Pacers Sports & Entertainment reaches new fan heights with Agentforce.

Pacers Sports & Entertainment owns and manages the Fever WNBA team, Pacers NBA team, Gainbridge Fieldhouse Arena, and more — delivering high-quality sports and entertainment experiences to a growing fan base.

An influx of fans brought new energy — but PS&E needed a way to connect with them across events and venues.

In their 2024 season, the Indiana Fever WNBA team reached record-breaking heights in both attendance and viewership. They filled the Gainbridge Fieldhouse arena with over 340,000 fans attending home games, sold more merchandise in three weeks than most NBA teams do in a full season, and built an energized fanbase unlike ever before, changing the course of women's basketball. The Fever saw this moment as more than just a win — it was a chance to build something even bigger.

That momentum didn’t just belong to the Fever. It created a ripple effect across PS&E. With a new wave of national and international fans coming to Indianapolis from across the United States and more than 40 countries, PS&E faced a challenge: personalizing service and marketing across a growing, global audience.

An influx of new fans meant an influx of new fan data — not just from Fever games, but across concerts, e-sports, basketball, retail, and more. And yet, PS&E’s vast data ecosystem was spread across siloed systems. Ticketing platforms like Ticketmaster, point-of-sale tools like Square and Shopify, and survey providers like Qualtrics all generated valuable insights — but none of them were connected or easy to use and manage. Internally, these disconnects created real gaps in service. For instance, if a fan left a negative post-game survey rating, it could take up to 15 days for the team to follow up.

At the same time, backend tech gaps made innovation harder. The WNBA’s digital infrastructure trails behind the NBA’s, often leading to delays in execution, slower approval workflows, and more manual work for the Fever than for the Pacers.

“One of our biggest challenges is that we have data coming in from 30 different places — where you're buying your ticket, where you're buying food, where you're buying our retail,” said Mel Raines, CEO of PS&E. “Collecting all of that data, marrying it together, cleaning it up, and then actually making it actionable is our greatest growth opportunity right now.” 

Without a unified view of each fan, PS&E couldn’t identify when the same person engaged with multiple brands. For example, if someone attended a Fever game in June and returned for a concert at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in September, their activity might register as two separate fans. This made it difficult to deliver cohesive, personalized experiences — and easy to miss key loyalty-building moments.

To bring their vision to life, PS&E set out to unify their data, close tech gaps, and build the foundation for cross-brand loyalty — one that could expand their fanbase while preserving the personal touch that defines their brand.

Data Cloud unifies PS&E’s 30 data sources – and Marketing Cloud turns it into compelling, personalized outreach for every fan.

With their sights set on building “the most valuable database in all of sports,” PS&E knew the first step was to bring all their fan data together — and then activate it in meaningful ways. To do that, they turned to Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud, laying the foundation to not only unify data across brands and systems, but use it to deliver personalized journeys for every fan.

PS&E tracks data from over 30 sources — including ticketing, apps, food and beverage, retail, and chatbot interactions — all of which were once siloed across disconnected platforms but are now unified into a single, connected ecosystem. Databricks serves as the aggregation layer, grouping together related data (like all retail or all F&B purchases) across different systems before it’s ingested into Data Cloud, creating a cohesive data pipeline.

For example, Databricks merges Shopify data from Fever and Pacers webstores with in-venue purchases from POS system retailcloud, creating a single record of a fan’s merchandise history. Similarly, Appetize food and beverage data is combined with cashier-less purchases from Amazon Just Walk Out and in-suite purchases made via VenueNext. This ensures every transaction — whether digital or in-person — feeds into the same fan profile. Qualitative insights, such as survey feedback from Qualtrics or sentiment from chatbot platforms like Alive5 and GameOn are also pulled into Databricks. That data is then unified in Data Cloud, where each fan’s interactions are tied together into a single, actionable profile.

“There are a lot of different sources that sit in our lakehouse, and Data Cloud connects all of them to create a unified profile that is essentially the golden record of the customer,” said Taylor Griffin, AVP, Customer Insights and Engagement of PS&E. “We've been putting all that information together to get to a place to actually understand the whole Customer-360 view. We're getting a way better picture now of who that one unique individual is.”

But for PS&E, having unified data wasn’t the finish line — it was the launchpad. With that golden record in place, the team uses Marketing Cloud to craft personalized fan journeys, automate outreach, and turn insights into impact. They now build individualized email campaigns that reflect each fan’s preferences, behaviors, and touchpoints across the Fever, Pacers, and other PS&E properties. For example, a fan who attends a Fever game, buys a jersey online, and opens a game-day newsletter might receive a tailored message about upcoming promotions or exclusive access to events.

Marketing Cloud is also the engine behind PS&E’s mass communications, like gameday offers or events such as “Select-a-Seat,” which encourages fans to become season ticket holders. Data from these events flows directly into Sales Cloud, where dashboards track participation and conversions — closing the loop between marketing and sales.

This helps PS&E deliver a more compelling and connected experience and unlock the full power of their data — not just to keep up with their rapidly growing fanbase, but to lead the next chapter in personalized engagement. 

With Agentforce, PS&E will move from insight to impact, transforming rich fan data into real-time action.

With fan data now unified by Data Cloud and activated via Marketing Cloud, PS&E is setting its sights on what comes next: Agentforce. As the agentic layer of the Salesforce Platform, Agentforce will sit on top of Data Cloud and act as an intelligent assistant — helping PS&E turn complex data into clear, immediate marketing actions that grow both the business and the fan experience.

When implemented, Agentforce will work by tapping into each fan’s unified profile — which includes the transactional, behavioral, and engagement data harmonized by Data Cloud. That includes lifetime spend on tickets, food, and merchandise, web browsing and email interaction history, survey responses, demographic details like age and income, and even firmographic data from external sources.

Agentforce will function in two ways: assistive and autonomous. In assistive mode, a staff member will be able to ask a simple question in the Salesforce utility bar — like “What’s the best next step for this fan?” — and Agentforce will provide a personalized recommendation based on that fan’s customer lifetime value (CLV), recent interactions, and segment. That recommendation might come in the form of a suggested offer, an invite to a Fever game, or a follow-up message crafted and sent through Marketing Cloud.

In autonomous mode, Agentforce will act on its own, triggered by automation logic built with Salesforce Flow. Within record-triggered flows, changes to a fan’s profile — like a CLV score update, CDP segment match, or opportunity stage change — prompt Agentforce to take action. Agentforce can also be activated through scheduled jobs or batch evaluations, like a weekly segment review. Once triggered, it can instantly recommend and execute the next best actions within Marketing Cloud. For example, it might send a discount on merchandise to a season ticket holder, notify a longtime fan about a VIP event, or email a corporate partner about suite upgrades based on past purchases. It could also identify lapsed fans and nudge them with a re-engagement campaign.

By learning from patterns and predicting behavior, Agentforce will allow PS&E to personalize fan experiences across all their properties. “The great part about Agentforce and segmentation is the ability to build propensity modeling so we can learn not only who's most likely to spend more time with our business, but also who's going to do that for our partners, so we can help grow their business as well,” said Joey Graziano, EVP, Strategy & New Business Ventures at PS&E.

Once launched, PS&E will track Agentforce’s impact by measuring the creation of new revenue streams, the accuracy of its propensity models, and the reduction in manual tasks across sales and marketing — all while delivering smarter, more personalized experiences to every fan.

And the vision doesn’t stop there. PS&E plans to launch a loyalty program next year — a unified, fan-first experience where fans can view and manage all their interactions across brands in one place. Powered by Agentforce and personalized data, it will turn every touchpoint into an opportunity to build loyalty and deepen connection.

For PS&E, Salesforce isn’t just a sales tool — it’s the backbone of how the organization runs. “We have about a third of our workforce in the Salesforce ecosystem right now,” said Raines. “That's anything from tracking, onboarding and offboarding, to how we are selling in our suite orders, to prospecting customers. It is really holistic, and we help a lot of different departments by using the technology.”

Salesforce connects teams across the organization — far beyond just sales and marketing. “We help our stakeholders and ownership understand who our customers are, what they want, where we need to move to next, where we need to pivot, and areas that we can capitalize on,” said Raines. “Salesforce allows us to capture that information, assess it, and send it out to key stakeholders.” Whether they’re using Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, or Data Cloud, nearly every department relies on Salesforce to move faster and work smarter.

And it’s all in service of a bigger goal: turning first-time visitors into lifelong fans. “The typical WNBA fan is different than the typical NBA fan...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,” said Raines. “That’s exciting, because it means we have a chance to capture this fan for a lifetime.” Salesforce helps PS&E build that continuity, no matter where they’re interacting with the fan — creating personalized, data-driven experiences today that spark lifelong memories tomorrow.