University of Maryland Athletics Transforms Fan Experience with AWS: A Data-Driven Success Story

The University of Maryland Athletics Department has achieved a remarkable transformation in how it understands and serves its fans, partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a unified data platform that’s delivering measurable results across operations, insights, and revenue generation.

The Challenge Every Athletics Department Knows

Like many collegiate athletics programs, UMD Athletics faced fragmented data systems, time-consuming manual processes, and delayed insights that made it difficult to respond quickly to fan needs and market opportunities. Survey analysis took hours each week, pricing decisions relied on manual weekly checks, and delivering actionable insights to stakeholders could take 1-2 weeks—far too slow in today’s fast-paced sports environment.

Creating Actionable Insights At Scale

UMD Athletics partnered with AWS to create a comprehensive platform that brings together customer profiles, fan segmentation, and self-service analytics across the entire organization. The journey began following an enablement session on modern data architecture led by UMD’s AWS account team. UMD Athletics took the first step by loading CSV ticket purchase data from Paciolan into Amazon S3, then leveraging AWS Glue to clean and transform that raw information into structured data products segmented by sport. Using Amazon Athena, the UMD analyst created views to query the data directly from S3, and integrated Amazon QuickSight to rapidly build dashboards surfacing revenue trends by sport, game, ticket type, and more — delivering immediate, actionable visibility without the need for a traditional data warehouse.

From that early success, expansion accelerated by harnessing the power of generative AI for development. Using Amazon Q Developer for code generation, analysts were able to describe their goals in natural language and receive Python code to accomplish the task — dramatically lowering the barrier to building new data pipelines. AWS Lambda functions were developed to incorporate season ticket holder data and donor information, broadening the platform’s view of each fan and supporter. Post-game survey data was then added to the mix and analyzed by Amazon Bedrock for sentiment analysis and fan segmentation, turning qualitative feedback into quantitative insight. Automated follow-up processes were built on top of this foundation, freeing up capacity for expanded survey programs and more targeted marketing efforts.

The result is a solution that combines cloud data infrastructure with AI-powered automation to transform raw data into actionable insights at scale.

The platform delivers 360-degree customer profiles and enables every team member — from ticketing to marketing to development — to access the insights they need through intuitive dashboards, without waiting for IT or analytics teams. What began as a single analyst loading a CSV file has grown into an organization-wide self-service analytics capability, with generative AI accelerating every stage of the data lifecycle.

Results That Transform Operations

The platform has delivered substantial cost reductions and time savings, with $75-80K in annual operating expense savings, 90+ hours saved annually from automated pricing processes alone, and hundreds of additional hours recovered from eliminating manual report processing.

Perhaps most impressive is how the platform has accelerated decision-making: survey analysis has been reduced from hours to minutes using AI-powered categorization, insights delivery has accelerated from 1-2 weeks to near real-time enabling mid-season action on fan feedback rather than waiting for end-of-year reviews, survey capacity has doubled from 10 to 20+ annually with no additional headcount required, and pricing decisions are now 7x faster, moving from weekly manual checks to daily automated alerts.

“AWS has allowed us to build tooling that moves at our speed and scale, fully customized to our business. Being able to aggregate and analyze data holistically while piecing together the entire fan journey, allows us to react proactively, and that’s completely changed how we make decisions.”

John Tieso, Lead Data & Marketing Analyst, University of Maryland Athletics

Revenue Impact: From Weekly Reviews to Daily Action

The platform’s ability to integrate primary and secondary market data, velocity metrics, and attendance patterns has transformed pricing strategy with daily automated pricing alerts replacing weekly manual checks, same-day pricing decisions that respond to market conditions in real-time, and $200K-$300K+ in projected incremental revenue for 2026.

The transformation goes beyond numbers. UMD Athletics has shifted from a reactive posture—analyzing last season’s data to inform next season’s decisions—to a proactive approach where fan feedback and market signals drive immediate action. The athletics department can now identify and respond to fan sentiment trends during the season, adjust pricing strategies daily based on comprehensive market intelligence, expand survey programs to gather more feedback without adding staff, and empower staff across departments with self-service access to insights.

A Blueprint for Collegiate Athletics

As programs nationwide face pressure to deliver exceptional fan experiences while managing costs and maximizing revenue, UMD’s transformation offers a proven roadmap. The key ingredients: unified data infrastructure that breaks down silos, AI-powered automation that accelerates insights, and self-service analytics that democratize access to intelligence across the organization.

The University of Maryland Athletics Department’s partnership with AWS demonstrates how modern cloud technologies and AI can transform operations in collegiate athletics. By building a unified data platform that breaks down silos and accelerates insights, UMD has created a foundation for continued innovation in fan engagement and revenue optimization.

The University of Maryland Athletics Department continues to expand its use of AWS services to enhance fan experiences and operational excellence. For more information about AWS solutions for sports and entertainment organizations, visit aws.amazon.com.