Rebuilding the Digital Fan Experience with Modern Customer Identity & Access Management
The modern sports and entertainment landscape is built on fan engagement, requiring a seamless, secure digital experience across ticketing, streaming, merchandise, and club loyalty programs. For one of North America's largest sports and entertainment organizations, this required a robust, centralized Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solution capable of handling millions of identities and complex access rules.
Highlights
KeyData Cyber was called in to lead a critical two-phase migration and modernization project to transition their entire digital customer base to a flexible, future-proof platform.
Challenge
The client was confronted with a critical dual challenge stemming from the sunsetting of their existing Janrain CIAM platform, which necessitated an urgent, large-scale migration to a modern solution to prevent service disruption and maintain continuous security. Crucially, while the new foundational platform provided superior security, it lacked the flexibility required to manage their complex, customized user journeys—ranging from registration and progressive profiling to orchestrating essential data flows with critical business systems like their CRM - meaning the out-of-the-box experience was insufficient to meet their high standards for fan personalization and self-service.
Solution
The project was executed in two strategic phases, resulting in four core deliverables:
Foundational Migration and Core Setup: Our teams successfully executed the stable, bulk migration from Janrain to Ping Identity, including tenant setup (dev/prod), Azure AD SSO for internal staff, and the establishment of custom user data structures (populations, groups, roles) for fan segmentation.
Compliance and App Integration: Immediately established brand-compliant login experiences with configured MFA, implemented a new Privacy Agreement, and set up critical API endpoints for key applications to ensure service continuity and immediate legal compliance.
Advanced User Journey Orchestration: Introduced PingOne DaVinci to build highly flexible, customized user journeys, including a multi-step process for registration and progressive profiling to reduce friction while systematically collecting richer fan data.
System and Authentication Integration: Integrated DaVinci with Salesforce CRM to ensure real-time synchronization of user profiles and consent, configured enhanced authentication (including Apple and Google Sign-In), and deployed self-service features for account recovery and mandatory verification.
Outcomes
Operational Stability: Eliminated critical risk by migrating away from Janrain, securing their CIAM foundation with an industry leader.
Enhanced Security Posture: Mandated Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and implemented modern identity management tools, drastically reducing the risk of account compromise.
Improved Fan Experience: Enabled friction-reduced registration (progressive profiling, social login) and robust self-service options (password recovery), leading to higher login conversion rates.
Flexibility for Growth: The DaVinci implementation provided the tooling necessary to quickly onboard new applications and, in a future phase, will allow the client to easily federate with major partners like Ticketmaster.
By executing a phased approach—first prioritizing migration stability, then introducing advanced orchestration—our client successfully transitioned from a legacy, risk-laden platform to a modern, centralized identity system. They not only solved an urgent security problem but also built the identity-driven perimeter necessary to power future personalized fan engagement and commerce strategies.
