Data: Facility Saturation

Years ago I recall a panel discussion we had put together with myself, John David (then COO of USA BMX), and Don Schumacher (at the time the Executive Director of the NASC, now SportsETA). We were presenting on sports tourism to over 100 CEOs of tourism bureaus from throughout the Southeast. I covered best and worst practices in sports tourism. You should have seen their faces when they saw my slide on worst practices, I think most of their organizations were doing at least one thing on the list if not more, but I digress.

One question came up that I had heard Don respond to a million times over the years. The question was, “When do you think this facilities arms race is going to end.” Don’s answer was always, “Not in my lifetime.” I’ve held that same belief for years…..

Until now.

Data now shows that the end might be in sight for particular venue types. There may in fact be a saturation point where it’s not sensible to build another tournament quality facility. A “red ocean” situation if you have ever read the best seller by Kim and Mauborgne. So what venue types might be on this precipice? Good question.

I will preface my answer here with two major points. One, what we write below does not take into account regionality. That is, a facility type may be over saturated in one area of the country but underserved in another. Two, our comments here do not have a specific time stamp to them. Is it the 751st tournament ready facility that makes the cards all crash down or the 803rd? We don’t know the exact number or when it will be reached. That said, here we go.

Our event and venue data show that at some point in the future, tournament level flat field sports complexes and diamond sports facilities will hit the saturation point. The data shows that the construction of those facility types (again, with no regionality to it, just the USA in total) is outpacing the number of events that exist to populate them. The industry is developing these facility types faster than events are growing and being created to fill them.

When might this all hit the fan? Not sure honestly. However the gap is growing, and add to that the data on the decline of youth sports participation, particularly in team sports, and Houston we (may) have a problem sooner than we think.

Leaning on the data one last time, just in our Sports Tourism Index™ database, there are over 200 tournament quality diamond facilities (18.4% of all diamond venues). Similarly, there are also over 200 flat field venues that would be classified as best-in-class tournament hosting quality (23.6% of all flat field facilities in the system). That is not all inclusive of all venues across the nation, but it’s a massive and very relevant sample size. This data tells us that if a destination is going to go down the facility development pathway, you have to build out a venue that is better than 80% of America to garner any attention at all. That is a tall task that necessitates a lot of research and planning to get it right.

There is good news. There are other sport types that are underserved from a venue perspective. We can share some of that data next time.

Do your research. Lean on the data. Evaluate the competition. Involve event owners both locally and nationally in any facility project you are thinking about. Their viewpoint matters greatly.