We’ve had more than a few inquiries in the past few months regarding our facts, insights and opinions on the municipal golf sector and its size, growth trends, economic health and comparisons both across geographies and to its public-access, For-profit counterpart. While the historical debate around this topic has always been the argument of whether Munis have an unfair operating edge due to tax advantages and lower money carrying costs, the most recent inbound dialogues are around whether the still-throttled development market (i.e. little available land in desirable locations which is affordable combined with significantly higher borrowing costs now vs. even 5 years ago) will provide a continuing tailwind to existing operators with the best existing locations. As a whole, one of the advantages Munis have always held is that they generally hold older, very desirable land locations that municipalities will neverrelinquish.
I’m going to leave the assessment of the “puts and calls” of that discussion to colleague Stuart Lindsay for a future Pellucid publication because this is one of the ideas he’s been germinating for much of this year and I’m going to stick to answering some of the inbound questions about the size, shape and health of the municipal sector vs. For-profits in this issue:
- What’s our approach? We’ll use our mix of syndicated (the Internet Golf Course Database or IGDB) facility-by-facility facts and combine that with Pellucid proprietary dimensions (course Designated Marketing Area or DMA, Pellucid facility type, estimated ’22 annual Played Rounds and Capacity Rounds) to come up with our comparative analysis between the Muni and For-profit sectors nationally and by DMAs. Dare we say there’s no other entity in golf that can currently do this analysis?
- Muni golf historically has been about 25% of the non-Private supply of facilities in golf and existed primarily in the domain of our Public-Price and the lower half (pricewise) of the Public-Value consumer segments. One of those two facts has changed significantly over the past 10-15 years, in the article I’ll tell you which one and how dramatically it’s shifted
- Muni golf has also historically competed on higher rounds coupled with lower rates and generally producing moderately lower Golf Revenue than their For-profit counterparts. Those facts and “gap” have also changed significantly and in the issue, we’ll look at the metrics of average velocity (annual rounds per 18-hole equivalent), % Utilization and Golf Revenue-per-Available Round (GRevpAR) between Munis and For-profits for year-end ’22 for the “tale of the tape”
I know I often delve into “niche issues” that only apply to a fraction of the golf industry (according to those who have previously declined to subscribe to either our Publications Membership or OtR) but I think I’ve got a pretty strong argument on this issue that it has wide relevance to the majority of you. So…if you want the rest of the story, you can join us for this episode and going forward one of three ways (all of the below also have monthly pay-go options, at a slightly higher annual rate):
- Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr (most comprehensive coverage & detail) – Annual subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter (including this issue for starters!)
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (PowerPoint presentation, PDF commentary report, access to Jim/Stuart video of presentation)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for 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 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 Golf Market Research Center (for operators wanting a combination of insights and action tools) – In addition to an OtR subscription, you’ll get the State of the Industry presentation along with the full suite of Performance Tracking reports and weather impact services (Cognilogic for historical Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rds, Foresight for the 60-day forecast for your facility location for Capacity Rds and daily key weather forecast variables)
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