To mark 50 years of Athletic Business, we polled hundreds of readers from each of our main vertical markets — college athletics, college recreation, community recreation, high school athletics, health and fitness, aquatics and architecture — to gauge the current state of the industry. What follows is a comprehensive analysis of our readers’ perspectives on the verticals they serve. To begin, we asked each of these groups about their operating budgets and deferred maintenance. Despite finding consensus on several topics, the budgetary changes across these verticals varied greatly. Respondents found far greater common ground when describing their deferred maintenance status, with a clear majority reporting less than $2 million of maintenance to be completed at their facilities.
Find your industry segment in the following pages — or get the lay of the land from your colleagues across other industries — to compare your experiences to those of other loyal AB readers. From fan behavior and emerging sports to renovations and staffing challenges, there is no shortage of topics to dive into.
Health clubs are booming! More than 60% of survey takers report profitable or strongly profitable financial performance over the past five years, while concurrently reporting unchanged membership pricing (58%) in the past two years. Club owners’ survey responses indicate low levels of deferred maintenance and stable staffing levels, and more than 50% report an active member base that visits the facility more than eight times per month. Despite client demographics that lean heavily Millennial and Gen Z, wearables and virtual fitness were not a focus for 62% of respondents, but home fitness technology is still on club owners’ radars, with 24% citing at-home fitness tech option as the largest competitive threat to their facility.
