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Fan Manager’s New AI Platform Helps Clubs Improve Fan Outreach

After Boston-born billionaire businessman James Pallotta bought Italian soccer powerhouse AS Roma several years ago, he was struck by how little the club knew about its fan base. Despite a season-ticket base of more than 30,000, he said internal records included maybe two-thousand email addresses.

“One of the things that we saw right away was that we had no data on our fans,” said Pallotta, a successful hedge fund manager who later founded private investment firm Raptor Group.

In discussions with peer owners, he found the issue to be endemic in sports. While others would tout, say, 600 million followers, Pallotta would retort, “Name them,” to which they’d reply, “What do you mean?