New Sport Launch Playbook
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.
This resource requires EAB partnership access to view.
Access the tool
Learn how you can get access to this resource as well as hands-on support from our experts through Strategic Advisory Services.
Learn More