City of Morgan Hill Bikeways, Trails, Parks and Recreation Master Plan

Section 7: Recommendations | May 2017 Sports Market Business Strategy – Morgan Hill, CA PAGE 106

growth. A regional director can help unify the marketing efforts of the City to attract larger events, including sports and non-sports. Additionally, understanding the true viability of a sand volleyball complex by commissioning a feasibility study could lead to the development that could give Morgan Hill a competitive advantage that other sports tourism destinations in California cannot match. With the growing demand for sand volleyball facilities across the nation, Morgan Hill could position itself as the premier sand volleyball complex in the west, if not nationally. Likely users for such as complex could include USA volleyball, AAU teams, the NCAA and high schools. With low investment and maintenance costs for a sand volleyball complex, Morgan Hill could realize a return on the investment earlier that more expensive development projects. Overall, national sports participation has been trending downward since 2007. The specialization of sports at the youth level has contributed to the decline in overall participation levels. Notwithstanding this, participation has stabilized somewhat since 2009. Of the sports we analyzed in Section 6: Industry Trends , traditional team sports such as soccer (1.6 percent average annual decline) and football (1.8 percent average annual decline) continue to decline slightly, but the decline is more gradual. Meanwhile, sports such as lacrosse (10.3 percent average annual growth) and rugby (11.0 percent average annual growth) continue to grow on a national level. These trends in overall participation, and the figures presented in Section 6, speak to the importance of a multipurpose facility. It is critical to design a facility that has the flexibility to adapt to new events or expand if the market calls for it. Too often, facility design focuses on short-term needs and once a particular fad goes away the facility is unable to attract enough users to remain successful. There must be a long-term, multipurpose vision when considering new facility development to protect against changes in participation levels and shifts in the popularity of particular sports.

6 East Monroe Street | Fifth Floor | Chicago, Illinois 60603 | Phone: 312.447.2010 | Fax: 312.444.1125 www.chjc.com