The Ryder Cup is one of the most storied and popular golf events, pitting the European and United States teams, each consisting of 12 of the world’s best players, against one another in competitive match play.
Unlike other golf tournaments, where golfers compete individually, participants face off head-to-head against one another, striving to best their opponents and score points for either Team America or Team Europe.
“I would personally position the Ryder Cup as being one of the top five sporting events in the world,” Michael Cole, Chief Technology Officer of Ryder Cup Europe, recently told ASUG during an exclusive conversation.
The event attracts enormous attention. Beyond the millions of golf fans who are expected to tune in to the matches in September, organizers expect approximately 250,000 spectators to watch the Ryder Cup unfold in person at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, New York.
“There is no more emotionally charged and energetic set of fans,” Jeff Price, Chief Commercial Officer at PGA of America, also told ASUG.
The Ryder Cup represents a massive opportunity for both Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA of America to learn more about golf fans and leverage services to understand and enhance their experiences.
The two organizations turned to SAP to accomplish this goal. As announced at SAP Sapphire & ASUG Annual Conference, the Ryder Cup will implement SAP technologies—including SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, and SAP Customer Data Platform—to help the organization further understand and cater to Ryder Cup fans.
“This partnership is fundamentally built around the construct of better customer experience and better delivery of business expectations,” Price said.
SAP will be a Ryder Cup Worldwide Partner, helping the organizations achieve these business goals through the 2027 Ryder Cup—and hopefully beyond.
“I am confident this is a long-term partnership,” Cole said.
Fan Knowledge is Power
At its core, the partnership between SAP and the Ryder Cup organizers is two-pronged.
First, the PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe organizations are leveraging SAP solutions to engage with the Ryder Cup's live spectators and global audience in more meaningful ways.
“Part of our vision behind the technology stack is how we can bridge the gap between the armchair fan and the on-course spectator,” Cole said.
Part of this approach is engaging with fans between Ryder Cups. Cole noted that spectators and television audiences alike are often only engaged with the event for a finite time every other year. He hopes to leverage SAP technology to convert them from fan for a single day or tournament to fans “every day.”
The second focus of the partnership is establishing improved experiences for Ryder Cup attendees.
“We want to truly understand the fan from a 360-perspective,” Cole said, emphasizing that SAP technology will help the organizations collect information about fan behaviors, including the merchandise and concessions they purchase.
“Only when we have that data are we truly able to interact with them in a meaningful way,” he said.
Price emphasized this notion, pointing out that different fans are going to have different experiences.
“We must make sure we communicate with them and ensure they have the most robust, fun experience possible,” he said. Armed with this information, he said the organizers can figure out how to improve the event and fan experiences.
Additionally, Cole said the partnership with SAP—and the insights both the PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe organizations collect—will set the foundation for a forthcoming Ryder Cup loyalty program.
Furthermore, the technical capabilities provided by SAP are critical for the tournament’s organizers, considering the unusual way the Ryder Cup is run. Price noted that, unlike other similar events, the Ryder Cup is hosted by two separate organizations: Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA of America.
“So, we have two separate organizations with two separate databases,” he said.
Utilizing SAP technology, the two enterprises will be able to integrate the data they are both collecting in a single source of truth.
Inside the SAP Stack
One of the central components of the partnership is SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement. Cole said the solution will be leveraged on top of SAP Customer Data Platform (CDP) and SAP Datasphere to drive real automation and help the enterprises scale up, as they seek to engage both in-person spectators and global audiences. He further emphasized how this partnership—and the capabilities enabled by SAP solutions—will help organizers establish a base capability for further customer engagements.
“Having an understanding of our customers and leveraging the SAP solution stack is so, so important,” Price said, noting that the Ryder Cup team is focused on creating a “robust and clean” database, especially as the team collects merchandising and ticketing information. With this data, the organizers can “message fans correctly and ensure they have a great experience at the Ryder Cup.”
The team is leveraging SAP Emarsys alongside SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Datasphere, which are both part of SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), to drive specific insights and intelligence from the data collected on an ongoing basis.
“With these solutions, the Ryder Cup can build a history of knowing who its fans are and what they care about most,” Dan Fleetwood, VP of Global Sponsorships at SAP, said. “They can start to engage with those fans’ interests in mind.”
Sporting these new capabilities, Ryder Cup Europe and PGA of America hope to propel the Ryder Cup experience in a new direction.
“This isn’t about technology for technology’s sake,” Cole said. “This is about technology having a real purpose: Increasing involvement in the wonderful game of golf around the planet.”