I can create an experience that you would love. I mean, the gals that we see following brands like Charlotte Tilbury when they sponsor sports. These are people who are very active, very active on social media. They are amplifiers and guess who they're following? Not the players. They're following the players wives. They're following, get ready with me. They're following lifestyle content. They're watching the, if they do follow a player, they're watching the player get engaged with the charitable organization that he or she is a part of. They want more than just move a ball puck, swing a stick. whatever, it's deeper for her. And we're leaving her out right now. And it's not just her, it's across the board. So we just have to be smarter about how we do that and not think about fans as a monolith. And that raises the value of brand partnerships, that raises the value of teams, brand and what they can do in the community and how many people they can reach. And for the fans who are ultimately who I care about, truly, for the fans, they get unforgettable experiences that literally give them goosebumps when they think back to it because that's what this industry gives us. It gives us this psychological boost that is hard to get anywhere else. And so I think bringing this work into the industry is sort of the back half of my career. This is my professional dissertation of sorts that I want. people who are non-traditional fans, myself included, to see how much they can get from this incredible industry. I now adore it. I watch more sports now than I ever did before because I see how much is there beyond just, I don't know, any play that somebody might run or any decision that a coach might make. Steve (55:43.389) And remarkably, when you get to the root of it, how life enhancing, all of that tension of the teen, the player succeeding, failing, the trials and tribulations, the fact that someone could be a goat but have a bad year, the reality of the storyline. April (55:49.444) Absolutely. April (56:02.844) Yeah. Steve (56:06.537) of watching excellence and recognizing that for six days of certain sports not playing ball, they're pounding every day in working on themselves to become better and recognizing that it's a great narrative and if you will, a great illustration of how we can just have aspirations and live out a certain relationship within reason that empowers us to feel that my life has had a more enriching quality of life through that natural seamless experience. April, I can speak to you for days. April (56:43.055) It is. Steve (56:46.477) And I thought I was going to spend 90 % with you talking about the 90 % of content in July 2025 that is being created by AI and how we are seeing that influence the outcome and what is the overdose mechanism, the tipping point that we've got to be very careful where all of a sudden we can see too much communication, too much interaction, too much lack of creativity. April (56:46.682) I know. Steve (57:15.817) in this early stage of what will become an incredibly and is becoming incredibly creative. But again, founder and CEO of Sprocket and your new release of fan DNA, PhD in social cognitive psychology and overall passionate sports fan she's become. And a good woman. What a pleasure it is to have you today on the Transactual. April (57:39.547) Thank you. We might have to do that last little bit again, because I can't use the word fan DNA. I got a note from the lawyers before. So we just have to call it fan psychographics for the time being. So that'd be great. Steve (57:50.381) So why don't I just repeat one thing, if you don't mind. Founder and CEO of Sprocket and the builder of one of the most powerful platforms for fan psychographics. And my guys will use that. April (58:08.847) Love that. Thank you. Yeah, we just found out. Steve (58:10.797) We should just finish with you. We didn't finish. Ryan, we get, don't come, just give me a nod. Did April, did we hear April's response to closing out the show? When we said we had to redo. Okay, so you know, let me do it again. We got my, the AI part. Steve (58:40.109) I'll just do it again. So I had said we were talking about, I thought I was going to talk to you about AI. And then I say, April Seifert, again, founder and CEO of Sprocket and builder recently of one of the most important platforms for psychographic insights on the fan composition, the essence. of a sports fan today. Again, PhD, Social Cognitive Psychology. Just a, I would say a very engaged sport fan today with all of her ingestion of sports content and an overall good woman. What a complete honor it was to have you on the Transaction Report today. April (59:27.559) Thank you so much. This was so fun. This is exactly the type of thing that I love talking about. for everybody out there, consider engaging in an aspect of this industry that you might not have gotten into before. You never know where there is going to be something for you. And it's just such an exciting path forward. There are so many changes and so many areas of growth in the industry. And I'm so excited to see what comes of it in the next five to 10 years. Steve (59:56.435) April, I've decided I'm nominating you for the Sports Business Journal newly created award of Ambassador of the Business of Sports. April, not only a crown, but there is so much more that comes with it. Your own automobile and cosmetic lifetime supply from that company in Charlotte that you reference. And there's more good April (01:00:05.317) Yay! come with a crown, do I get a tiara? That would be great. April (01:00:22.373) Yes! Charlotte Tilbury, call me. Steve (01:00:26.221) more goodies in the goody bag. But I gotta tell ya, you're good and it was outstanding. We're gonna do this again and we're gonna talk business, this is off record now, we're gonna talk business because I told Dave in learning about you more. April (01:00:34.705) Thank you.