SGMA Numbers.. What is behind the numbers?

Up Up and Away

PART I 

The Sporting Goods Manufacturing Associations annual Sports Participation Numbers came out recently. This is the data that shows the growth of sports often year over year and current year vs. decade growth. 

This data is most useful in staff meetings and cocktail parties—should you have  friends that are interested that “roller hockey is down 65.3 percent”.

But in some ways, cocktail parties are actually the reason why this data is skewed any way.  See, anyone at a July 4^th party who sticks their toe in a Pool or the Ocean checks “swimmer” on the survey and now swimming is the most popular sport in the country. 

Have you been to your local gym? —Compare the amount of people on the Elliptical (up 7.3 million in the decade).

Speaking of the Elliptical, it seems that Americans are fascinated by things that go up and down vs. across.

We are always fascinated by growth and numbers that go up.   Example is that Triathlon participation is up 63.7 % vs. the prior year. 

And things that go down also fascinate us; the darling of sports lifestyle, skate boarding, is down 30.9 %.

Anything going “across is down”; roller-skating, jet skiing, football, water skiing are all significantly down.

But with this report, people seem to be actually interested in things that literally go up vs. across.   “Cheerleading”—fueled in part by airtime on ESPN, competitions, savvy footwear and equipment marketing and the pop culture aspects of Bring it On and even Glee, has promoted this niche.

While I have been a bit sarcastic in writing this, that is actually the point.  The SGMA numbers are exactly that.  They are driven by the “Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association” and are often in line with the sales of sporting Equipment.

And if you are going to take an insight from this report, it is exactly that.  Here is the real headline, Sports with low equipment instances are growing. 

·        Gym Participation is booming.  Ironically why?  Because you don’t have to buy any sporting good equipment.  The gym has it all for you including the high growth Elliptical and now the hottest trend TRX

·        Similarly is the surge of Yoga—up 23% according to SGMA but up a billion percent for anyone who has tried getting into a Boston Yoga Class.  Again, no equipment.

·        Also fascinating is the (not measured) growth of at home workouts such as P90X and Insanity.  P90X, the infomercial fueled 90 day workout routine—which I have done and is fun, effective and grueling all at the same time—does require one piece of equipment. A DVD Player.  Maybe I should get Best Buy’s Data instead of SGMA?  Actually, P90X does require weights, a mat, training shoes and sometimes a pull up bar—the later selling very well at Dick’s Sporting Goods

·        Similarly, the rage of “Cross-Fit” Center across the country—recently aligning with Reebok—is evidence of this as well. No equipment purchase, we have it all here mentality