New Sport Launch Playbook
Planning Resources for Athletic and Enrollment Leaders
Higher education institutions, seeking to grow revenue and enrollment, are picking up the pace of new sport launches. Unfortunately, new market pressures are making launches riskier—and more challenging—than ever.
To avoid profitless growth and pursuits that are misaligned with institutional priorities and student interest, colleges and universities must bring new rigor to the launch process by considering market demand and concentration when assessing sports.
The following tools will help institutions ground proposals in market realities and embed demand validation in the launch process.
- Supply-Demand Opportunity Maps: Compare the change in student-athlete participation to the change in the number of teams that institutions sponsor to identify to identify enrollment growth opportunities based on demand and concentration.
- High School Sport Participation Snapshots: Validate demand upstream at the high school level to narrow in on new sport possibilities based on regional reach.
- New Sport Feasibility Guide: After validating student-athlete demand complete this readiness assessment to determine whether your institution is prepared to launch a new sport based on conference alignment, financial implications, as well as personnel and facilities considerations.
- Sport-Specific Budget Template: Forecast the financial impact of starting and sustaining a new sport and pinpoint hidden cost centers within the athletics budget.
Supply-Demand Opportunity Maps
Using the tool
Before launching a new sport, institutional leaders benefit from insight into where student-athlete participation is out-of-sync with team sponsorship trends. By visualizing the relationship between demand (participation) and supply (sponsorship), athletic directors can show enrollment managers the growth potential of new sports by identifying opportunities where launching a sport can fill gaps in supply before the market becomes too saturated. Teal sports in the upper quadrants likely present more promising growth opportunities based on demand. Use Tool 2 to validate the opportunity at the high school level.
High School Sport Participation State Snapshots
Using the tool
High school participation reached an all-time high of nearly 8.1 million students competing in the 2023-24 academic year. Participation increased among both girls and boys for the second consecutive year since the pandemic, strengthening the recruitment pipeline of future college student-athletes. The following snapshots for each state include analyses of the top boys and girls sports by participation; short- and long-term changes in all reported sports; and trajectories for the biggest, fastest-growing, and fastest-declining sports for boys and girls.
These snapshots have been designed to highlight the trends specific to your region and the states where you target recruitment efforts to facilitate forward-looking discussions and strategy at your institution. Explore our profiles and a sample report page at the links below.
Download the state snapshots
Click on your state below to explore our profiles highlighting trends by region. Note: The playbook omits data from Delaware due to reporting inconsistencies. It will be updated when new data is reported.
New Sport Feasibility Guide
Using the tool
After validating prospective student-athlete demand (see Tool 2), use the following reflection guide to determine whether your institution is ready to launch a new sport. Answer the questions for each potential new team. Use this guide in conjunction with the sport-specific budget template (Tool 4).
Sport-Specific Budget Template
Using the tool
The budget template can be used to forecast the financial impact of a new sport. It should be used in conjunction with Tool 3 to validate the ability to start and sustain a new sport. Outside of the launch process, this tool also can be used to pinpoint hidden cost centers within the athletics budget. Work with leaders across units to fill out expected enrollment, revenues, and direct and indirect costs .
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