Knowing what are the most popular sports for children in terms of participation can help rights holders identify and pitch sponsors more effectively

When it comes to selling sponsorship, business development and insights teams will naturally have data on their own organisation to help make their pitch as attractive as possible. However, it often helps to set the scene or provide wider context using third-party data, particularly as this is often seen as more objective and credible by a prospect.

These datasets most often involve interest, participation or attendance of a particular demographic (e.g. children) in a certain activity (e.g. interest in music, playing sports, going to art galleries).

Identifying third-party data sets on these subjects can also help those selling sponsorship prioritise which types of companies to approach.

For example, let’s look at a particularly compelling offering for potential sponsors – reaching children (and their parents) and/or showcasing how a sponsor is involved in encouraging children’s sports.

A great source of data on this subject is Sport England’s Active Lives Survey, which measures people’s activity levels across England.

caytoo analysed their data to find out what are the most popular sports for children aged 5-16 in terms of participation.

As the graphic shows, football (aka soccer), running/athletics, swimming and cycling are the most popular participation sports in England for children (e.g. 40% of kids have played football at least once in the last week).

So, obviously it’s smart for rights holders in these sports to cite this data to prospective sponsors to show how attractive they can potentially be in reaching children e.g. “running/athletics is one of the most effective ways to reach children, and/or identify with them, as nearly 30% of them have taken part in it in the last week.”

This is clearly good news for rights holders in these sports. However, there’s also an opportunity for the sports doing less well in children’s participation.

This is because sponsors like to show how they benefit society, such as through corporate social responsibility (CSR). So it provides an opportunity for rights holders in sports lower down to offer sponsors the opportunity to show how they can increase child participation in a particular sport. For example, a prime target of McDonald’s deal with English soccer’s FA was to give over half a million UK children the chance to play soccer for the first time.

Where the line is drawn between a sport doing well (strong channel to reach children already) and not so well (need to increase participation) is pretty subjective and depends on your point of view and that of the target sponsor.

Take tennis, for example; it’s just outside the Top 10 at 7.8% of children having recently participated. Is this a strong participation story to tell or an opportunity that a sponsor could help dramatically increase? Could it be both? You’ll need to make a judgement call that could be based on other data points used in your pitch.

However, for something like golf (at just 0.4%) the angle to use for potential sponsors is much clearer – a great opportunity to increase child participation in the sport.

Either way, looking at what third-party data sources cover your ‘field’ as a rights holder (e.g. sports, music, the arts) can help signpost which companies to go after.

For example, soccer and running/athletics may decide to focus on companies that target children (through the high reach/participation data angle) while golf rights holders can do the same with the ‘help increase participation’ angle.

It’s all about provide that compelling angle or hook in a pitch to spark a conversation.