Team Up!
At any time, let's sport together
Market analysis
Competitors
The concept we want to launch will compete with several actors on the market, active in different fields and sports. In order to position ourselves later in the marketing strategy, it is important to analyse our competitors as regards their practice and their target market.
When looking at the schedule of most sport clubs in Belgium, it can be noticed that there is a lack of flexibility. In general, for sports that can be learned alone and do not involve a team, flexible schedules are possible. For sports that involve learning and training with a team, such flexible schedules do not exist.
We can depict two main competitors as regards flexibility.
The first one is fitness centres. They give full access to their infrastructure with attractive schedule (open in average from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m.) and attractive prices.
Price is the biggest advantage of some fitness centres and for others, the biggest threat. In fact, since some entrepreneurs turn sport into business, like Basic Fit for instance, very low prices are proposed on the market. It leads to situations where one centre offers €20 for a monthly subscription, while the smaller competitors cannot offer lower prices than €30 for the same subscription.
However, whatever the size, they drastically lack family atmosphere. It is more impersonal and does not encourage meeting people or sharing. In fact, fitness centres concern individual sports or sports that can be done in group, like dancing, but never collective sports.
The targeted market consists of adults who run after time. In fact, in general, they join a fitness centre because they want to practice sport alone, quickly, to stay in good health.
The second one is tennis clubs. Tennis is a very popular sport in Belgium, the offer is thus wide and can suit everybody’s schedule. Those clubs offer individual lessons or small group lessons for all ages that can be taken at any time in the day and in the week. Regarding the price, they charge on average 18€ per hour per person if they are at least 2 participants or on average 30€ per hour per person.
As regards the atmosphere, tennis clubs create a real family and friendly atmosphere thanks to regular meetings and participation in events. Sometimes, they even own/rent a place where the members can meet and discuss.
As regards their targets, they cover the entire population: children, teenagers and adults.
Flexibility offers
Connection offers
For most sports, it is not possible to practice or to play alone. In Belgium, platforms that help people find a sport ‘’buddy’’ are quite rare and not very popular.
Here are some of them:
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Need Sporty is a platform available for smartphones that help people find other sportspeople around them and for any sports. Despite its small success in France, in Belgium, there are very few subscribers.
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MooveNow is also a platform that will be available for smartphones and tablets. A user will be able to manage its sport schedule through the app, participate in events, find a partner or teammates, organise matches and tournaments and post pictures and videos. To sum up, it will be a social media for sport. It will be available in Belgium but it is impossible to affirm whether it will be a success or not.
Another way to find a partner is through ‘’Quefaire.be’’ as a classified ad, or through groups on Facebook but it is more being used for running and cycling.
To conclude, in Belgium, platforms that help bring people together to do sport are not well-developed yet, or not in a structured way.
Sport field renting offers
When it comes to sport field renting, two types of establishments exist: subsidised establishments and private institutions. In general, they have limited renting possibilities for private individuals because they represent an uncertain revenue source.
The prices and availabilities depend on the type of establishment and on the type of sport. As a matter of fact, some sports require bigger infrastructures, more maintenance of the field, longer periods of renting, etc. It is quite obvious that renting a basketball court will cost less on average than renting a football pitch for example.
Subsidised establishments
Those are mainly sports complexes that are affiliated to communitarian or communal institutions. Their facilities are thus often subsidised by the government to promote sport among all the different layers of the population. To do so, they offer many infrastructures and many course opportunities at relatively low prices.
During school period, they mainly accommodate several clubs that do not own their own facilities, school trips or people that want to practice individual sports at reasonable prices. During school holidays, there are many opportunities to attend sport training courses. But for either periods, they mostly target children.
Public establishments in fact also offer possibilities to rent their infrastructures when they are not being used. Prices will often also be higher if you register as a private individual (in comparison to a club). And eventually, booking a sport field will cost more on average outside of usual hours. It is thus more expensive for people who work late for example.
Examples of such establishments are The ADEPS and the BLOSO who own several sport centres all over the country, or communal sport centres.
Private establishments
Private establishments often own several sport fields and other facilities. Some of them receive subsidies from the government, some other don’t, but in both cases their ownership involves higher costs and prices.
The first kind is high-level sport clubs that require a training or a game field on a really regular basis. Some of them are willing to let other people use their sport fields outside of their training or game sessions. That will thus obviously involve a renting cost, which will match the quality of the infrastructure, but also time constraints in terms of availability. This is the case of some footballs clubs.
Some other sport centres are dedicated to wealthier layers of the population. Beside sport infrastructures, they offer many other services such as restaurants, massages, saunas, etc.
Their offers in terms of renting are quite limited as they often only apply to people who own a membership for the entire complex, which is often highly expensive. David Lloyd or Aspria can be held as examples.