Browse by category
Ahhh, playoff season.
It's always an exciting time for sports fans in the U.S. and Canada. The NHL and NBA playoffs are finally heating up and the teams still fighting for the Stanley Cup and the Larry OB are hungry. Even after a weird pandemic season, the buzz around the playoff cities is tangible. Will the Lakers go back to back? (They didn't.) Will the Mavs pull off an upset? (Unfortunately not.) Will this finally be the year a Canadian NHL team brings Lord Stanley home? (Allez les Habitants!)
Finance leaders at this year's playoff franchises are just as pumped as the fans--because the deeper your team goes, the more playoff profit your organization will generate. Between ticket sales, concessions and merchandise, championship runs certainly make those income statements look a whole lot sweeter.
But for the teams who have already had their title dreams shattered, it's time to start planning for a more profitable season ahead. That responsibility falls to your finance team starting the minute your season is over--because even though you can't control what happens on the ice, court or field, you can make sure your franchise is set up for financial success.
If you follow these helpful tips and align your people, processes and technology, your entire organization will be ready for the upcoming season.
This is a top priority during every organization's offseason, especially in salary cap leagues such as the NHL, NFL or NBA. When your team limps out of the playoffs, management will start looking at ways to improve the roster, taking stock of the following information:
The last question on that list is the most important one to answer in finance--and that's where the value of what-if analysis comes into play. By modeling the bottom-line impact of a range of potential roster scenarios, you'll be able to empower management with the information they need to make the best possible decisions for the future of your team. It's important to remember that new player signings are about more than just salary, though. If you sign a big time player, you might also need to account for an uptick in jersey sales, sponsorship opportunities or higher attendance figures in next season's revenue models.
The challenge, however, is when your scenario modeling efforts are hampered by offline spreadsheet processes. If there are several versions of your player salary model floating around--or if you can't adjust your inputs without copying and pasting across multiple workbooks--you won't be able to deliver the information your team relies on efficiently. There are already plenty of reasons why your top-choice players may not sign with your franchise, but "we couldn't figure out our financials in time for an offer" should never be one of them.
There isn't as much day-to-day finance stuff to deal with during the offseason, which makes it a great time to streamline some of the more cumbersome sports-specific reporting processes--including league reporting, gameday revenue settlements, ticketing and sponsorship revenue tracking. If the financial data you need for those things is siloed in multiple source systems, it gets tough to pull reports together manually during the hustle and bustle of the regular season.
That's why automation is so important to embrace and it starts by integrating your systems into one source of truth for financial data. That way, you won't have to flip between data sources--such as your ERP/GL, HRIS, POS software and ticketing platform--to paint a holistic picture of how your franchise is actually performing.
Instead, up-to-date actuals will always be available on demand and you can automate report distribution to the right stakeholders across your organization. Think about how much time you'd save if gameday revenue settlements, for example, took minutes instead of hours. Your finance team would have a lot more time to focus on the future of your franchise--and isn't that what business planning in sports is all about?
You may have already read our other blog on this topic already, but it's worth addressing again here as we talk about offseason planning priorities. As you look at the season ahead and figure out new ways to engage your fan base, determining how much money to spend on those projects isn't a job for just finance. Cross-functional budget owners (hospitality, sponsorships, facilities, etc.) need to be involved as well--because they know better than anyone how to optimize the fan experience.
Winning games is obviously important for engaging your fans (and for maximizing revenue), but there's still a lot you can do to drive positive results in the offseason. Consider these examples:
If you don't collaborate closely with stakeholders from across your franchise, it'll be harder to justify your spending as you turn these ideas into reality. Budget owners won't participate in strategic planning in that scenario either--which might lead to missed opportunities for making the gameday experience even more profitable.
Regardless of what you choose to prioritize this offseason for your franchise, charting the best path forward requires the right people, processes and technology. When you find the right balance between all three of those elements, your organization will be ready to win--both on and off the playing field.
Evan Webster is an experienced sales professional and storyteller with a passion for innovative technology. He currently serves as a Senior Area Sales Manager at Vena and previously worked as a Content Specialist. He continually strives to inspire finance professionals to become strategic business partners and is dedicated to helping them automate and streamline their planning processes so they can make better decisions with reliable, data-driven insights—enabling meaningful growth for organizations across the globe.
