The Benefits from Share of Search (SoS) Analyses for Predicting Membership Development in Sports Federations: A Pilot Study

  • The long-term development of membership numbers in sports clubs and federations is well documented through statistical surveys, such as annual sports development reports. However, studies dedicated to analyzing membership developments have a considerable time lag due to their retrospective approach, which poses a risk for future member acquisition and retention strategies. Modern market research methods attempt to address this challenge by using econometric approaches to deliver solid explanations and forecasts based on identified systematic patterns. Share of Search (SoS) analyses are already successfully used in various industries to forecast the development of market shares. This involves measuring the effect of the development of online search queries in Google and other search engines in one period on the change of market shares in the following period. For the first time, this approach is transferred to a pilot study that observes the membership development of 20 sports federations in Germany. This study shows that online searchThe long-term development of membership numbers in sports clubs and federations is well documented through statistical surveys, such as annual sports development reports. However, studies dedicated to analyzing membership developments have a considerable time lag due to their retrospective approach, which poses a risk for future member acquisition and retention strategies. Modern market research methods attempt to address this challenge by using econometric approaches to deliver solid explanations and forecasts based on identified systematic patterns. Share of Search (SoS) analyses are already successfully used in various industries to forecast the development of market shares. This involves measuring the effect of the development of online search queries in Google and other search engines in one period on the change of market shares in the following period. For the first time, this approach is transferred to a pilot study that observes the membership development of 20 sports federations in Germany. This study shows that online search queries have a high explanatory power for membership development in sports. Therefore, SoS studies can be used accordingly as a relevant indicator for future planning in sports management.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Florian Riedmüller, Hans-Dieter Gerner, Sofia Adrianzén Díaz
DOI:https://doi.org/10.13189/saj.2025.130120
ISSN:2381-4381
Parent Title (English):International Journal of Human Movement and Sports Sciences
Publisher:Horizon Research Publishing Co., Ltd.
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Reviewed:Begutachtet/Reviewed
Release Date:2026/01/12
Volume:13
Issue:1
Pagenumber:8
First Page:182
Last Page:189
institutes:Fakultät Betriebswirtschaft
Research Themes:Gesundheit
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