Feel the Heat

Aside from touchdowns, home runs and photo finishes, a lot is happening in the world of high school sports. With more than 7 million participants, high school athletics is a hot market that's scoring big for entrepreneurs.

"The demographic is compelling: young, influential and impressionable with big spending power and developing brand loyalties," says Jim Kaufman, CEO of Rise, a national teen sports magazine. The market has seen lots of activity recently: a growing number of participants, including female athletes; a move toward mainstream media coverage, with the likes of ESPN, MTV and NBC featuring high school sports programming; the emergence of more national events like all-star games and camps; the increase in networking with sites such as Sportsvite.com and Takkle.com; and the recognition of a wider variety of sports, not just the old classics like football and basketball.

All this serves up opportunity in everything related to high school sports, including injury management, transportation services, apparel, sport- and gender-specific products, recruiting, networking and more. So whatever area you specialize in, you're bound to make the team. 

We asked Kaufman for his top five tips on getting into the game:

•  Understand the high school sports market. For example, female athletes are a growing demographic within the market. And, Kaufman says, sports other than football and basketball (lacrosse and running, for example) are being picked up on a national level and becoming increasingly important for marketers. 
  
•  Raise more money than you need. Whether you've got a popular energy drink, innovative running shoes or a high-traffic scouting website, unknown obstacles can arise and require additional funds ASAP. Says Kaufman, "If your concept works, don't be left out in the cold because you couldn't withstand the storm." 
  
• Avoid fads. Teens will be teens and fads will come and go, so know this audience inside and out, says Kaufman: "Make sure your product [or service] caters to their general interests and tastes but doesn't chase their whims." First understand the core of your business offering and then use market research to support it.
  
• Be prepared. Don't limit yourself with services that are too targeted or products that will become obsolete. "It's much easier to adapt your business model than to adapt consumer demand," says Kaufman. "And thinking through scalability early on will be critical to long-term success." 
  
•  Stay one step ahead of the curve. "It doesn't take long for entrepreneurs to identify untapped markets, and high school sports is no exception," says Kaufman. To get a piece of the action, dig deeper and look ahead to identify the needs within the market that are not currently being met.

Youth Sports Franchises:
Extra Innings
eifranchise.com 

Parisi Speed School
parisischool.com  

Velocity Sports Performance
velocitysp.com 

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