Most loyalty programs are built around a visit. A swipe at the till, a hotel stay, a flight. But what happens when almost none of your most loyal customers ever show up in person?
That is the reality for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Jeremy Halek, Vice President of Consumer Marketing for the Cavs, puts it plainly: 99% of the team’s fans will never set foot in the arena.
On November 10, Jeremy takes the stage at The BIG Handshake Loyalty™ Chicago alongside Yosef Peterseil, Co-Founder and COO of Blings, to share how the team keeps those fans engaged all season long and year-round. We sat down with Jeremy ahead of the event.
Loyalty Without a Ticket
For most sports teams, success is measured in seats. Jeremy sees it differently. “We have a very passionate fan base,” he says. “We have an amazing product that’s really engaging. And 99% of our fans will never set foot in the arena.”
That changes how the team markets. If the arena isn’t where most fans live, then the inbox, the phone, and the screen are. “Digital marketing, digital engagement is extremely important,” Jeremy explains, “not just during the season, but all year long.”
It’s a lesson that stretches far past basketball. Think of a bank customer who never visits a branch, or a shopper who only buys online. The relationship still matters. It just happens somewhere else.
Messages Fans Actually Want to Open
Jeremy’s answer to the 99% challenge is relevance. Not the mass email that goes to everyone, but messages built around what each fan cares about.
“Messaging that people care about, that they want to open, they want to react to,” he says. “That’s not just a mass send. It’s actually talking about what they’re interested in, what they’re engaged in, or around their preferences.”
The Cavs use dynamic content and personalized video to make this happen. When a message reflects a fan’s own habits and interests, the fan pays attention. That attention does more than lift open rates. Jeremy says it builds awareness of the team’s products and services, and creates more value for each fan in the end.
Spotify figured this out years ago. Wrapped works because it feels like it was made just for you. It also gets shared by millions, turning personal data into free marketing.
Measuring What Matters
So how do you measure loyalty from people you never see? “We measure any way we can,” Jeremy says. That starts with the basics, like opens and clicks. But the Cavs are now tracking something deeper: how long fans actually spend with each message.
This is where personalized video has made a real difference. Jeremy says it has helped the team keep fans engaged for longer.
Engagement also has a bigger job than selling tickets. Jeremy wants to build platforms fans enjoy, which in turn create value for the team’s partners and sponsors. The Cavs Rewards program is one example, giving fans a way to get closer to the players and the sport they love.
“We’re really just trying to understand all the touch points they’re giving us and react to them,” he says. Sometimes that means offering a product a fan might want. Other times it means using those signals to serve up the content they want to watch.
Two Ideas That Became Hits
The session with Yosef reveals how Jeremy’s team approaches innovation. They start by finding a real problem, then test unconventional ideas before scaling them up.
From there, the pair will walk through two things the Cavs actually built:
- A personalized season summary for each fan, created from data the team already had.
- A quiz that matches fans to Cavs players based on their answers. It turned into one of the team’s most shared pieces of content.
Jeremy and Yosef will also show real examples of the personalized videos on stage, so attendees can see exactly what Cavs fans receive and how the concept comes to life.
The pair will be open about what worked, what didn’t, and what it took inside the organization to get these projects out the door. That kind of candour is exactly what The BIG Handshake Loyalty is built for.
Why This Matters for Every Loyalty Leader
You don’t need a basketball team to learn from the Cavs. Every brand has customers who love it from a distance. They don’t visit often, but they still care.
A few lessons stand out:
- Use the data you already have. The season summary came from existing fan data, not a new collection effort.
- Make it personal and shareable. Like the Cavs quiz, the best content turns a customer into a promoter.
- Measure attention, not just clicks. Time spent with a message tells you more than whether it was opened.
- Think year-round. Loyalty does not take an off-season just because your busy period ends.
Starbucks shows what recognition looks like at the counter. The Cavs show what it looks like when the counter isn’t part of the picture at all.
Join Us In Chicago
Jeremy Halek and Yosef Peterseil present at The BIG Handshake Loyalty Chicago on November 10 at the Omni Chicago. The event brings brand-side loyalty leaders together for candid, peer-to-peer conversation, with no sales pitches. Brand-side attendees join for free. Register Here. Choose ‘NALA member’ option.
