260 / 493
6 East Monroe Street
|
Fifth Floor
|
Chicago, Illinois 60603
|
Phone: 312.447.2010
|
Fax: 312.444.1125
www.chjc.comSection 7: Recommendations | May 2017
Sports Market Business Strategy – Morgan Hill, CA
PAGE 106
growth. A regional director can help unify the marketing efforts of the City to attract larger events, including
sports and non-sports.
Additionally, understanding the true viability of a sand volleyball complex by commissioning a feasibility
study could lead to the development that could give Morgan Hill a competitive advantage that other sports
tourism destinations in California cannot match. With the growing demand for sand volleyball facilities across
the nation, Morgan Hill could position itself as the premier sand volleyball complex in the west, if not
nationally. Likely users for such as complex could include USA volleyball, AAU teams, the NCAA and high
schools. With low investment and maintenance costs for a sand volleyball complex, Morgan Hill could realize
a return on the investment earlier that more expensive development projects.
Overall, national sports participation has been trending downward since 2007. The specialization of sports at
the youth level has contributed to the decline in overall participation levels. Notwithstanding this,
participation has stabilized somewhat since 2009. Of the sports we analyzed in
Section 6: Industry Trends
,
traditional team sports such as soccer (1.6 percent average annual decline) and football (1.8 percent average
annual decline) continue to decline slightly, but the decline is more gradual. Meanwhile, sports such as
lacrosse (10.3 percent average annual growth) and rugby (11.0 percent average annual growth) continue to
grow on a national level. These trends in overall participation, and the figures presented in Section 6, speak to
the importance of a multipurpose facility. It is critical to design a facility that has the flexibility to adapt to
new events or expand if the market calls for it. Too often, facility design focuses on short-term needs and
once a particular fad goes away the facility is unable to attract enough users to remain successful. There must
be a long-term, multipurpose vision when considering new facility development to protect against changes in
participation levels and shifts in the popularity of particular sports.