One of the most misleading sentences in B2B SportsTech is: “the club loves it.” A club is not one customer. It is a collection of people with different jobs, incentives and levels of authority and they rarely move at the same speed. The performance analyst may use the product every day. The head coach may become its strongest supporter. The sporting director may approve the project. Finance may control the budget, while procurement can still stop everything at the last minute. If we put all of them under the label “customer”, a promising opportunity can look healthier than it really is.
That is why I use a simple buyer map. It separates the user, the champion, the decision-maker and the budget owner. In a small organisation, one person may play several roles. In a league, federation or large club, the four roles may sit in different buildings. Either way, the map forces a founder to see the buying system rather than the person who happened to take the first call.
Why SportsTech buying is unusually easy to misread
Sport creates access. Founders often know coaches, analysts, athletes, club executives or federation staff. That access is valuable, but it can create false confidence. The person willing to meet you is not necessarily the person who can buy. A coach may want better performance data. The head of performance may need to standardise the workflow. The sporting director may approve the initiative. Finance may release the budget. IT may block the implementation. Legal may delay the data agreement.
If you build only for the enthusiastic user, you can end up with a product people love and organisations cannot buy.
The four people hiding inside “the customer”
The user
The user experiences the workflow. They know where the friction is and can tell you whether the product fits the reality of the job. Users help you understand adoption. They reveal what must be fast, simple and reliable. They also reveal why a technically good product may fail after purchase. But users often describe features rather than business consequences. You need their insight without treating every request as a buying signal.
The champion
The champion wants the project to succeed inside the organisation. They make introductions, explain internal politics, protect the initiative when priorities change and help translate your product into the language of the organisation. A real champion takes action when you are not in the room. Someone who says “send me a deck” is a contact. Someone who invites the budget owner, helps shape the business case and tells you what procurement needs is behaving like a champion.
The decision-maker
The decision-maker can approve or reject the purchase. In a small club, this may be the CEO or owner. In a league, federation or enterprise supplier, approval can involve several people. The decision-maker may care less about the feature set and more about risk, strategic alignment, implementation effort and credibility.
The budget owner
The budget owner controls the money. This role is often discovered too late. A team agrees that the product is valuable, but nobody knows which budget should fund it. Innovation pays for the pilot, while operations would need to pay for the contract. Marketing benefits from the data, but IT owns the platform. If the budget source is unclear, the opportunity is not qualified.
The hidden roles
Four roles form the core map, but enterprise SportsTech sales often include three additional forces:
Blockers: IT, legal, procurement, security or data protection.
Beneficiaries: teams that gain value without using the product directly.
Influencers: trusted advisers, league partners, investors or existing vendors.
These roles do not all need separate messaging. They do need to be visible.
Map a live opportunity, not an imaginary account
Do not create a generic organisation chart. Start with one live account. For each person, record:
Role and function.
What outcome they care about.
What risk they perceive.
What evidence they need.
Their influence over the decision.
Their next action.
Then ask five uncomfortable questions.
1. Who feels the cost of the current problem?
The person with the most pain is not always the user. A commercial director may feel missed revenue while a CRM manager experiences the manual work.
2. Who can make this a priority?
Budget does not move because a problem exists. It moves because someone gives the problem priority relative to everything else.
3. Where does the money come from?
Name the budget, its owner and its timing. “The club” is not a budget.
4. Who can quietly stop the project?
Many deals do not receive a formal no. They disappear in security reviews, data questions or internal handovers.
5. What happens after a successful pilot?
If the pilot sponsor and renewal buyer are different people, involve both before the pilot begins.
The same message will not work for everyone
The same product should not be presented in the same way to everyone. For a user, lead with the workflow: less manual work, faster analysis, clearer decisions. For a champion, lead with change: why the organisation can implement this now and how they can build internal support. For a decision-maker, lead with outcomes, risk and strategic fit.
For a budget owner, lead with the economic case, the cost of the current approach and the size of the commitment. This is not about inventing four value propositions. It is about expressing one value proposition through four relevant lenses.
How to use the map in discovery
Ask questions that expose the process without making the conversation feel like an interrogation:
Who else is affected when this happens?
Who would need to support a change?
Which team normally pays for this kind of solution?
What would need to be true for this to become a priority?
Has the organisation bought something similar before?
What usually slows a decision like this down?
If a pilot worked, who would approve the next step?
Do not wait until the proposal to ask these questions.
What I would check in the next sales call
Take your five most active opportunities and map the roles. If you only know the user, the next step is not another demo. It is stakeholder discovery. If you have a champion but no budget owner, build the economic case together. If innovation owns the pilot but operations must own renewal, bring operations into the design now.
If the decision process remains invisible, reduce the probability you assign to the deal. A pipeline is not just a list of interested organisations. It is a set of buying processes you understand well enough to move forward.
Where a good deal often stalls
Consider a fan-engagement tool introduced by the digital team. The user wants better campaign data and the champion wants to modernise the fan experience. But the decision-maker is protecting a wider CRM programme and the budget owner sees the tool as an optional marketing expense. More enthusiasm from the digital team will not solve that gap. The founder needs a different commercial case and probably a different conversation.
Use this on one live deal
Write four names beside the opportunity: user, champion, decision-maker and budget owner. If you cannot name someone, turn that gap into the next question you ask. Do not let “they” remain a stakeholder in the CRM.
I publish Building SportsTech for founders trying to turn good products into buying decisions. If you need help untangling a live buyer map or stalled pipeline, GTM Sports is here: GTM Sports.