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Sports and sporting events are deeply embedded in American culture — from neighborhood recreational baseball practice to pro sports championships, we are a nation of players and fans. Because of this, sports are a big driver of our economy. In 2023, Americans took a record 204.9 million trips related to sporting events, contributing $52.2 billion in direct spending, 757,600 jobs, and $20.1 billion in tax revenues.
However, the specter of terrorism and other disruptions that threaten the security of sports venues, players, and fans, can rob us of both the joy and prosperity of sport, which is why we must employ the most advanced protections and safety protocols.
Protecting sports franchises, team members, fans, and venues can be a challenge, given the wide range of threat vectors such as physical assaults, cyber stalking, doxing, credential theft, impersonation, extortion, and reputation damage. Online threats can come from a variety of sources, including news outlets, social media, message boards, and the dark web.
According to the Hetherington Group, “Just as in other industries, the threats to security in the sports sector are now technologically sophisticated and methodical. Often, bad actors leave abundant evidence of their harmful intent over many weeks, months, even years via social media, chat rooms, and the dark web. They activate misinformation campaigns, obtain personal identifiable information (PII) about athletes, referees and team executives and dox their residential addresses, the schools and colleges the sports figures’ children attend and the work addresses of spouses, using information obtained from public databases.”
In response to these threats, there is a need for a broad understanding of threat actors and hacker groups and their potential actions, as well as the context of these threat actors and their motivations.
Open source intelligence (OSINT) — the outcome of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information from public sources to help inform decision-making — is playing a key role in mitigating risks. It does this by providing insights into potential threats, such as planned attacks, protests, or disturbances, and can even help aid and inform brand and player reputation management efforts.
Sport leagues and venues have recognized the importance of early and comprehensive monitoring, as well as having detailed, real-time data to guide best-in-class security operations.
OSINT provides an additional measure of threat protection beyond physical security. Specific benefits include:
1. Proactive Threat Monitoring: Using OSINT, organizations can track known threat actors and monitor keyword-based threats related to sporting events. This allows security teams to get ahead of potential issues and take preventative action before incidents occur.
2. Expanded Threat Actor Mapping: Venue security teams can expand their knowledge of threat groups and individuals that may target sporting events, with pre-collected data at-the-ready in the wake of major events and unfolding news stories. This should include social media network mapping as a means to uncover potential threat actors and topics.
This deeper understanding of the threat landscape enables more comprehensive monitoring and mitigation strategies.
3. Real-Time Threat Detection: Today’s advanced OSINT solutions can rapidly identify and triage online discussions, social media posts, and other open-source indicators that may signal emerging threats to the event, players, management and/or attendees.
4. Seamless Integration: OSINT solutions are easily integrated with existing venue security systems and workflows, allowing security teams to leverage the threat intelligence within their established processes and protocols, and in concert with law enforcement and federal agencies, enhancing overall security posture to better protect sports fans, players, and VIPs attending major events.
Open source intelligence provides an additional measure of threat protection beyond physical security that can help venue security teams expand their knowledge of threat groups and individuals targeting sporting events – both by tapping pre-collected and real-time data insights. This deeper understanding of the threat landscape supports more comprehensive monitoring and mitigation strategies, crucial to protect our sporting life and the economic livelihood of the industry.
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