’18 National Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard Update Now Available
Pellucid has just released its annual update to the National Consumer Franchise Scorecard which is headlined as a 3rd consecutive year of slowing deceleration. Following the new nomenclature we suggested in the April Outside the Ropes (Players, Golfers, Participants), this count and commentary only covers the Players segment (not practicers-only or golfertainment (TopGolf & clones or simulator golf) exclusives). Pellucid’s figures and analysis are also a “latent demand-free zone”; we’ll leave all the “hope and change” metrics to our friends at the NGF and associated echo chambers.
For the universe of 1+ rounds in the past year, 7+ age group our tale of the tape covers the following metrics:
- Golfers and Participation Rate – Golfers fractionally down (1%), slowing the 5-year Compound Annual Change Rate (CACR) to roughly -2%
- Demographic shifts – We saw losses in the Mid-Career (35-54) and Early Career (18-34) lifestages offset by a slight gain in the Seniors (65+) lifestage. The much-watched Millennial cohort (proxied as 18-34 based on the survey ranges) declined by 2% which outpaced the fractional total golfers loss rate so a continued cause for concern (after they get tired of TopGolf they’ll try the sport of golf, right?). The good news is that the gain in Seniors brings higher frequency so, in the short-term, we’ll trade Millennials for Seniors but that will come back to haunt those of us still in the industry in 5-7 years if the pattern continues
- Involvement Level of Golfers – For the third consecutive year, we saw erosion in the Committed golfer group (40+ rds/yr, likely trading down to Involved frequency vs. leaving the game) offset by an increase in Singles. This is a case where the rounds math works against us. We don’t know if the increase in Singles is new golfers or existing golfers downshifting from Casuals (2-9 rds/yr). The consumer survey-based frequency remained steady so that’s encouraging
- 2020 projections for the golfer base size – The softening in the rate of golfer decline adjusts our 2020 projection upward slightly changing our projection that, on current trend, we’ll be sub-20M golfers in 2020 unless virtual golf and the various latent demand theories produce some significant number of real feet across real grass (new target/tagline for the failed 20/20 initiative, “fight to keep the golfer base above 20M by 2020”)
includes the following facts:
- Core metrics of # of golfers, Participation Rate, Frequency Rate and Play Rate (rds/capita/yr) for ’18, change vs. ’17 (# and %) and 5-yr trend figure
- Involvement groups, size, change and share of total golfers for ’18, comparison to ’17 and 5-yr trend figure
- Demographics, # of golfers, Frequency Rate, Play Rate for ’18 vs. ’17 and 5-yr trend broken out by:
- Gender – male vs. female comparisons
- Age – 8 age groups and 5 summary groups (Juniors, Early Career, Mid-Career, Late Career, Seniors)
- Income – 7 income groups and 3 summary groups (<$35K, $35-$75K, $75K+)
There are two ways to order the industry’s definitive consumer franchise accounting:
- Become a <a href=”https://www.pellucidcorp.com/online-store/category/4-pellucid-publications-membership”>Pellucid Publications Member</a> ($495/yr, 40% discount vs. purchasing separately) – PPM comes in two varieties, National and Local; subscribers receive all Pellucid publications as part of their annual membership. The May OtR will provide the detailed color commentary analyzing the Consumer Franchise results so this is the perfect complement to the individual report and also includes:
- Outside the Ropes (OtR) newsletter (in both versions)
- State of the Industry (in both versions)
- Weather Impact Analysis
- PPM: Geographic (Nat’l/Reg’l/Mkts) Weather Impact Tracking
- PPM-Local: Cognilogic web-based weather impact, annual user license (facility-level Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds, from yesterday to 10-yr Norm)
- Market Analysis/Health Ranking
- PPM: Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and Health Ranking
- PPM-Local: Golf Local Market Analysis, data workbook (8-dimensional profile of 3 draw areas around the facility including demographics, # of golfers, participation/frequency/play rate, Rounds Potential Indices (Income, Age, Ethnicity), Supply/Demand balance, Supply distribution, Rounds demand and Velocity (rounds per 18-hole equivalent) by Pellucid 5 facility types
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard; consumer base size, demographics, involvement groups, churn rate, projections for 2020 etc. (in both versions)
- Purchase the National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard via our website ($199) – Excel workbook of 4 worksheets as outlined above
For those interested in a sample of the report, you can use the Register Here for Excel Workbook Sample button on our product information page at this address [https://www.pellucidcorp.com/reports/national-golf-consumer-franchise-health-scorecard] and we’ll send it along for your review. You can order any of the above information services via Pellucid’s Online Store.
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
