New Dashboard Enhances US Sports Participation Data
By: Sports, Fitness Industry Association, Sfia
Tags: Trends, Dashboard, Sports, Data, Fitness

Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS) is excited to offer a new interactive dashboard tool to enhance its 2020 US sports participation data, produced on behalf of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA). The essential data for the industry comes from the Physical Activity Council of which SFIA is a founding partner. The study has been referred to as “the gold standard in sports participation” by ESPN.

The dashboard is targeted at retailers, brands and federations who purchase multiple sports reports and wish to more quickly and flexibly compare findings across those sports.

This powerful new online tool will allow users to compare at a glance the participation trends across multiple sports and activities. Views compare sports on a topline basis, as well as within demographic sub-categories, making it easier, for example, to analyse sports participation among women aged under 35, or among those who earn over $50,000. The tool shows the last five years of data, making it easy to see which sports and activities are growing fastest among particular groups of participants.

Toggles will allow buyers to switch specific sports and activities on and off to create fully customised views in a matter of seconds.

Users can also export a particular view in excel or jpg format for easy inclusion in marketing plans, strategy discussions and reports.

The project is a collaboration between SMS and Culture of Insight (COI), who have produced insightful dashboards in tandem with SMS across a range of projects. One such dashboard reports on The Bicycle Association Cycling Market Data Service, powered by SMS, a tool which provides model level granularity on over 700,000 SKUS across the UK cycling industry.

Keith Storey, President of SMS USA, who oversaw the launch of the new dashboard, commented. “The participation data is the definitive source of information on sports and fitness participation in 89 sports across the US. We work closely with our clients to help them understand, and more importantly, use the data to create meaningful change at their organisation. We’ve developed the dashboard for and with those businesses that rely on multiple single sport reports to make key decisions on areas like product design, facility installation and inventory control across categories. This tool makes it quicker and easier than ever to drill down into the data and based on early feedback, we know that this is already benefitting users.”

The dashboard is an additional service at extra cost, and is sold separately from the single sports reports which are available via the SFIA website and the SMS research store.

The single sport reports are produced annually by SMS on behalf of the SFIA. They are based on interviews with 18,000 households across the United States, and provide the most complete picture of sports participation split by play frequency, age, gender, and socioeconomic background.

For more information on SMS, the Single Sport Reports, or the dashboard, or to understand how research can benefit your business, please contact Keith.storey@sportsmarketingsurveysusa.com