Volume 25 Issue 06: Is Timing Right for a Franchise Model in Golf?
Am I the only person in the industry who has wondered, over my past 25 years of involvement, “Why has there never emerged a serious or sustained attempt at a franchise model in golf, most likely similar to and modeled after our sister hospitality industry?” Building on my June Pellucid Perspective article of gazing into the crystal ball and trying to divine “what comes next and sustains the current growth trend?”, a potential franchise model isn’t an uninteresting question or speculation as I’ll outline in this issue.
Over two decades, colleague Stuart Lindsay and I have been privy to several aspirants in architecting, exploring funding and penciling in the size of the available assets pool but, obviously, none took flight. For validation, several of these weren’t inexperienced, uncapitalized dreamers as one was a former American Golf executive and another having sizeable successful family business assets and operating several (non-branded) golf facilities in Canada already while eyeing the size of the prize in a US “invasion” (ha, ha). Given the breadth and complexity of the topic, and not wanting to give away all our historical, acquired, non-public knowledge, we’ll just tackle the Level 1 elements of the hypothetical business case in this issue:
- What were the historical barriers to a franchise model?
- What’s changed and do those changes help or hurt the franchise model odds?
- What are “table stakes” for anyone trying to exploit the potential for disruption?
While far from a slam dunk, more things are aligned and more leverageable capabilities exist today than 20 years ago. For our subscribers, read on for the “full Monty” while our non-subscribers pause to consider the price/value, risk/reward of joining our merry little band of progressive industry thinkers one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the comprehensive Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr or $45/mo (annual term), subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report & video (75-slide PowerPoint presentation plus online access to Jim/Stuart Orlando presentation video)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for daily/monthly Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard (expanded data and tables underlying this issue’s summary figures)
- Subscribe to OtR, 12 monthly issues for $250/yr or $25/mo (annual term), with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied at any time during your subscription. Subscribers also get access to the historical archive of past issues (last two years) via the members-only section of the Pellucid website
- Subscribe to the Golf Market Research Center (for operators wanting a combination of insights and action tools) – Here’s what’s included in an annual GMRC subscription for either $500 annual or $450 for NGCOA members (or $45/mo or $41/mo respectively):
- Full suite of Performance Tracking reports – Market profile, comparative trends report and 7 KPI scorecard for any month and Year-to-Date for data provided by facility
- Facility-level Cognilogic historical weather impact portal/reports access, Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds by day in current month, by months in current year and by day-of-week in current year with comparisons to Year Ago and the 10-Yr Norm
- Facility-level Foresight 60-day Capacity Rounds forecast, select forecast weather elements (hi/lo temp, daily precip etc.), variance to last year and long-term Normal. Not infallible but better than guessing or trying to collect all that yourself and organize it manually…
- Outside the Ropes monthly e-newsletter (consider this a sample of topics and treatments)
- State of the Industry Presentation, report & video (75-slide PowerPoint presentation plus online access to Jim/Stuart Orlando presentation video)
To learn more:
- Click here for 2-page program overview or
- Click here for 15-minute video demo (you do have to register to see video; don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything)
- Click here to subscribe for a single facility
- Email us for multiple facilities or special situations
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