Why Curiosity Comes Before the Data

What if the answers to a club's biggest commercial questions are already sitting in its own data? Ticketing, retail, hospitality, sponsorship and digital each gather it every day, yet much of it stays in the department that collected it.

In this episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets, host Clare Kenny sits down with Will Follis, Commercial Insights Manager at Crystal Palace Football Club and one of SIG NextGen's '30 Under 30'. Will took a route into football that few would plan. He went from youth football and coaching badges to degrees in psychology and sports psychology, then a part-time PhD alongside a job in investment management. He gave up both to focus on what he did best, which led him through consumer research and YouGov Sport to Selhurst Park.

Clare and Will met at the Football BlackBook Let's Get Engaged event at Millwall, where one theme ran through the whole day: data, and what clubs do with it. This conversation picks up that thread. Will explains how Palace has used its FA Cup win and European run to push harder commercially, why the club wants to grow revenue while keeping fans at the heart of every decision, and how insight will shape the new Main Stand at Selhurst Park.

They also talk about segmentation and the fans who surprised the club most. Some supporters follow more than one team, and some engage mostly through digital channels and retail, rarely coming to a match. Will shares why sending fewer, better messages matters more than filling inboxes, why AI should make a club more human, and why he still listens to fans in the stands as closely as he reads any survey.

In this episode, we cover:

• From psychology to Palace: How Will's unusual path through academia, finance and market research shaped the curious mindset he brings to the club.
• Outside in, inside out: What changed when Will moved from advising clubs and federations at YouGov Sport to delivering results inside a club.
• Building on success: How the FA Cup win and European football have given Palace a global platform, and why the club wants to act on it now.
• Segmentation in practice: Rolling out fan segments across every department, and what the data revealed about multi-club fans and digital-first supporters.
• Personalisation and AI: Using the club's customer data platform to send messages that matter, and why AI should free staff to think rather than replace them.
• Curiosity and gut instinct: Why every good business case starts with a question, and how data then gives it weight.