Meet the company using AI to help the NFL maximize revenue

For NFL fans, the average viewing experience is usually made up of three simple elements: a working television, a couch, and perhaps a cold drink. As for the games they’re watching, the matchups, stadiums, times, and stations are the culmination of careful consideration around sporting trends, weather, league desires, and, of course, AI analytics.

The NFL is a business, and scheduling can go a long way in maximizing two important revenue streams: ticket sales and TV viewership.

Play it forward: This is where Recentive Analytics, an AI-driven predictive analytics and optimization software platform, comes in to draw up the right play at the right time.

• The company, which also works with MLB, the Premier League, and a handful of franchises across the sports world, uses AI analytics to create schedules that can predict ticket sales and viewership using factors ranging from vehicle traffic and fan interest to metrics as granular as sun coverage.

“[We do] everything from effectively giving [the NFL] a prediction for every single game and every possible scenario in every single window,” Andy Tabrizi, CEO of Recentive Analytics, told Revenue Brew.

Calling the right play: According to Tabrizi, in Recentive’s first year of predicting TV viewership for the NFL, it did so with approximately 98% accuracy across the full season, but he declined to share details about how much it boosts ticket sales and views for the NFL. Tabrizi said its models have been instrumental in building strategy around unprecedented international games. For example, when the NFL held its first-ever game in Brazil, tens of millions of dollars in revenue were on the line. Recentive Analytics was off by less than $250,000, Tabrizi told us.

For all the work that gets done by Tabrizi’s team behind the scenes, he made it clear that the league always gets the final say. But the insights have influenced everything from concert decisions and even the construction of sporting venues.

As for how AI has changed business for Recentive Analytics, it comes down to volume and speed. Now, the company can use previously accurate models as foundations for new ones that AI can create much faster, allowing them to provide more options for customers.

“Consumption has changed; the media landscape has changed,” Tabrizi told Revenue Brew. “If…you can get these five predictions from us, that’s great, but there’s 15 other things that they care about.”