From Pickleball to Team Sports: Tom Cove on the Latest in Sports Participation Trends
Episode #90
Posted On: April 3, 2023 By :
For years, the Sports & Fitness industry Association has studied which sports people participate in and how often. Perhaps just as important, they also track the number of people who say they don’t participate in anything at all. For professionals in the sports-event industry, there is a tremendous amount of interesting data in the SFIA’s recently released Topline Participation Report, including which individual sports are trending well and which team sports are trending well. If you’re the organizer or a host city of a sports tournament or event, knowing where the interest lies could be the key to a successful future. As you’ll hear, there is no doubting the incredible growth that pickleball has seen not just in the past year but for the past several years. But pickleball is not alone. In fact, all racquet sports are on the upswing, including tennis, which has the largest participation of all. In this conversation between SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz and SFIA President and CEO Tom Cove, we take a deep dive into the organization’s latest report and talk about what sports and trends he’s keeping an eye on next.
Among the topics featured in this episode:
- Methodology behind the Topline Participation Report (3:34)
- Updates on how many people are active in sports (5:52)
- Trends in people who are inactive in any sports (7:30)
- The extraordinary growth of pickleball over the past three years (9:54)
- Examples of the pickleball market maturing (12:42)
- How racquet sports in general are seeing increased participation (15:00)
- Trends in team sport participation (17:08)
- Has team sport participation returned to pre-pandemic levels? (19:07)
- How the pandemic has changed habits related to sports participation (20:21)
- Which specific team sports have seen the most growth in the past year (22:15)
- How flag football has increased in visibility (24:53)
- Opportunities that running and track-and-field events may have for growth (25:38)
- How younger runners are choosing to participate (28:42)
- Trends in outdoor winter sports (30:07)
- Overall trends to pull from the report (32:40)
- Candidates for sports that may see major growth in the year ahead (34:42)
- Final thoughts on pickleball and the opportunities for the sport (37:10)
- How to download the full report (38:41)
This episode is sponsored by:
