TeamSnap Survey Reveals Youth Sports Require Heavy Financial Investment and Time Commitment

Nov. 6, 2013 - PRLog -- Boulder, Colo. – Nov. 6, 2013 – TeamSnap, the world’s number one web and mobile team and activity management service, released research today confirming that participating in youth sports requires a major time commitment and financial investment, according to their recent user study.

TeamSnap’s application users access their teams using the web browser and TeamSnap’s five-star iOS (http://www.teamsnap.com/iphone.php) and Android apps (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamsnap.teamsnap&hl=en). 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.

Key findings revealed team managers and coaches rely heavily on smartphones to keep communication flowing freely throughout the week - and with good reason. Nearly 25 percent of respondents have kids participating in four or more sports per year, with the parents often spending 15 hours or more on youth sports activities each week. In addition to the time and communication strains, it’s not cheap. Parents are not afraid to shell out the big bucks to keep their kids involved in multiple sports, with some respondents reporting they pay as much as $10,000 per year.

“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. “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.”

TeamSnap gathered 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 (http://www.teamsnap.com/) 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.