Product Analyst

Sparkfly & PlayOn link school sports to retail data. Tue, 10th Mar 2026 Sparkfly and PlayOn Sports have agreed to a partnership that combines retail offer management and real-time marketing attribution with a large network of US high school sports audiences across digital ticketing, live streaming and sports data. The deal integrates Sparkfly's offer and attribution platform into PlayOn Sports' ecosystem, which includes GoFan, NFHS Network and MaxPreps. The network spans more than 27,000 schools and reaches millions of fans, families and student-athletes connected to high school sport. Retailers and restaurant operators have increased spending on digital marketing over the past decade, but many brands still struggle to connect media exposure to in-store visits and purchases. The companies are positioning the partnership as a response, aiming to link local community audiences to measurable transactions. How it works Merchants can run localised campaigns tied to schools, events or seasons. Campaigns can appear across PlayOn properties, including ticketing and streaming experiences. Sparkfly's technology then connects offer delivery and redemption to transaction records, enabling reporting on store visits and purchases. The goal is to help marketers measure promotion performance beyond clicks and impressions, while also supporting customer acquisition through a community channel built around sports attendance and viewing. Sparkfly says it has powered more than 4 billion offers across more than 20,000 locations, working with multi-site brands and integrating with point-of-sale systems and digital ordering platforms. PlayOn Sports operates products across the high school sports journey, from ticket purchase to live viewing and results tracking. Attribution focus The partnership centres on what the companies call closed-loop attribution-linking a marketing interaction to an observed transaction rather than relying on proxy measures. Merchants will be able to identify which offers and campaigns drove purchases, and which customers were newly acquired through the channel. Catherine Tabor, CEO and founder of Sparkfly, said the deal addresses brands' acquisition needs. "For years, brands have told us they need better ways to acquire new guests and fill their top-of-funnel," said Catherine Tabor, CEO and Founder at Sparkfly. The agreement also gives PlayOn Sports a more direct commerce and measurement layer for brand activity within its network. It positions high school sports audiences as a segment with regular local purchasing behaviour, including dining out and shopping around events. Luke Pagano, SVP, Sales & Brand Partnership at PlayOn Sports, said the partnership expands PlayOn's advertising offering with added measurement. "PlayOn powers the complete high school sports experience, connecting hyper-engaged communities that rally around millions of young athletes who inspire on and off the field," said Luke Pagano, SVP, Sales & Brand Partnership at PlayOn Sports. "We provide brands with a unified access point to this incredible ecosystem, and partnering with Sparkfly allows us to enhance our advertising solutions with technology that provides real, measurable impact." Local to national Merchants can deploy campaigns at national, regional or individual school levels. This structure suits brands with large store networks that want consistent measurement while keeping promotions relevant to local communities. A key question for marketers is how the partnership will balance personalisation with privacy and data governance across schools, parents and younger audiences. The announcement did not specify safeguards, but it emphasised transaction-based measurement and offer redemption rather than broad audience profiling. The partnership also reflects a wider shift in media buying as some digital advertising becomes harder to measure. Retail media networks have grown quickly, while event-led and community-led marketing has remained difficult to attribute at scale. The companies are presenting high school sports as a large, structured environment where local identity and repeat engagement support more measurable campaigns. Next steps The firms plan additional integrations over time, including integrated offer wallets, added loyalty features, school fundraising platforms and achievement rewards. They also cited future work on audience segmentation, seasonal campaign automation and cross-platform loyalty integration. Tabor said the combined proposition differs from conventional sponsorship or media-buying models. "This isn't just another media buy or sponsorship opportunity," said Tabor. "This is intelligent, measurable customer acquisition. Merchants know exactly which school, which offer, which campaign drove each transaction. They can see net-new customer identification, understand true incrementality, and build personalized retargeting strategies-all in real time. That level of attribution has been the holy grail of marketing, and we're delivering it at scale."

California Privacy Agency hits student ticketing company with $1.1M fine: 3 lessons about tracking consumers. LinkedIn Facebook X In what state officials call their first decision to address privacy violations involving students and California schools, the California Privacy Protection Agency just announced a $1.1 million fine against PlayOn Sports for its consumer tracking practices. The February 27 statement from CalPrivacy alleges that PlayOn's digital platform, which allows students to purchase tickets to high school functions like sporting events, dances, and arts performances, required users to agree to tracking technologies without offering a sufficient way to opt out. What happened and what are the three key lessons you can learn from this fine about tracking? What Happened? PlayOn Sports operates GoFan, a digital platform that sells tickets to high school sporting events, dances, and arts performances across California and other states. When students and parents used the platform, they were required to agree to terms allowing PlayOn to track their online activity through cookies and similar technologies for advertising purposes. * Inadequate Opt-Out Mechanism: PlayOn directed users to third-party websites (the Network Advertising Initiative and Digital Advertising Alliance) to opt out of tracking, rather than providing a direct way to opt out on the GoFan platform itself. CalPrivacy found this violated the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requirement that businesses provide consumers a "clear and conspicuous link" to opt out. * Failure to Honor Opt-Out Preference Signals: The platform didn't recognize or respond to Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals - automated browser settings that tell websites not to sell or share personal information. Under the CCPA, businesses must honor these signals. * Deficient Privacy Notices: PlayOn's privacy notices failed to adequately inform users about what personal information was being collected and how it would be used. Under the settlement, PlayOn agreed to pay $1.1 million and implement corrective measures, including building native opt-out mechanisms and honoring opt-out preference signals. 3 Key Takeaways School-aged children are one of the most digitally integrated generations in the United States, making it likely that companies will continue to develop platforms to cater to their needs, interests, and lifestyles. This means that businesses targeting this market would be wise to heed the guidance offered in CalPrivacy's decision to mitigate risk: 1. Children are afforded enhanced protection: CalPrivacy specifically noted that "students are a uniquely vulnerable population whose data should be used to enhance their own learning, not to fuel advertising and commercial surveillance." As such, your organization should understand that children-oriented platforms will receive enhanced scrutiny, and be ready to articulate a clear nexus between the data you're collecting on students and the educational rationale for its collection. 2. Offloading opt-out processes is insufficient: If a digital platform is going to collect personal information covered by the CCPA, it must offer users a native means to opt out. Directing users to third-party providers is not a valid alternative. California officials have made it clear that if your organization is sophisticated enough to gather the information, it is sophisticated enough to develop its own means by which users can disenroll. 3. An investigation into one infraction can lead to penalties for others: Beyond citing PlayOn for its inadequate opt-out methods, CalPrivacy also sanctioned the company for two other violations: failing to recognize and honor opt-out preference signals, and falling short of privacy notice requirements. This shows that once California privacy regulators initiate an investigation, they're empowered to assess the organization's CCPA compliance beyond the scope of the initial allegation. If officials uncover multiple abuses, punitive measures will correspondingly increase. Next Steps The best way to insulate your organization from CCPA violations is to implement a robust data protection compliance program. Engaging data privacy attorneys is a great first step. They can assist you by: * Auditing what personal information your business gathers; * Determining which laws and regulations apply; * Identifying gaps in existing practices; and * Designing, developing, and deploying enterprise-wide compliance programs. DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. Attorney Advertising. (C) Fisher Phillips 2026