The SGMA released their study on sports participation trends for 2003 which revealed what many vendors and manufacturers have already been witnessing in their sales numbers. The study takes a very detailed look at nearly every form of sport imaginable, and follows participation, in most cases, from 1987 to 2003. For this study, participants are defined as those who tried the activity at least once in the past year.
Both the Fitness Activity and the Equipment Exercise category showed across the board increases in participation, with only a few exceptions. Low impact aerobics, cardio kickboxing, rowing machines, and XC ski machines all had lower participation numbers. Pilates training was far and away the fastest growing activity, more than doubling in the past year with almost five million new participants. Elliptical motion trainers showed the largest increase in use, but free weights remain the most used piece of equipment, with 51.6 million users. It looks like the industry-wide focus on reducing the obesity rate is already paying off.
Team Sports did not fare quite as well as Fitness Activity, although there were certainly some shining stars. LaCrosse participation grew 22.9%, ice hockey grew 6.8%, and baseball grew 4.6%, all other team sports were relatively flat or down.
Racquet Sports seem to be in the start-up phase of a comeback. After several years of declining participation numbers, Tennis has posted increased activity for its second consecutive year. This year, the sport added just under one million new users, a 5.9% increase.
The Wheeled Sports category continued its decline, with traditional Roller Skating showed the only participation increase in the category, up 7.1%.
Golf lost a half a million participants this year, dipping 1.8%, while Fishing showed gains in every category except Fly Fishing, which remained flat. Winter Sports also showed significant gains in all categories but one. Downhill Skiing dropped off again this year, losing about 600,000 participants; however Snowshoeing and Snowmobiling both showed impressive increases in participation, climbing 23.6% and 22.0% respectively.
The only category to show across the board gains in participation was Outdoor Activities. Of particular note were the increases in Tent Camping (up 3.9%) and Day Hiking (up 6.3%). The OIA has identified these two sports along with Bicycling (up 0.3%) as activities that spur interest in other outdoor pursuits.
Watersports had only one sore spot as well, with very significant gains in Windsurfing (up 57.1%) and Kayaking (up 13.7%), but a decline in Scuba Diving, which was down 3.4%. Canoeing was up 6.4% for the year, the first increase in participation shown since the SGMA started tracking the activity in 1998.
