By Octavio Jacobo^*

Benchmark for the golf Media & Industry: “The Hispanic Sports Fan: ESPN's expanded Research efforts yield Cross-Platform Insights”

The golf media, mainly the Golf Channel and the Networks who own the rights to the pro golf tours, the numerous golf magazines, as well as the golf industry as a whole (manufactures, retailers, course operators, pros, etc.) could learn a lesson of ESPN Deportes; the Hispanic-targeted multimedia platform of ESPN.

As Hispanic sports fans have become one of ESPN's most important target audiences, “viewing among Hispanics on ESPN TV has grown by 39 percent; and estimates are that by 2050, Hispanics will account for one-third of U.S. men aged 18-54." "to be sure its efforts are as relevant and engaging as possible, ESPN Research/Analytics has made understanding this audience a top priority".

There is a small Hispanic segment following golf in spite of the lack of focus and investments in the Latino audience/ population. According to ESPN Deportes’, while golf is not among their top 10 sports for the Hispanic Fan base, Hispanics still represent a 1.3% of national golf sport viewing (9th place among other sports). By language preference among Hispanics, Golf is the 7th sport in the English-only sub-segment with a 3% viewership, 8th 2.8% among mostly English, a 0.7%, 10th and 9th place respectively among English-Spanish-equally and Mostly Spanish. In spite of the lack of a Hispanic targeted golf offer, therefore the Hispanic golf audience segment. This segment is English speaking; which is ok since over 70% of the 51 million US Hispanic population speaks English “Well or Very Well”.

This Latino golf viewership, although quite low, exists in spite of a complete lack of effort to understand and to cater to the Latino population. What could be accomplished by putting the required effort, investment and expertise on it?

Other industries, other sports and ESPN are putting big emphasis “on making sure that we were properly representing Hispanics in all our research, especially Spanish-speaking Hispanics", with very positive results. Most other sports are making specific efforts to develop their Latino fan bases. The NFL, NBA, MLS and NASCAR, have very significant and committed undertakings in place.

For ESPN Deportes, NFL, NBA and Boxing are their top three sports by Total Fan Base among Hispanics, with 63%, 62% and 61% respectively. In this segment, MLB is in fifth place with 60% followed by International soccer - the King of Sports amongst Latinos.

*Can golf continue giving other sports the advantage of doing nothing in the Hispanic segment? Can the industry flourish without a representative Hispanic audience and participation?*

While for ESPN "There was a lot of attention to the U.S. Hispanic population in 2011 because of the release of the 2010 Census data, but we'll continue to focus on the Hispanic sports fan for the foreseeable future,” if there was proper research, strategic effort and long-term investment in understanding and providing a relevant golf offering to the Hispanic population, in English, Spanish and/or bilingual, how much could this audience, and their participation in the game increase?

Why are golf media and golf industry still on the sidelines? Why is the development of the Latino market still considered an isolated, second or third-tier strategic market development priority?

Benchmark for the golf Media & Industry: “The Hispanic Sports Fan: ESPN's expanded Research efforts yield Cross-Platform Insights” http://bit.ly/wp5oRH

Discuss this article and read my commentary at the Hispa Golf USA group http://linkd.in/Adr7Is

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Credits

Originally posted by OctavioJacobo on 16 Jan 2012.
All contributors: OctavioJacobo,

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