Sportz Interactive (SI) has been at the vanguard of sports data and digital innovation, assisting rights holders, broadcasters, and sponsors in establishing deeper and more meaningful interactions with fans. As fan behaviour evolves in an increasingly digital-first environment, SI’s focus has shifted from offering real-time analytics and information to allowing end-to-end fan interaction and monetisation via technology.
In this interview, Chintan Shah, Senior Vice President at Sportz Interactive, discusses the company’s evolving vision, the balance of AI and human intelligence, SI’s competitive strengths in a crowded sports-tech landscape, and how platforms like FanOS are shaping the future of fan engagement and revenue generation in global sport.
1. Sportz Interactive has been a leader in sports data and digital solutions. How has your vision evolved over the years?
When we started over two decades ago, our vision was foundational: to revolutionise the sports fan experience at various fan touchpoints. We focused on speed and accuracy, delivering live match centres, digital products, and rich content that set new industry benchmarks. The vision has since broadened significantly. As fan behaviour shifted and the digital landscape matured, we realised that isolated digital solutions weren’t enough. Our expanded vision is about helping sports organisations build direct, lasting relationships with their fans by creating unified, end-to-end digital ecosystems. This expanded vision is crystallised in our FanOS (Fan Operating System) approach, which is entirely focused on owning and maximising the entire fan lifecycle. Before FanOS: Clients often had fragmented tools—one for their website, another for gaming, and separate data silos. This made personalisation and holistic engagement difficult. With FanOS, data, experience and activation layer, we provide a flexible, AI-powered ecosystem that unifies all fan-facing digital touchpoints
2. With AI and automation rising, what aspects of sports data still need a human touch?
While AI and automation are pivotal for scaling product and content and deriving high-velocity insights across our FanOS platform, the human element remains irreplaceable for providing emotional context, strategic interpretation, and ethical oversight. AI can handle the scale by processing vast datasets and automating tasks like personalised content distribution, but it is the human strategist who defines the soul of the operation. This involves creating the nuanced training data that allows AI to understand subjective sports tactics, translating complex data into a clear, compelling fan narrative and story that drives emotional resonance, and developing crucial, human-designed metrics
3. What do brands and broadcasters value the most today: speed, design, insights, or interactivity?
The modern sports ecosystem values the seamless integration of all four elements but prioritises interactivity and insights as the ultimate drivers of commercial value, a strategy central to SI. While speed (ensuring real-time data delivery) and high-quality design are essential foundations to keep fans on a platform, interactivity (e.g., in-app prediction games, fan polls) is valued most because it actively generates the first-party fan data needed for commercialisation. This data is then transformed into actionable insights, allowing organisations to move beyond generic advertising to prove a precise, measurable return on investment (ROI) and execute personalised marketing campaigns that deepen fan loyalty.
4. What core strengths and expertise differentiate SI in India’s evolving sports-tech and sports marketing landscape?
The core competitive advantages of SI over newer sports tech companies in the Indian market stem from four crucial differentiators: Decades of Battle-Tested Domain Expertise and Scale gained from working with major Indian & Global properties like the IPL ecosystem, UEFA, F1, ensuring unmatched speed and trust; the superiority of the integrated FanOS Ecosystem over single “point solutions,” providing clients with a unified platform for first-party data collection and personalization; deep Cultural Relevance and Localization that includes content delivery in over 20 languages tailored to regional sports nuances; and finally, a significant Historical Data Moat, which leverages 20+ years of proprietary event data across numerous partners to establish predictive KPI benchmarks and strategically guide clients on the exact fan behaviors that drive long-term commercial success and revenue growth.
5. How do you tailor solutions for different clients with very different audience needs?
Sportz Interactive tailors solutions for clients with diverse audience needs by employing a three-step strategic framework. First, we conduct a strategic segmentation that moves beyond demographics, identifying distinct fan personas (e.g., the “Hardcore Analyst” vs. the “Casual Lifestyle Fan”) and aligning them with the client’s business goals (e.g., a broadcaster needing high watch times versus a team needing 365-day loyalty). Second, we utilise Modular FanOS Deployment, configuring only the necessary technological components, such as deploying the Gaming & Fan Loyalty modules for a team or the AI Video Technology for a broadcaster, to serve those identified needs. Finally, solutions undergo Data-Driven Iteration, where rich first-party data generated by fan interactions is used to continuously refine the offerings through A/B testing and Predictive Personalisation, ensuring the solution remains effective and commercially relevant to each unique fan segment.
6. How do you localise content and fan engagement for something as global as UFC for an Indian audience?
The success of the UFC India blueprint highlights how global sports properties can establish deep community engagement through a phased, digitally-driven strategy. The core approach involves first establishing a physical presence, like launching over 100 community hubs nationwide, to foster in-person engagement and embody the brand ethos. This foundation is then leveraged for the crucial digital leap, exemplified by the launch of a dedicated digital channel (e.g., the UFC India Instagram handle), which saw explosive growth, garnering 210K followers in just two months and surging to over 807K followers through targeted execution. The digital strategy focuses on three pillars: Creative Storytelling and Cultural Resonance, achieved through adapting high-impact content with local cultural nuances and high-profile regional collaborations; Amplifying Local Heroes, by spotlighting national athletes to create personal connections and national pride; and Sustained Digital Interaction, utilising short-form content and personalised narratives (like behind-the-scenes content) to maintain high engagement between major events, thereby creating a powerful bridge between the local fanbase and the global ecosystem.
7. What is the one strategic priority that will define Sportz Interactive’s next phase of growth in the global sports tech industry?
The singular strategic priority defining Sportz Interactive’s next phase of global growth is to evolve the FanOS platform into the industry’s leading AI-Native Commercialisation Engine. This priority directly leverages FanOS’s core capabilities of increasing Fan Lifetime Value (FLV) and providing a One View of the Fan through rich Data Intelligence. By focusing on becoming a “Commercialisation Engine,” SI aims to move beyond simply managing engagement to monetising the fan view: utilising AI-driven insights to execute predictive, scalable commercial actions—such as hyper-personalised marketing and targeted sponsorship activations—that directly translate fan data into measurable revenue streams, thereby cementing SI’s role as a definitive revenue partner for global sports properties.
