TeamSnap just released a survey confirming that participation in youth sports is a significant time and financial investment for its users throughout the world. They are as the number one web and mobile team and activity management service company we have featured on the Sports Techie community blog. Their insightful research provides insights about investment and communication preferences among parents of young athletes.
TeamSnap User Survey
This new research data and recent user study via TeamSnap confirmed that participating in youth sports requires a major time commitment and financial investment. “This user survey confirmed our other data showing that TeamSnap users are involved in a wide variety of sporting activities,” said Ken McDonald, vice president of Customer Acquisition at TeamSnap.
TeamSnap’s digital application users access their teams using the web browser and TeamSnap’s five-star iOS and Android apps. In order to learn more about user habits, TeamSnap surveyed more than 250 parents, managers and coaches about the amount of time and money spent on youth sports, the range of sports they are involved in and their communication habits.
“Through the survey, we learned that most coaches communicate an update to players and parents two to three times per week through the app. Also, 22 percent of team parents reported spending 15 hours or more on all child team activities each week—this is a huge time commitment for players, coaches and parents,” said McDonald.
TeamSnap mined additional insights into several areas of the youth sport industry, including:
- The highest percentage of respondents reported paying in the range of $3,000 to $5,000 annually for youth sports, and several reported paying as much as $10,000 per year.
- Nearly all users access the TeamSnap application from their computer while 70 percent access it from their mobile devices.
- The most common sport played by its users is soccer at 60 percent of respondents, followed by hockey at 14 percent, baseball at 13.5 percent and basketball at eight percent.
- The most common age bracket is 11 to 13 years old at 40 percent of respondents, followed by 14 to 18 years old and 7 to 10 years old, both at 20 percent.
- The most used features are the Team Schedule and Calendar Syncing features followed by the Email and Text Messaging Functions. The Roster Feature was next.
- A substantial 80 percent of the respondents were team managers or coaches; 54 percent communicate an update to players and parents two to three times a week, 34 percent spend at least 15 hours on all child team activities each week.
“We know our users are busy, so we always strive to learn more about their habits to make their experience as easy and helpful as possible,” said McDonald. “TeamSnap works to expand its service to meet the needs of coaches, parents and players all over the world.”
About TeamSnap
TeamSnap is an award-winning mobile and web service for managing ongoing activities including recreational and competitive sports teams, social groups, and other organizations. With a simple but powerful online interface, TeamSnap makes it easy to keep track of participants, schedules, attendance and availability, payments, statistics and much more. Comprehensive messaging functions keep everyone in touch, and with a strong focus on usability and simplicity, TeamSnap is software that people actually find fun to use.
With enthusiastic customers in 195 countries and teams representing more than 100 different sports and non-sport groups, TeamSnap has quickly become one of the fastest-growing team and group management solutions available.
Sports Techie, Managing anyone’s active lifestyle around the world and here in the United States takes effort but for the best reasons, youth related activities and events take more hard work to manage on a daily basis. It is easy to understand why the number one feature is the team calendar and calendar synching tool because most TeamSnap users rely on the smartphone app to manage their time.
This survey of 250 TeamSnap users sheds light on the growing costs associated with adding recreational activities to a family routine and to adults and children’s busy days, weeks and months. The pool of responders included 95 percent team managers or coaches. Over half communicate an update to player’s and parents 2 to 3 times a week. Almost 20 percent of the kids are under the age of 7. The fact that 15 percent of those surveyed played on coed teams is a good sign of the times. A not so surprising 70 percent access the app data from mobile devices but the finding out that all users did so via a computer is a habit that has now become standard.
Some users spent over $10,000 per year which is mind blowing. I have a five month old who keeps the costs down for now but my brother has 5 highly active kids in his family so spending 3 to 5 k on his Sports Techie clan is almost a yearly guarantee. Being a team parent takes up at least 15 hours or more a week of honorable commitment. Finally, soccer is understandably the most popular sport and crushes the participation level of the next ranked sports of hockey, baseball and basketball. Perhaps some of the reason why is because most queried users hailed from Canada.
I respect that the TeamSnap executive team in Boulder is willing to gather and perform analytics on their user data and offer our community their user insights we face as parents, friends and teammates.
Remember, manage your team with an app, find the right sports tech balance and limit a youth’s screen time to 1-2 hours a day.
I will see ya when I see ya, THE Sports Techie @THESportsTechie – http://twitter.com/THESportsTechie
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