Challenge

As a leading global sports platform, Fanatics connects fans with licensed merchandise, collectibles, live events, and other experiences that help them celebrate the teams, athletes and moments they care about most. Supporting a community of more than 100 million fans worldwide across 700+ social pages, the company manages an enormous volume of real-time fan conversations every day.

“Sports are about so much more than the game itself. Every purchase, every interaction, and every fan conversation is connected to a team, a player, or a moment that means something to someone,” says Tyler Graves, Director of Social Media, Fan Relations at Fanatics. “Our job is to understand those moments, show up authentically, and create experiences that strengthen the connection fans have with the things they love most.”

One of the biggest challenges, Graves says, was managing and prioritizing the sheer volume of fan conversations happening across Fanatics' social channels. To deliver those experiences at scale, Fanatics needed a smarter way to manage fan conversations, stay connected to the voice of the fan and engage authentically across hundreds of social properties.

“We needed a way to efficiently identify and prioritize those mentions that truly required our attention, while still staying engaged with the broader fan conversation,” says Graves. 

Solution

Fanatics turned to Sprinklr Service and Sprinklr Insights, part of Sprinklr’s AI-native, unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform. The platform enables the social media team to engage fans at scale, surface real-time insights, and turn the voice of the fan into action.

Unified fan engagement across hundreds of social properties

Fanatics uses Sprinklr Service as the central hub for its social media team, enabling agents to manage fan interactions across more than 700 social pages from a single platform. With conversations flowing in across teams, leagues, products and events, the team can prioritize, organize and route interactions to the people best equipped to respond. This reduces the time spent sorting through comments and identifying conversations that require attention, while ensuring fans receive timely, informed responses from people who understand their specific interests and communities.

Listening to the voice of the fan in real time

Fanatics also uses Social Listening from Sprinklr Insights to stay closely connected to fan sentiment and emerging trends. By monitoring conversations around products, player news, major sporting events, and fan experiences, the team can understand what fans are excited about. They’re empowered to identify questions before they escalate and engage with fans in the moments that matter most. Whether responding to major sporting events, product launches, or breaking player news, Fanatics uses real-time listening to understand fan expectations and engage proactively when conversations begin to accelerate. This helps the team identify emerging demand, communicate proactively with fans, and help shape the fan experience before frustration has an opportunity to build. Real-time listening helps Fanatics do more than respond; it enables the organization to understand fan expectations and proactively shape the fan experience.

“Real-time listening has changed how we show up for fans by allowing us to stay ahead of both the excitement and opportunities,” says Graves. “On a daily basis, we're able to understand not just what fans love, but what they're expecting from us in the moment.”

Turning insights into action

Sprinklr helps Fanatics manage and engage across hundreds of social accounts from a single platform. Using Sprinklr Service, the team can prioritize, organize, and route fan interactions to the people best equipped to respond, reducing the time previously spent sorting through comments and identifying conversations that require attention.

At the same time, Sprinklr Insights helps the team understand fan sentiment across products, events, teams, and experiences. Whether monitoring reactions to a major event, identifying emerging trends, or surfacing opportunities to engage with fans, the platform gives Fanatics the visibility needed to respond quickly and share meaningful insights with internal stakeholders.

“The opportunity that exists within these moments can sometimes be missed,” says Graves. “Social isn't just a support channel for our fans. It's a chance to build real relationships and create meaningful experiences. When handled thoughtfully, even high-pressure or emotional interactions can become moments that strengthen loyalty.”

Outcome

By leveraging Sprinklr's unified customer experience management (CXM) platform, Fanatics has transformed how it listens to, engages with, and supports more than 100 million fans globally. With a centralized view of fan conversations, real-time insights into fan sentiment, and the ability to route interactions to the right experts, Fanatics has built a more connected, responsive, and scalable approach to fan engagement — while maintaining the authenticity that fans value most. “Fans come first in everything we do,” says Graves. “They're our North Star, and our goal is to meet them where they are and create meaningful, authentic connections in every interaction.” With Sprinklr, Fanatics has:

• Unified fan engagement across hundreds of social properties through a single platform for social care and listening.
• Transformed fan feedback into actionable insights that help teams engage proactively and stay connected to the voice of the fan.
• Delivered faster, more consistent, and more authentic fan experiences at scale.

“Fans come first in everything we do,” says Graves. "Our goal is to meet them where they are and create meaningful, authentic connections in every interaction. Sprinklr plays a key role in that by helping us stay closely connected to the voice of the fan. It allows us to listen, learn, and engage in real time, so we’re not just part of the conversation, but part of the experience.”