Q&A with CEO Mel Raines on the Indiana Fever’s meteoric rise – and what’s next.

In the Fever’s 25th season, everything changed in the course of about three weeks. In April 2024, we went from zero to a hundred. We filled the building for every game. We sold more merchandise than most NBA teams do in a full season. We created a fan base that was nationwide and energized in a way we never experienced before. We changed women’s basketball. We used to downshift in the summer. Now we’re operating at a high level 365 days a year.

To be honest, I don’t know all the reasons — and I think that’s something the data will help us understand. But I do know we’ve got a great product on the floor. The women play basketball in its purest form. It’s fundamental, it's fast, and it's smart. It’s also easier to imagine yourself playing that game.

What’s also interesting is that the typical WNBA fan is different than the typical NBA fan. There’s only about 5% overlap between Fever and Pacers fans — and yet our attendance is almost identical. We’re close to selling out every single Fever game. It’s a younger fan. You can feel it in the building — in the pitch of the cheers, in the energy, and just by looking around. That’s exciting, because it means we have a chance to capture this fan for a lifetime.

So how do we make sure the experience a kid has coming to a game with their parents is one they’ll want to pass down to their kids someday? That’s the opportunity. I think the Fever have a real chance to become America’s team. We’re already seeing it — we’ve sold merchandise in nearly 40 countries and drawn fans from all 50 states. We’re on the precipice of something very special. And how we grow that, how we connect with each of those fans in a personal, meaningful way — that’s going to matter more than anything.

We are in the mass customization business. We have 17,000 people at a game, and we want each one to feel like the event was just for them. That means understanding who they are, what kind of merch they like, where they like to sit, whether they come back for other events like Disney On Ice. Maybe someone goes to a premium club, maybe someone’s in the balcony and only comes once a season. They are all equally important to us. We want to get to know each of them and make sure they never want to miss being here.

Salesforce is a critical part of how we grow our business. They came onboard with us almost 10 years ago to help us understand our ticket buyers. Now they help us do so much more. We have data coming in from 30 different places. Without Salesforce, it would all live in different systems. They help us clean it up and make it actionable.

They’re also helping us connect our Fieldhouse district. If you go to our restaurant before games, how do we incentivize you to come more often? If you like hoodies and we get a limited-edition drop, how do we tell you about it first? These are the experiences our fans expect. And Salesforce helps us deliver them.

One of our biggest challenges is data fragmentation. You buy tickets in one system, merch in another, food in another. Making all that data work together is tough, and we’re not going to solve it with a huge team of engineers. That’s why we need partners like Salesforce and the AI they’re building. We might have three games in a week. We want to get smarter between game one and game three. AI helps us do that faster than people ever could.

We ask ourselves three questions: Can it drive revenue? Can it improve the fan experience in-venue or at home? And can it make us more efficient? If it doesn’t do one of those three things, it’s a sparkly object, not something we want to focus on. Our partners like Salesforce are integrating AI in ways that really help us deliver in those areas.

Now you know you were missing out. Now you know the Indiana Fever is serious. Now you know we want to win a championship. And now you know this is the place you want to be this summer. There is no place in the world that loves basketball more than Indiana. Gainbridge Fieldhouse is the best basketball arena in the world. It’s not a summer if you don’t make it to one of our games.