As the ways in which people choose to participate in sport change over time, alongside wider changes in consumer behaviour, governing bodies, like retailers, are evolving in order to sustain participation levels and to attract new people to their sport.
As if the challenges of sustaining or growing participation in the context of a cost of living crisis and increased pressure of people’s time weren’t enough, many governing bodies are dealing with the reality of a large amount of engagement with their sport happening outside of the formal structures of affiliated activity.
This can be problematic for sports, particularly when national funding is also attached to the promise of participation growth.
For governing bodies like Basketball England (BE), with memberships in the tens of thousands but participation in the hundreds of thousands, the ability to influence participation and then prove that impact is key to both developing the sport, and securing its financial future.
When BE entered into partnership with Birmingham City Council, Sport Birmingham and Sport England to develop 17 courts across the city as part of a Commonwealth Games legacy program, they decided to work with ActiveXchange and employ the latest technological advancements in order to deepen understanding, prove impact, attract investment and direct future strategy.
By using Activexchange’s Movement Data Module, BE has been able to passively monitor activity across all sites, back to Jan 2022, with hourly data available. This has enabled the establishment of benchmarks, relative comparisons of performance across sites, as well laying the foundations for impact assessment of the capital investment to improve the sites.
However, this hasn’t been the limit of their ambitions. By accessing ActiveXchange’s Advanced Movement Report functions, BE has been able to dive much deeper into participation habits on those sites, as well as learning for the first time so much more about the communities who are accessing those free-to-play, informal activity spaces.
For each site, BE is armed with detailed information regarding the demographic and socio-economic profile of the people who are playing basketball on any court of interest through our Community Reach Module. They are now able to talk about the social value of their work by providing objective evidence of participation from priority communities and, in particular, evidencing engagement with people from areas of inequality.
They can monitor this over time, providing them with a unique method of (hopefully) demonstrating a growth in engagement with those communities they are most interested in engaging with, illustrating the shifting trends of the demographics of participants based on their development and outreach work.
Not limited to focusing on social value, BE will also be unlocking the commercial value of those sites through the application of our PartnerMatch Module, powered by participant information derived from the Advanced Movement Reports.
This module harnesses ActiveXchange’s partnership with Experian, using their Mosaic market segmentation data to place each site visitor into a consumer household segment (persona). This information is then used to provide insights on the types of people a sponsor, brand, or advertiser could reach more efficiently compared to other sites and the general population.
This enables BE to identify the specific brands and brand categories their visitors align with, paving the way for evidence-led engagement with consumer brands and unlocking additional site-based (or whole project) advertising and sponsorship. On behalf of our growing UK network, ActiveXchange also proactively brings relevant brands to the table to help forge connections with sports bodies and recreation facilities.
We’re extremely proud to be leading the way in digital innovation with progressive sports like BE, helping them to unlock the value of their own assets, prove their social impact, and secure the financial future of the sport.
Know where, when and how your community comes together
Evidence who you are reaching and benefiting
Targeted sponsorship and advertising revenue opportunities
