Tripling Membership Through Data – Ben Kerswill, Brisbane Lions

This transcript has been transcribed by Riverside.fm, no edits (please excuse any errors)
Sean Callanan (00:01.186)
Very happy to welcome Ben Kerswill. He is the head of consumer business at the Brisbane Lions. Ben, welcome to the podcast.

Not a problem at all, not a problem at all. I always try to get people's start and origin story and how they got into the world of sport. What about yourself? How did you find yourself in the world of sports and entertainment?

Sean Callanan (00:34.146)
Hey, I'm a kindred spirit. I studied IT. like, you know, a couple of geeks here.

Sean Callanan (00:53.462)
And so what was your first role that was, I guess, sports or entertainment?

Sean Callanan (01:10.326)
And was that, mean, was it was, you know, there's often a lot of origin stories are I wanted to play footy, I wanted to play basketball, and I wasn't good enough and I wanted to play sport was sport something that you wanted to get into?

Sean Callanan (01:30.392)
Yep.

Sean Callanan (01:35.927)
Yes.

Sean Callanan (01:40.91)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Callanan (01:44.815)
I mean, I must say you're sort of talking, getting into the space. I started sports geek, which was around the same time you were in the role at the AFL, there wasn't a lot of geeks and techie people in the world of sport. Like I'd been in the same space, databases and programming, and there wasn't a lot that space. So you came into the AFL as a database and the systems guy. What was that like going?

going into the AFL as it was sort of still developing that, I guess, that IT chops.

Sean Callanan (02:28.237)
Yep.

Sean Callanan (02:56.622)
Yeah, and you know, I've spoken about a lot on the podcast how membership is, you know, really the, the one word and one of the things that the AFL as an ecosystem, both the league and the clubs do do really well. But that that early piece of cleaning up the tech, and, and, you know, providing, you know, more sophisticated data for the clubs to understand who their fans are, who's turning up, those kind of things, that was sort of your role, both the AFL and how that how your role evolved.

Ben Kerswill (03:42.524)
And then that kind of led into where I came to the Lions six and a half years ago, where we were in an area where were starting to grow, we needed to use our data better. So that was when I made the jump from AFL House into club land and here at the Brisbane Lions.

Sean Callanan (04:01.368)
So, mean, that's always, know, club land is definitely an Australian term, like people working at the clubs as opposed to the league. What was some of the adjusting you had to do, you know, going from headquarters where it was looking at everyone's data and bringing in all the data and trying to get some assessment of, you know, the different fans in the different cities and the different clubs to having that one club focus. What were some of your first thoughts when you, you know, started at the Lions?

Sean Callanan (04:58.114)
Yeah, the league level, really got that 30,000 foot view and you're trying to say, hey, this is what we'd implement. you've got, there is that distance, isn't it? That you're giving suggestions or rolling out programs, but you're not seeing them enabled. And it's not the members that come back to you as a league to say, hey, here's my problems. It always comes back to the club.

Sean Callanan (05:31.97)
So as GM of consumer business, what is in your remit at the Lions?

Ben Kerswill (05:37.094)
So my agreement at the Lions is core areas of membership, ticketing, merchandise, which is in the consumer departments of most clubs. They're the three areas that are part of that. But I also have data and analytics within my area. So that's something probably was created in this role because of my skill set. Other clubs have it structured differently, but that's our structure. So it's worked for us.

Sean Callanan (06:05.068)
Yeah, and so you have teams that are under those four pillars, membership, ticketing, and merchandise and fan data that report to you and then you also try to get those departments to work together.

Sean Callanan (06:39.648)
And you said that the fan data piece was not tacked on, but it's definitely part of your role because of your skill set. Is that something that you still, I guess, lean on and is a real key pillar for what you do in diving into the data and being better informed?

Sean Callanan (07:24.044)
I mean, yeah, recent discussion I had with Damian Arbuckle, like, Vazcar was one of the key things as a data guy himself was being able to interpret and communicate that because, you know, you can get lost in the numbers. How do you see that? How do you make sure that, one, people get the numbers, but they understand the numbers?

Ben Kerswill (07:42.459)
Well, we in our consumer team, our analyst actually is the one who presents, we have a monthly whole of team meeting, and our analyst is the one that actually presents our numbers for our department to the rest of the team. And that's an area we think, they are then understanding how, what the numbers mean, what's coming through, what trends he's seeing, and then they can apply that to their parts of the business. So that's the change we made at this end.

Sean Callanan (08:09.321)
And it just sort of makes the team more, I guess, data focused and, you know, make me point to the board to say, where's the numbers rather than…

Sean Callanan (08:45.099)
And was that coming from AFL to Club Lane, was that something that you brought that was new to the Alliance to sort get out of that, like you said, that operational, the treadmill of membership and ticketing as you sort of mentioned it?

Sean Callanan (09:38.734)
I mean, I always find there's really four successful clubs. There's a lot of that overlap of what the high performance and the coaching staff and the team and the players, when that sort of leads into the front office. know, the Gold State Warriors in that 2015, 2016 adopted strength in numbers and that came from Steve Kerr's whiteboard. Do you think there is a little bit of Chris Fagan's, I guess, philosophy and the way he goes about it that has helped the front office?

Ben Kerswill (10:06.68)
100%. 100%. I think when Greg and the board employed Chris, they employed him because of that mindset that he had. And then it's just how the clubs continue to go from some poor years through the early 2010s to sort of where we are now. Really turning that around. Very, very fortunate time to be at a football club.

Sean Callanan (10:34.081)
So you're understating the success in that you've had some really great success on field success over the last couple of years, both in AFLW and AFL. But obviously, you try to plan for success, but you can't guarantee it, but you can take advantage when that success happens. What are some of the ways that you and your team have taken advantage of those premiership successes?

Ben Kerswill (11:33.721)
self-sufficient. I guess just being accessible. We're a membership program in Brisbane that's always been quite reasonably priced. We've had capacity up till quite recently. We're quite having some capacity challenges now at the Gabba. But we've tried to really be open and accessible for fans. And I think that's made a difference. And I think it's becoming successful. We had a really strong…

Sean Callanan (12:22.133)
And that membership message, which again, living in Melbourne for a while and knowing how the AFL runs it, it's still like, it's not as ingrained in Brisbane. So is that membership message of getting people on board and becoming a member and having pride in becoming a member and that's what you do? Was that something that was also that you're able to leverage and I guess double down on as you had some success?

Sean Callanan (13:12.289)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Callanan (13:28.065)
And I mean, some impressive numbers like, in 22, you had 43,000 and last year, you went past 75,000. How does that change your team, as far as servicing them, talking to these new members? How have you been adjusting to those changes?

Ben Kerswill (13:44.697)
We…

Well, we've just been doing a review. so when I started the beginning of 2019, the end of the 2018 season, we were 25,000 members. And then now we're on 75. So we have changed. We've had to make people more self-sufficient, more self-service with their ticketing. And that has had challenges with some of the member bases. But it's given us a whole lot of new fans and members as well.

Sean Callanan (14:35.188)
And that's where you just go back to the data and go, well, that segment, if we advertise it to them right, we give them the right experience, we know they'll be on board and they'll be at low maintenance. All these ones are a high value member and we can pitch this type of product to them.

Sean Callanan (15:22.944)
Yeah, well, on that inclusion piece, and you mentioned the 30 years, for those who don't know, you know, might be listening from overseas, the Brisbane Lions were formed from a merger from the Brisbane Bears and the Fitzroy Lions. How do you stay connected with like those fan bases, Fitzroy being based down here in Melbourne and sort of, I guess, solving that problem, but also a terrific opportunity to have fan base in different parts of Australia?

Ben Kerswill (15:47.451)
It is, a really unique club having two sort of distinct heritages. And we achieve a lot of that through our merchandise programs. We've got really great support from both fan bases.

Ben Kerswill (16:18.97)
then this year we introduced Clash Jumper that's Brisbane Bears and Spire Jumper. So really that's going back to our Bears heritage. Having both bases is great and we've been so fortunate the last couple of years, because we've been in the grand final, we've seen the city of Melbourne and the people of Victoria come out and come back to the Lions. So there may have been kids growing up. We're hearing about people that sort of, when the merger happened, they were quite unhappy with the club. They let their memberships go.

Sean Callanan (17:04.032)
Well, that's again, that's another way you can take advantage of the success and winning a couple of flags can do that. So how do you, I guess, balance now that the different types of members that you have both historically, the ones in Brisbane, you're still really in a growth phase. How do you balance that piece of still talking to your Rustadon fans that you said they're your diehard fans, but then what

still being welcoming, as you've got some of those pressures of, you know, capacity and those kind of things.

Ben Kerswill (17:39.836)
It is challenging, is definitely challenging and our first years in particular we've worked quite hard on.

We've got a first year. We've implemented some new marketing journeys the last couple of years to try and teach these new members about our history of the club and understanding where we've come from. So that's been important. For the longer term members and members in general, we've tried to launch up last year a whole lot of new member functions. We were lucky we ran a cup tour last year to every interstate game. We ran member functions at every interstate game.

Sean Callanan (18:39.468)
Yep. And you know, we've just spoken about obviously the AFL success, but you've got a very successful AFLW program as well. What has that meant for the club? Because it's a different product. It's offered in a different way, different time of the year. How is the club using that and reaching both your current fan base, but reaching new fans?

Ben Kerswill (19:43.517)
that. So now we're in a purpose-built facility, both teams sit together, the two head coaches, officers look at each other, all the coaches from both teams sit together, all the support of football department is all together, so they're really running as one, as they're all really running together down there and I think that's accelerated the learning between the departments in the football space. But in the consumer space, it is new people that are coming

Sean Callanan (20:22.464)
Mm-hmm.

Ben Kerswill (20:22.682)
We're second biggest in crowds for women's this year. So we had an average of over 4,000 to our games here, including the final only behind the Sydney Swans. But we focused on spectacles a little bit to get people here. So we'd had a big festival with Diwali, working with the local communities here for a Diwali festival, light show fireworks.

Sean Callanan (21:15.595)
And what's the data telling you around, I guess, the new fan and the people that are being introduced to FOOTI via AFLW?

Sean Callanan (21:57.578)
And then for the future, you talked about the advantages of getting a new facility and training facility and that for the club, but also, you know, on the horizon with Brisbane 32, it's an exciting time to be in Brisbane, but new stadium and those kinds of things, what excites you for the future?

Ben Kerswill (22:28.986)
30, 25 years ago, whenever we moved to 34 years ago, that we're going to a new venue, we're going to have capacity. So the Gabbard back in 2000, 2001, we're selling out every game through those three years. We went back at that point now, we're selling out. We want more people involved in our games, we just don't have the capacity. So we're really looking forward to be able to get more people along, have those bumper crowds. We know the people of Brisbane are going to get behind us.

Sean Callanan (23:19.717)
There definitely is that fixture optimization and that travel component that's happening at the AFL to maximize crowds and part of that is visiting, getting more people visiting, whether it's scheduling certain teams during the holidays. So yeah, that capacity is going to come in handy.

Sean Callanan (23:51.915)
Absolutely. And so you sort of said you're in a bit of downtime, you know, the joke that there is no off season in sport and everyone just thinks you got your feet up. You've won the Premiership, way to go. Don't do anything for six months. But what are some of the things in the pipeline for the 2026 that you want to either improve on, correct or tackle something new?

Sean Callanan (25:02.929)
That's a real conundrum with the membership folk. Everyone becomes a member, everyone becomes a member and everyone says, yes, I'm a member. And then if they don't show and they leave their seat empty and it's like, and the fans, sometimes the fan doesn't know, like, you've got my money. I'm supporting the club. like, when you get to that success and the capacity issues, your marketing changes to making sure the members can come or making sure that utilization of tickets.

Ben Kerswill (25:58.925)
when Charlie scores a goal, knows that it can be a great experience there. So I want to get as many people involved as possible.

Sean Callanan (26:07.082)
Absolutely, and I guess, you you being still in charge of all the fan data, I'm sure the commercial team is very interested as that membership data grows, the membership base grows, that membership as a base becomes very valuable in talking to partners and how you can engage partners. How much are you working with the commercial team to help get those type of deals over the line?

Ben Kerswill (26:43.246)
gone are the days of mass database sends to everyone. It's a lot more targeted than it has been in the past. So it's how we can keep building on that and really segmenting the right offer to the right time, which is a marketing, it's a marketing conundrum, I guess, or a constant saying, but it really is true in this space and partners are ready to make that change and we as sporting clubs have to be ready to make it as well.

Sean Callanan (27:01.63)
Yes.

Sean Callanan (27:11.914)
Well, that's the thing, I think the sophistication normally comes from the partners in that they have to sweat their data far more often. They don't have the fan of vanity that the lions do and those kinds of things. So they're always slicing and dicing the data, but it is good. The more and more I talk to people, especially data geeks that we're not hearing the term email blast.

Send an email to the whole database. It's like, well, the whole database does not want this offer. But more and more, there's more pushback and more sophistication around that, and I think that's obviously a good thing.

Ben Kerswill (27:41.923)
And that's across the whole club. You've got to keep elevating there. And that's what we've tried to do here. We've got our marketing team up skilled more in data and tech. We've got our commercial team up skilled as well. So really they're thinking about it as they're talking to the partners.

Sean Callanan (28:00.362)
And one of the things that is, I guess, new tech and at the current forefront now is AI. What's your take on AI and how are you potentially looking at it and playing in that space?

Sean Callanan (29:27.442)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, you it is a case of, you know, good data in and you get good results with bad data in and you get, you will get bad results. But I do think that I guess being very protective of your data is, is, a really good first position. But yeah, I think the, opportunity is, you know, in that customer service and, and those kinds of things that we're seeing in other industries.

Ben Kerswill (29:46.79)
Yeah.

And they're the areas where we think, I think that's where we're gonna see it first, is some of those answering member inquiries instead of having to wait for an email reply, they can get live chat. I think that's where we'll start seeing it answering those questions. It'll be the next iteration of the automated chat bots from the early 2000s or early 2010s that weren't very intuitive, but it's those things that what was hoped that they would do, that this is actually gonna be able to deliver, I think.

Sean Callanan (30:19.025)
Yeah, and then it's just a matter of getting that important data that isn't the customer data, but your process data and how you answer your questions and how you train your customer staff like that piece and getting that knowledge out. And then the fascinating thing will be, what will people be asking it? Where are the stumbling blocks? And then that's where you as a customer experience geek can go,

that's something we can fix because people are always asking about where to park or what the transport is or those kind of things that sometimes gets lost when there's just lots of people doing customer service.

Ben, really, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. I want to get to the Sports Geek Closing Five. Do you remember the first sports event you ever attended?

Ben Kerswill (31:30.66)
performing, their routines. I was like, wow. And was a big event. was at the entertainment center and everything set up like, wow, this is a big event. The lights, everything. That was probably the first one. And then the first sports event, the most memorable one was one of my first AFL grand finals that I went to when I started the AFL in 1998.

going to the first grand final with a friend that was their team that won the grand final and it was just such a spectacular day at the MCG so that's probably the highlight.

Sean Callanan (32:07.643)
Absolutely, absolutely. We've talked a lot about the data has changed and fan experiences have changed over the years, but so has food. you have a favourite food memory or a go-to food at a sports event?

Ben Kerswill (32:19.48)
Yeah, so I generally have nachos pretty much at every sports venue I've been to. I've had nachos in many US stadiums, Vegas, LA, New York. I've had them in a baseball helmet before. Had them in Japan earlier this year at the baseball over there. They had a nice take on nachos as well. A bit more spicy than the American version. So yeah, that would be my go-to.

Sean Callanan (32:31.337)
They have to come in a baseball helmet or some novelty container.

Sean Callanan (32:49.321)
What's the first app you open in the morning?

Ben Kerswill (32:52.314)
They're a bit boring. I always look at ABC News and then shortly followed by my emails because I normally get my daily membership report coming through so I like to see how we've gone in the day before.

Sean Callanan (33:06.481)
That's all right, there's no wrong answer. I always ask people, is there someone that you follow that the listeners should follow? It could be someone on the internet, it could be an author or a former colleague.

Sean Callanan (33:26.94)
Okay.

Sean Callanan (33:46.228)
Terrific, I love hearing that there are more people talking about sports business on podcasts, because then you don't have to listen to stuff that you don't want to listen to. So I'll check that out. Lastly, I always ask people what social media platform is your MVP? You can answer it from a Brisbane Lions point of view and you can answer that personally if you wish.

Sean Callanan (34:40.809)
Absolutely, as long as you're over 16. We're recording this just a couple of days after the government has stopped 16 year olds being on social media. We still haven't seen the full effects of that change, but that's just only come in.

Sean Callanan (35:03.783)
Yes, well, if you'd, one asked me, but if anyone asked me, they should have asked the platforms to fix the bad content and not kicked out the kids. But it's much easier to be signaling that you're doing something great, but I don't think they are. But yeah, I could come off the long run on this one, so I'm not going to. Ben, I always ask people to reach out and say thank you.

if they listen to podcast, what is the best platform for people to do that on?

Sean Callanan (35:42.889)
Well, I will put your links to your LinkedIn in the show notes. Hopefully we will catch up sometime soon, maybe at a Lions game. Hopefully they're not beating my pies like they did in the prelim last year. But again, congratulations on the success and all the best for 2026.