Case Study No. 2: Ongoing Tracking Research in the Sports Industry
Sports is one of our primary areas of research specialization. Both from our work in this area and from our personal interests, we have a strong knowledge and understanding of the sports industry generally, of sports marketing in particular, and of the various issues and developments the industry is wrestling with today.
For our client, a major U.S. sports association, we've conducted an annual tracking study since 2003 to measure and track levels of participation in the sport.
This client came to us with a basic question: How many people in the U.S. play our sport, and how is that participation broken up within our 17 sections throughout the U.S.? The client wanted to be able to look not only at the topline participation figures, but also examine differences based on demographics—for the U.S. overall, at the section level, and at the state level.
We had several meetings with the client to lay out different options for different budgets, as well as the client's expectations for the work. We ended up launching perhaps the largest single-sports study ever undertaken, 25,500 interviews annually.
This measurement examined all current players (divided into continuing, new, and rejoining), former players (divided into lapsed and samplers), and non-players. We also examined the demographic profile of each group (age, ethnicity, household income, and size of home city/town), to provide a roadmap for the sport to develop the right products, programs, and plans to significantly increase participation.
Throughout the process, we've worked with our client to utilize a number of methodologies to provide the most accurate, detailed information possible. Over time, we have addressed budget constraints by utilizing both phone and online interviewing, and have also gathered information to answer key questions with follow-up in-depth interviewing.
Our client uses this information to identify areas of strength and weakness, and to place its resources where they can do the most good. It also publicly releases portions of this data to its members and the media, to keep open a dialog designed to best support the growth of the sport.
