Are Sports Dying?

Happy Friday and a quick post to celebrate it.

Sports attendance is down. Mass layoffs at ESPN. Teams are unwatchable due to tanking and the good teams' fans are getting complacent with winning every year. Less social media engagement. So what is happening? Is every sport dying when youth sports are a multi-billion dollar business? 

Hardly, it's rather an inability to get people into the seats and keep engagement. Too many commercials, not enough advertising before the game, and high prices force the fans into a "meh" environment. The people running advertising never played and the corporate board is 60+ years old with the focus on profits with a mature company mindset. That is a recipe for disaster.

Every team should be partnering with the youth programs. Look at elite travel baseball. These organizations have 5-6 teams each age group from 9-18. Assume this: 5 teams an age level with $3,500 a kid to play. 12 kids a team. That is $2.1MM of revenue and these teams only have to pay for a facility and jerseys since parents handle hotel expenses! Oh, and this organization is in 5 different states and there are hundreds to thousands of programs across the country like this. Now repeat for AAU basketball, club soccer, etc. and you will find parents could spend $10-12k for a 2-sport travel player per year. 

The money and engagement is there. It is all about pricing them into the picture rather than pricing them out while keeping their engagement high. Easier said than done...

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