Audience growth and commercial-revenue generation are the primary goals behind an organization’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy. To increase overall fan value, sports properties are investing heavily in their own digital experiences as part of their efforts to drive fan engagement, customer conversions, and first-party data ownership. However, many do not possess a clear data strategy or the proper frameworks to maximize their return on investment (ROI).

Despite rights holders growing their D2C offering, our insights show that fragmentation between their digital and data touchpoints is a common barrier for maximizing ROI. This limits an organization’s ability to drive strategic commercial growth, while the industry is leaving billions of dollars in potential revenue on the table as a result of digital-product and data fragmentation.

N3XT Sports is presenting The Fan-Data Feedback Loop™, which outlines three essential phases in an organization’s fan-data transformation, developed within a series of scalable fan-data loops, including: (1) the integration of a centralized information system (CRM/CDP) for capturing and leveraging fan data; (2) the role of an omnichannel user experience (UX) for personalizing the fan experience; and (3) how high-quality fan intelligence can be used to inform audience growth and identify customer-conversion trends.

“As clubs and teams, leagues and federations explore options to increase data-value inside their organization, deciding how to transform their digital and technological frameworks is an important and necessary step,” explains N3XT Sports CEO Mounir Zok. “The Fan-Data Feedback Loop™ is the product of years working across the digitalization of sports, helping to maximize commercial growth and ROI for clients across hundreds of digital transformation projects.”

Discover your organization’s data maturity

As sports properties diversify their digital touchpoints to boost fan engagement, they’re not only able to create new avenues for bringing users into their digital ecosystem but are also augmenting the customer journey. Nowadays, this is achieved using a scalable, centralized information system – also known as a “single source of truth” – for which fan data can be consolidated within an organization’s D2C portfolio.

The Fan-Data Feedback Loop™, a proprietary N3XT Sports data framework, highlights how learnings from centralized data touchpoints can inform other areas of an organization’s D2C strategy. As the fan journey matures, so does the nature of the fan’s data, turning what were once static user information and basic behavioral trends into truly dynamic and transformative insights. This provides the bedrock for new, highly engaging fan experiences and user feedback for informing the evolution of the fan journey based on real-time audience retention and customer conversion trends.

“As industry stakeholders recognize the power and reach of modern sports brands, understanding your fans doesn’t only allow you to tailor the UX, but makes your organization more attractive to sponsors and rights partners looking to align with likeminded audiences,” explains Beatriz Indurain, N3XT Sports’ VP of Growth. “Whereas our clients are seeing positive growth following their data and digital transformation, many sports properties don’t yet centralize their first-party fan data, via a scalable CRM solution or CDP, leaving them exposed to inefficiencies and stagnant growth within disconnected ecosystems.”

In Focus | United World Wrestling

N3XT Sports was appointed as United World Wrestling’s (UWW) Global Digital Transformation Partner in February 2025, marking the fifth year in their long-term partnership, which has seen the governing body for Olympic wrestling significantly expand its D2C portfolio while optimizing its collection of first-party fan data via a centralized, SSO-integrated ecosystem.

Our team has supported the development and execution of UWW’s digital strategy since 2021, including the delivery of the federation’s full data innovation journey. This includes the launch of UWW’s first-ever mobile app, while also helping to diversify its revenue streams beyond Olympic-revenue distribution thanks to the launch of its freemium UWW+ over-the-top (OTT) streaming service, via web and mobile 

UWW’s transformation required the integration of its own CRM solution for driving subscriber acquisition and customer retention. “Our partnership with N3XT Sports has evolved through multiple phases of UWW’s digital transformation,” says UWW president Nenad Lalovic. “Our work together has driven first-class results throughout our organization; from the delivery of new digital experiences for our fans, year-on-year digital and social media growth, and a greater onus on digital across the UWW team.”