Spring is supposed to be the season of basketball playoffs and the opening of soccer and baseball seasons.
But the fight to stop the spread of the coronavirus has ended that, and with every additional day, sports fans feel more and more deprived of their games.
A new survey provided to Secrets shows that soccer, basketball, and baseball fans top the list of the deprived.
What’s more, fans of those three sports and football, which just ended its draft, also have the highest anticipation for the start of the season, said the “Back-to-Normal” survey from Sports and Leisure Research Group, Engagious, and ROKK Solutions.
“The void of live sports has created a widening gap in levels of both fan deprivation and anticipation since the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jon Last, president of the Sports and Leisure Research Group.
In two “waves” of surveys, deprivation grew with fans of sports that should be playing now. Others seeing a surge in needing their sports fix include fans of NASCAR and horse racing. Last Saturday was to have been the running of the Kentucky Derby.
The survey group has come up with a marketing tool called an “Opportunity Score” for each sport that is a combination of how deprived fans feel, how each sport is engaging with fans, and fan anticipation. Soccer leads the list with a score of 131.
“The Opportunity Score, plus its components, provides sports properties with a detailed look at how well 13 sports are strengthening their connections with fans and what opportunities still exist during the pandemic for them, as well as their competition,” read the survey analysis.
