A Summer Chat with Dimensional Innovations’ Drew Berst
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The Fan Experience, FOMO and the Art of Cool - A Summer Chat with Dimensional Innovations’ Drew Berst
Executive Summary
Dimensional Innovations’ Collegiate Sports Executive Director, Drew Berst, sits down with AV to share the trends he’s seeing and the Talk of College Sports for 2022 and beyond.
Embracing experiential ideas including novel tailgating concepts that elevate and move— literally— the fan experience.
The Fear of Missing Out and What College Athletics Can Learn from Tesla.
Athletic Facilities’ Design Should be Curated for Recruits to Feel the Emotion and Envision Themselves at Your School.
NIL and University Brands— an inevitable marriage? The Importance of Designing Content Creator Spaces in Your Athletic Facilities.
Hoping the Value of History and Rivalries is not lost through NCAA Transformation.
NCAA Schools warming up to Sports Wagering as part of College Sports Fan’s Experience in the 2020s.
Summer is here, backyard grills are fired up, and America is off to its music festivals, family picnics, and the beach— our collective summer calendars are filling up and, in many ways, going back to normalcy and community.
People are yearning for a sense of community and connectivity that went dormant during the pandemic. Will college sports be ready to raise its fan engagement game this fall so attending the "big game" also stays on the calendar?
With college football season less than 90 days away, the time is right to reconnect with Drew Berst and the Dimensional Innovations team.
Brand Affinity & Experiential Tailgating
In college sports, “everyone is a supporter of the university mark,” Berst observed. “The fans are still driven by their connection to their school. The goal (for athletic departments) is to keep your school’s ‘nation’ strong by keeping them connected; keep them wanting to see each other and, of course, winning still matters.”
With the pandemic reverb chilling sporting event attendance and the clamor for elevated fan experience ever-rising, fan connectivity is crucial. “It’s an important factor to create an emotional environment. We still see that the most raucous, crazy, passionate places provide that competitive advantage,” Berst said. “Those foundational live-sporting event elements are why people are there; we can't forget that.”
With that in mind, competitive success, fan experience, and some fun aren’t mutually exclusive ideas. One cutting-edge concept Dimensional Innovations has identified is the opportunity to build the fan experience to the sky— literally. Enter: tailgate platforms built above parking spots.
“The idea is that you could Airbnb in your parking lot, which would be pretty cool. When we started exploring the tailgating platform concept early on, one thing that did start to kind of pop up was yes, the ability to use something like that for multiple events,” Berst noted.
The inspiration for this concept stemmed from Berst's experience in the boating industry, where he observed boaters hitching boats to the same dock or pulling boats together on the water for purposes of tailgating.
The tailgating experience is inherently community-based and creating tailgating platforms at college stadium parking lots embodies the RV experience. Berst added: “The RV experience is where people bring all their own stuff and multiple platforms in a row bring that sense of community," which also provides fans a perch to enjoy the crowds and pre-game esprit de corp.
The potential for adding new features to your stadium infrastructure that offers multi-purpose usage (and additional revenue) shouldn’t be overlooked. Berst believes, depending on construction, the tailgate towers could be built to also be used as hotel or housing rentals.
College football stadiums— some holding north of 100,000 people— are only used for home games some six or seven times a year. “That's not enough use of an asset,” Berst said. With that in mind, college athletic departments are beginning to explore how to cross-leverage their facilities so that, for example, a football stadium parking lot might also offer fan experience for the nearby baseball, softball, or soccer stadiums. Berst notes that parking lots get used for multiple events invariably.
In addition to tailgating from an elevated perch, the commitment to fan connectivity and fun around your home games can also go mobile, Berst envisions.
“We've moved into mobile unit concepts. In other words, a bar on wheels that could move from place to place around your venue,” Berst suggested. The concept would include storage functionality where a bar on wheels could fold up into a cube.
“Don't get me wrong, it can't go on the highway, but it can actually move from one parking lot on one day to another the next day on campus,” Berst said. Whether bringing fans from an alumni or President’s Office tailgate or some other event happening on campus in the hours before kickoff, a mobile fan train brings people together in a visible, communal way. The Dimensional Innovations team has seen for fans that the opportunity to move from spot to spot, including from football to baseball, has been a breakthrough in some of their current design projects.
“It's about making it a family, a neighborhood, making those personal connections,” Berst said.
In addition to these new fan experience concepts, staying in tune with one’s fan base means making sure an athletic department is covering its fan experience fundamentals.
“Obviously we live in a digital world and sharing, looking at the Internet, all those things that you know we do makes connectivity important,” Berst explained. Enter the importance of Wi-Fi connections in stadiums.
From an EdTech Magazine for Higher Education article earlier this year: “It’s not enough to have a great team; colleges need stadiums capable of delivering superior sports experiences to keep fans coming back. Investment in physical stadium infrastructure is massive: Michigan Stadium, the nation’s largest college football facility, seats 107,601. By contrast, the biggest NFL stadium in the league— MetLife stadium— tops out at just 82,500.
As technology has rapidly evolved, however, the ideal fan experience is changing. Fans want to stay connected during games, whether that means watching instant replays on their phones, posting on social media, or even purchasing food and drinks directly from their devices. To make this happen, college stadiums need Wi-Fi connections capable of keeping pace with device demands.”
Berst agrees with the impact technology has on fan experience and explains that colleges need to get the fan experience fundamentals right— when a fundamental doesn’t work, people notice.
“Wi-Fi connectivity is its own game day priority. People have an expectation walking into your stadium that they will get the same connectivity they get in everyday life. If that is suddenly taken away, that makes for a bad experience and really does detract from the overall experience,” Berst said
The college sports fan experience is duplicitous in a way— one part of the experience is in-person and one part is digital with a smartphone in hand. Sports fans use their smartphones in stadiums in a variety of ways— texting with each other, coordinating pre/during/post game plans, posting to social media, ordering food, and even placing bets as sports gambling grows in the United States.
“The emphasis on Wi-Fi in arenas and stadiums is driven from both connectivity with each other as well as the sports gambling aspect,” Berst said, noting that it’s an opportunity for the university to stay engaged with its fans and learn about fan behavior. “The personal connection between the fans and the team itself is important regardless of whether you are checking email or posting to TikTok.”
The Fear of Missing Out, Electric Cars & College Football this Fall
When asked about what value athletic departments are trying to achieve with fan experience and where Dimensional Innovations helps schools avoid complacency and embrace cool, Berst highlighted the importance of FOMO.
“’I've got to make sure I go.’ That's really the value we're creating,” Berst said. “Because we know that if you feel that way, it almost doesn’t matter what you're charging.”
Berst referenced Tesla and how both cutting-edge technology that creates unique experience make for an effective blend. “Tesla was a very targeted approach. So why did Tesla really gain traction against all other electric vehicles? First, you have the vehicle itself, right? The innovation is way ahead of everybody else, but they also targeted cool right? To own a Tesla was cool. Their target was you have to have one of these cars to be cool.”
That formula applies to the college sports fan experience, too.
“The goal is to create a place where you have to be there,” Berst said. “It feels like home. It feels like family. This is your community.”
The importance of game experience should far exceed what a fan could experience at home with obvious conveniences like no bathroom lines and the comfort of one’s couch.
“College football stadiums have to be the place on Saturday. If it's the place to be, people will pay for it.”
‘I Second That Recruiting Emotion’
Moving from fan experience to recruiting, Dimensional Innovations’ on-campus projects reflect the importance universities and athletic departments are placing on tours and the emotional impressions facilities can stir.
“We make decisions emotionally and then we use our analysis. Our analytics kick in afterwards. We have to make places feel like when a recruit walks in, they see themselves here. That's the vibe we're trying to make areas inspire.”
“We have a generation of young people who are very visual,” Berst added. “We’re seeing from the usage in social media channels— the visual environment matters a lot. Create an emotion within you. When you walk into them. That is so unbelievably important.”
What should athletic department leaders be thinking about when designing facilities as it pertains to recruiting? The art of cool, driving emotion and connectivity.
“Design the facility for a tour. How are recruits going to flow through this building? What messages, experiences and emotions do we want to create as they walk through it?” Berst asked. “Schools should be thinking in terms of a curated tour.”
The Advent of NIL & Opportunity for Content Creation Synergy
When discussing NIL, Berst notes it’s the right thing and can lead to a special connection with a university when looking further down the road.
“If a kid can get a Lamborghini deal, they should get a Lamborghini deal,” Berst explained. “That is awesome for them, but does not affect the value of the university. That doesn't remove the student-athlete from the connection to the university. A student-athlete making money on their likeness is a good thing in my mind.”
Taking NIL a step further, the new world of content creation capabilities presents an opportunity for schools and student-athletes alike. “We can start to embrace, maker and innovation labs— a totally untapped resource that I'm excited about,” Berst said.
NIL and future synergy in licensing and co-branding can “…change the revenue model for the Olympic sports” with engaging and inspiring content. Content derives both the student-athlete experience and the fan experience together; it really is the tide that lifts all the boats.”
The Changing College Athletics Landscape
What keeps Drew Berst up at night? The NCAA’s attempt at decentralization if, in the end, it causes harm to the value of rivalries and tradition. Berst, whose father, David, was a long-time executive at the NCAA, wonders how the value of histories and heated rivalries could be impacted from further segmentation.
“We got here because KU hates Mizzou and Mizzou hates KU. Alabama hates Auburn and Auburn hates Alabama— in a fun way.” Berst hopes that institutional connectivity regionally and nationally does not “erode” with the decentralization movement.
Exciting Trends & Final Thoughts
As summer moves full speed ahead, Berst shares a few final perspectives and trends exciting him with design builds that excel the respective experiences for fans, student-athletes, and recruits alike.
Sports Gambling as Part of Fan Experience. “Sports gambling has to start coming into play with fan experience considerations. It's hard to believe with the rise of broader sports gambling capabilities that sports gambling will not start to be part of the fan experience priority list in some form or another.”
Leveraging Digital World in Fan Engagement & Fundraising. “The college sports market is becoming more digital and embracing interactive technology. Digital engagement for the purpose of supporting fundraising or a capital campaign, too. Especially diehard fans, your top 20%, and top 10% of fans are very much open to a year-round digital engagement. The evolution of university and athletic department apps and how they communicate with their fans is a big trend— how can we keep good content and information flowing?”
Access to University Marks in NIL & Making Athletics Shareable. “Whether you are planning a practice facility, a locker room, or whatever it may be, making sure there is something about it makes it sharable or is a place for content creation. I'm a huge believer that the world of university marks and student athletes’ NIL are going to merge real quick because you just can't keep them separate. Certain schools have really embraced the idea of the co-branded marketplace, others have not. But the NIL marketplace spilling into its physical space is what we're absolutely seeing. Schools are definitely investing in the experience at their facilities – content creator spaces, especially at the highest levels to ensure they stay a part of the highest levels.”
Dimensional Innovations is an Experience Design, Build, and Tech Firm with a 28-year track record of creating immersive and engaging experiences. Drew Berst is Executive Director of DI’s College Sports Practice.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
