How a Sports Tech Innovator is Leading Big Data in the Industry
WiST talks to women and men in sports and sports technology who are setting the benchmark for their peers and future generations.
By Alysse Soll, CEO underdog advisory and WiST Board Chair
FROM BIG MACS TO BIG DATA
Being a well-rounded executive-led Nancy Hensley to her position as Chief Product & Marketing Officer at Stats Perform. “I didn’t have a predetermined path,” Nancy shared when asked how she became a woman in sports analytics. “It’s a complicated, crazy path, but it is the path that grew me into who I am today.”
Where Nancy started her career is not where she ended up. Armed with a BA in Psychology, Nancy wanted to be a clinical psychologist and researcher. But in her late twenties, she started digging into the analytics space.“I'm a nerd at heart. I like data, how you access it, how you analyze it, how you act on it. I basically built my career around that passion,” Nancy observes.
Working her way through consulting, Nancy landed at McDonald’s. There, Nancy fell in love with data, business intelligence, and learning what analytics could accomplish. At McDonald's, one of the leading-edge uses of data was automating the systems and incorporating additional information - like local crime data to facilitate proactive security measures and demographics data to help local HR recruitment - when identifying where to place a new franchise. According to Nancy, “Using data transformed our business. We were way ahead of the curve in terms of spatial analysis. How could you not love that!?”
When an opportunity with IBM came along, Nancy admitted, “I don't know anything about IBM computers.” Their promise to teach her, plus the flexibility of working from home, for a mother with a young daughter was perfect. She started in a consulting sales role, leading the team to design a data warehouse for United Airlines. The system went into production the week of 9/11 so it was used to analyze the terrorists that were on the planes.
Nancy progressed through IBM as a technical business executive always working with data, artificial intelligence, and analytics. She dealt with products, marketing, sales, lab work, and development. Nancy recalls, “The great thing about IBM is that as they move you around to different roles, they mold and shape you for leadership. I could try different aspects of the role. One thing literally led to another, and I just followed my passion.”
With 20 years at IBM culminating in her role as Chief Digital Officer, Nancy kept her eye on stats with her love of data and her love of sports. When approached by a recruiter at Stats Perform, she took the advice she gives other women in tech. “Don't second guess something. If it feels like it's a good opportunity, then just go for it.”
The world of sports was far behind the world of digital transformation, but Nancy thought, “If I could help IBM do it, then I can help Stats Perform do it.” Now in her dream job, she’s looking forward to improving the customer experience.
JAGERBOMBS AND GROWTH HACKING
During her IBM years, Nancy was tasked with breathing new life into a 50-year-old stats product targeted at universities and college students. The product was hamstrung because it required an IBM salesperson to provide access, the classic bottleneck. By creating a direct digital path for users to access the product, she eliminated the bottleneck, turning it into IBM’s bestselling SaaS product.
Nancy took her inspiration from Jägermeister liquor, an old product in desperate need of a new life. Dropping a shot of the liquor into a Red Bull creates a Jägerbomb. Finding a new way to use an old product, the Jägerbomb became the number two shot across the UK, literally tripling Jägermeister sales. Nancy firmly believes, “Always look for the Jaeger Bombs. You don’t always need to change the product, just the way it is consumed.”
With her background in product and marketing, Nancy embraced growth hacking, the process of creating strategies to help businesses grow and retain customers through testing and optimizing user interaction. She established a growth team and helped lead the transition to SaaS and the subscription business.
“Instead of putting a salesperson in front of the customer, how can you do it digitally? Once a product was ready for market, my job was to figure out how you really target and grow, hack your way through a customer journey to get it [the product] to explode.”
STAND YOUR GROUND
When it comes to women in business, especially in the technology sector, women are often marginalized. Nancy has encountered this bias (overt or inherent) over her years in tech and has found a way to navigate through it.
“True story - I remember walking into the office one day and a manager told me that if I wore what I was wearing to work that day more often, I would probably go farther. Really? If people are looking at you one way, how do you change that perception? No one would ever say anything like that today, it would be sexual harassment. My attitude, then and now, is simple; don’t let them win. If I run away or if I fold under pressure or bias, they win. ‘They’ are not going to scare me away. I always hold my ground. I believe there were enough women like me during that era that paved the road to make it easier for women today.”
Nancy has seen positive change over the years, but the gender gap remains and must be addressed at the top. In her view, “I feel like sports is a bit behind because it’s still a man's world. My (Stats Perform) CEO was actively looking for women leaders. A true commitment to gender equity, coming from the CEO, the top-down, is what women need to look for. If you're in a place where you don't feel that, or somebody doesn't have a goal around diversity above you, then you're probably in the wrong place and you're not going to flourish.”
How have things changed? According to Nancy, “I remember someone asking me how I feel when I’m the only woman in the room? Honestly, I don’t even notice anymore. You can't walk into a room full of men and say, oh my God, I'm the only woman. When you walk into that room, you are one of the key players on that team, maybe the lead player. That perception levels the playing field for you. If you can get to that mindset and you walk in the room like that, you're good. You're going to win.”
Q&A with Nancy Hensley
WiST: While sports are a laggard in digital transformation, the industry is now rapidly adopting technologies that improve the front office, back office, player performance, fan engagement, growth opportunities, and most importantly, relevance for a changing demographic. How is Stats Perform contributing to this evolution, and how are you delivering value to the sports ecosystem?
Stats Perform has always focused on digital innovation. We were one of the first companies to do electronic scoreboards on AOL and to engage in live tracking. While our core is always on analytics and unlocking key values in data, we recognized that COVID changed the playbook for so many of our clients. They were now facing a new challenge, how to keep fans engaged when there is no live-action.
Fan engagement is the lifeblood of sports. Our work in AI was primarily focused on the deep performance analysis of a player or a team. Going back to the Jaeger Bomb analogy, we identified that we needed to deliver this offering in a new way - more live prediction work, analysis that's consumable for a fan.
We needed to find different ways for our clients (sports properties) to engage their clients (fans) to consume data by telling a more unique story. We analyzed how the momentum of the game changes, how playing styles differ, how a seasoned simulator changes with every game and every score, and every goal. We shifted from the way we were doing AI, which was completely focused on team performance-related activities, to fan engagement.
We launched The Analyst which is like a digital fansite. It's data-driven sports storytelling; a way to explain what all these metrics mean and why they matter. We take the wizard out from behind the curtain and show how the metrics change the game and how you can use them to enjoy the game even more!
We are delivering what people really want, a much more advanced viewing experience, personalized via AI. The goal is to show our clients how to use the data to tell better stories, to create a more engaging experience, to include graphics that matter, and to explain why they matter. We want to make the information more consumable.
We deliver value to the sports ecosystem, not just value to make our clients better, but value to drive the education of the end-user.
WiST: What lessons did you learn about yourself and your family as you progressed in your career? Being a parent isn’t easy. Being a parent with a demanding job is even harder. What methods did you employ to find joy, peace, and accomplishment among the chaos of daily life - personal and professional?
My biggest learning was definitely that for women to be successful, you have to have the right partner, and that partner has to be willing to sacrifice at the same level that you are. Women take it upon themselves to be the ones to sacrifice their careers because they have children. That shouldn't be the case. Almost every super-successful woman that I've ever known has had a partner who is supportive in that way. In the case of my first marriage, I think it was intimidating to him that I was successful. If a man is willing to give up his job and stay home with the kids, as much as you would be willing to do, that's probably the right partner.
When I became a single mom, I thought that would negatively change the trajectory of my career; no more promotions, the perception that I can’t travel or work as many hours. Not true!
The reality is there are plenty of jobs you can do that fit your life at the time that allows you to continue to progress in your career. A big realization for me is this — when you choose a role, it has to be not just something that advances you, but something that fits your life at the time.
Don’t regret the choices that you make when you're raising your kids and working. My goal was to never miss out on anything special in their lives. This created essential stability for my family. My kids knew I put them first and I made sure that my bosses knew that too. I’m a single mom, but I’ll give 150%. I think many women are afraid to say that.
WiST: It's clear you are passionate about women in technology. More specifically, eliminating barriers to access for women to enter the technology field, and blazing a path to leadership in tech organizations. What was your experience on this path and what has changed for women since you started your career in tech?
I’ll just put it out there right now. “Having it all” is so 1980s, it's not about having it all. It's about, how can you effectively balance being successful with your family and being successful with your career?
I think back to my early career when I was a single mother of two young kids. I was leaning in hard to the technology space and I was searching for female role models in tech who might have the same lived experiences I was presently navigating. So many questions I wanted to ask of them, ‘How did you get there? If you have kids, how do you show up for them and maintain your status at work? If you are a single mother, how do you do it all?’ I searched high and low for that mentor and alas, could not find anyone at that time that looked like me, or had the same shared experience. Very disquieting. I think it's important for women to generate meaningful relationships with role models who look like them, who have been in their shoes.
After my positions in consulting, at McDonald’s and IBM, I became accustomed to a work environment that rewarded merit and action and promoted equal opportunity. I was surprised when I got into the sports space to find that it was technologically behind other verticals and that female executives were still significantly outnumbered by male executives and white male executives at that. It was like I fell into a time warp, 25 years back in time. I looked around and said, oh my God, where are all the women?” And so, I’m bringing the battle into sports tech.
Women tend to be too critical of their abilities and miss the chance to jump to the next opportunity. When an opportunity presents itself, we sit and go through this analytical evaluation of, can I do it? What impact is it going to have on my family? Is this the right time? Am I qualified? And while women go through their analysis, some man gets in front of us because they're not going through analysis paralysis. They’re not worried, they just jump.
I'm not saying you don't think it through, I'm just saying don't let that paralyze you from taking a risk and jumping into an opportunity. When the Stats Perform opportunity presented itself, it was an uncomfortable move for me. At IBM, I earned respect for my work and was doing work I loved. When Stats Perform came calling, my analysis focused on what I could bring to the table; my tech and analytics background, my product and marketing experience, and my strong leadership — which is what Stats Perform wanted and needed. Sports is an entirely different vertical than where I had previously excelled, but I knew how to solve tech problems, and there are many tech problems in sports. Lead with what makes you unique and don’t be afraid to jump.
WiST: What do you see as the future state of sports technology. How will data analytics play a role in the future fan experience – in and out of the arena?
There's always been a demand for data — think stats in baseball. That demand is now across all sports as fans want to understand more about what's happening in the game with their favorite players. They demand deeper levels of data that deliver predictive analytics. Younger viewing audiences are becoming sports fanatics and they love data. They don’t consume sports the way their parents did, sitting in front of a TV screen for a few hours watching a game. They want data delivered on a second screen in their hands for statistics via Twitter, or Twitch. We have to cater to that audience while delivering opportunities to bring the traditionalists into the digital era.
In short, fans are looking for alternative ways to consume sports and want information curated for them, from highlights to unlockable content. I believe that data and metrics will be intertwined with the viewing experience and that the viewing experience will be highly personalized.
Sports is a social experience, and we were starving for that with COVID. You want to watch it with someone else so you can talk about it and share your thoughts. You want to complain about the coach's decision with somebody. You want to look at the data behind it. You want historical references. For those who want to bet, sports is the ultimate real-time experience.
I think people will appreciate stories like what we have from the analysts that are much more data-driven, not just reporting the facts, but giving some insight, giving some context, giving some data, giving some predictions.
A special thanks to Nancy for sharing her journey with the WiST community. Own your destiny. Inspiration comes in all forms.
Join the WIST community at www.womeninsportstech.org
Check out Stats Perform at www.statsperform.com