Fusesport and CEO Jeff Bliss moving forward in global sports events.

Helping manage sports events from the Pikes Peak Marathon to ancillary programs of the Olympic Games takes responsive data systems but also the ability to integrate the vast amount of database numbers to provide accurate results on participants and attendees.

At Fusesport, a multi-sports event management software company with offices based in Colorado Springs, it is about taking a detail-based and community-centric approach both with smaller organizations such as high school rugby all the way to event registration for the FIFA World Cup.

Origins of Fusesport

CEO Jeff Bliss explains that the company started in Australia with a man called Chris Clark who along with his brother had been involved in software development for large companies like Fuji. About 14 years ago, they saw a gap in software and registration applications for the sports event management space. They first captured the business of some Australian events. When they came to the US to canvas for clients, they ended up signing the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee on their Olympic Day program as well as the National Senior Games.

In 2008, the company moved their HQ to Colorado Springs. “Because [that is where] our focus has been to what we call Ground Zero for Olympics-related sports and sports in general. So, for us, [to be based in the Springs] was a major win.” Bliss says they now have become one of the leaders in the world when it comes to multi-sport event management software. Bliss explains that “we are now fortunate enough to have [moved] through the COVID period, when we were actually developing a full membership program.”

Manage Organization Membership

This means that their application can manage organization membership and that data (and not just registration and data for individual events like the Olympics). Bliss says their approach allows Fusesport to be nimble to adjust to an organization’s needs.

“We’re going to probably have the most modern tech stack in the industry by the end of this year. And that is very exciting for us. We’ve already captured a lot of attention for it.” He points to new prospects and new customers like US Youth and High School Rugby as part of their continuing evolution.

While Bliss is based in Virginia and travels all over the world to events, Kendall Utz, Director of Customer Success at Fusesport, works out of Colorado Springs where she grew up (she also still travels to many international events). Utz owns a house in the Patty Jewett neighborhood and played competitive volleyball first at Palmer High School and then at university in Florida at FIU before getting her sports management degree at UCCS. That balance, she says, is what helps her at her job since she understands both the data but also the people behind it.

Utz breaks down Fusesport’s approach to event management even more. “Previously, we focused on singular event management. That is primarily [meant as] multi-sport, meaning that multiple sports are taking place during an event time, similar to the Olympics. We will assist with building out that customer’s registration, getting all their members into the database, and then assisting through the full event cycle. So that’s all the reporting that you need leading up [to the event] and then that goes into credentialing, full competition management, all the way down to the final results.”

When gold medals are presented, the hosting organization can track the medal count within the management system, so they understand how many medals are needed for actual purchase prior to the games. The results can be published so participants can come back and see their stats and standings.

Fusesport Supports Needed Optimization

In the greater Colorado Springs market, Fusesport has had over 100 customers that needed optimization for purely that kind of specific data. Utz continues: “We can go from any event up to 100 individuals all the way to…we did an event for Special Olympics in Abu Dhabi two years ago where we had 75,000 people registered into our platform. So, there’s quite a large spectrum between what we service.”

Fusesport’s current focus though is moving more toward a membership component. Utz says that “this is something that I have always wanted since I joined Fusesport. The reasoning is that you can have these events, but almost every organization needs a membership component. When I say that, that means that when an individual is entered into the system, generally it does require payment to activate them.”

Utz explains that sometimes for sporting events, attendees or participants are also required to have ancillary elements/segmentation such as certificates or background checks. The requirements and approaches can also differ by seasons depending on the sport being played whether it be rugby or skiing. The data is also affected if it starts being tracked over several years.

“That is a huge driver for most of the national governing bodies here in Colorado Springs,” says Utz. National Governing Bodies are non-profit, non-governmental organizations responsible for promoting and developing a particular sport within a nation. Most of the funding for NGBs comes from membership, “and they really look, for example, after the Olympic Games, to drive that business even more because people are wanting to get involved in [that sports] movement [especially after an event].”    

Pikes Peak Marathon

As a more localized example, Utz mentions the Pikes Peak Marathon with whom Fusesport previously worked with. It has a personal connection for her as well. “My dad raced in it since I was a little girl. He is now a little too old for it, but we still go out and watch the runners come by. So, to be able to work with them was really cool, and I also think that it is such a source of pride for our town just because we are so aware of the difficulty of the race.”

Pikes Peak Marathon was one of Fusesport’s first customers where they really had to increase the bandwidth on their registration application simply because the system would get hit so quickly with people trying to register as soon as registration opened. Once it hit a certain mark of entrance positions, registration would close. Demand would be high, so the system had to be robust to handle the online traffic. “Working with them was great. But I also love getting to just meet with them in person.”

For Utz, that is a big side of customer success: To identify a name with a face and see their journey with their stats in the system while still providing a bigger picture. “The thing with our system, which I do kind of appreciate, is that it’s always a challenge in a sense. There’s always a puzzle to solve.”

“And I loved getting to see an event in action. That’s one of the most rewarding things about this job because we do see the events from the very beginning, from the idea to getting down the employees, to the particulars on how exactly registration works in the long run to what venues are they going to use, their volunteer management, all that kind of stuff. But then once you get to see the final product and the actual event and how it all comes together, it’s really rewarding. And it does feel like you had a big part in that, even though you might have only been a little portion.”

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