Established in 2017 in Brisbane, Australia, The Siren was founded by Jason Davis. The idea popped into his head while he was running a digital content team at the State of Origin rugby league event in Australia, the largest sporting event in the country. “There was so much behind-the-scenes content that fans at the game were missing out on, and therefore so many sponsorable assets that brands would love I knew I had to do something about it,” he says.
He dreamed up the platform and designed the prototype Siren platform with a development team and has since refined the platform to suit the evolving requirements of Siren media’s customers. Additionally, he continues to spread the message and create awareness regarding the value of unused sporting content to clubs and leagues around the world.
Also during the journey of the company, its customers have shown that The Siren is more than just a sport events platform. A university college uses a branded version of their platform to engage with its students while on its campuses. “The platform can unlock new revenue and efficiencies for any venues where people gather,” he says. These can include music festivals, corporate conferences and Jason already has plans to work with shopping centers and engage shoppers while within the center.
One-to-Many Benefits
The Siren considers clients as its biggest assets. Sports fans cannot get enough of their favorite team, the adrenaline rush especially at the game is overwhelming, so to keep these fans updated, the platform allows teams and sporting leagues to capture short snippets of video and images in posts through its platform. This is delivered in real time exclusively to fans at the stadium and such moments captured are infinitely valuable to any fan. Also, the system helps clubs earn more revenue at their games by publishing offers for tickets, merchandise and memberships (merchandise offered to fans just after a win sell very well!). It also generates more sponsor revenue – content can be “Brought to you by”, or sponsors can buy the right to send their offer or ad directly to the phones of fans at the game.
Timeline of the Sports-tech Industry
The clubs and organizations are finally starting to understand the value of their non-match and behind-the-scenes content, but it’s been a long time coming. Sports-tech companies have been providing at-game fan engagement solutions for quite a while now, and these are being used by leading clubs and leagues, or even non-sporting events, around the world. Many of these solutions include interactive widgets, games, or quizzes, which are user friendly and keep the fans entertained. Even though the clubs have been slow to realize the fact that fans enjoy behind-the-scenes content, especially videos, broadcasters have always understood it, which is why 60-80 per cent of sporting broadcasts are non-match footage. Clubs need to understand how they can provide a richer experience to fans at their games as well.
Embracing Innovation with Open Arms
The Siren listens to the requirements of the clubs and leagues, but also it applies the tech and lessons learned by other industries. “The major U.S. and European teams and leagues are a good place to watch for innovation, but they aren’t the only place. When functionality or principles from retail and marketing tech are applied to the sporting landscape, great things can happen,” says Jason.
Marching on the Path Less Travelled
Being a small team with a global cloud platform, at times The Siren company finds it hard to focus in one place or sport, especially when it wants help to drive more money into live sport all around the world.
Creating a new type of sponsorship – sponsored at-game content and messaging – is no easy feat, so training the market that there is money they are leaving on the table, and joy that fans at games are missing out on is a challenge. “Once sporting executives see our solution, they start to understand the engagement and revenue opportunities,” Jason says, “with content they can capture for nothing!” Getting to the right person, however, is the hard part.
Progressing with Time
Two years since its foundation, the company reached a scale-up phase and is currently looking to break into new markets around the world. They are now offering select club or league customers, access to the platform for a low-cost or free season to gather data about how organizations use The Siren. Looking ahead, it plans on working with many potential clubs and continue to make more fans happy and bring more new revenue to more clubs around the world.
