Selling to Sports & Recreation
Sports & rec MRO spend ~$6-9B annually. Pro venues + college athletics ~$1-2B; private fitness ~$1.5B; golf $2-3B (turf-heavy); aquatics $500M-$1B; municipal parks & rec ~$1.5-2B.
Pro venues: 90-270 days (operator approval + capital cycle). College athletics: 60-180 days (athletic dept faster than campus). Golf: 30-120 days direct (super has discretion). Municipal: 180-360 days (bid + cooperative).
$5K-$50K initial trial; $50K-$500K annual recurring at large venues; $25K-$150K annual at mid-tier facilities; $10K-$50K at single golf course.
Sub-segments inside Sports & Recreation
Pro Stadiums & Arenas
20K-100K seat capacity. NFL/MLB stadiums 60K-100K; NBA/NHL/MLS arenas 18K-30K. Often $500M-$2B build cost.
Owned by teams or municipalities. Operations often outsourced (ASM Global, Oak View Group, Legends, Spectra). Concessions almost always outsourced (Aramark, Sodexo Live, Levy, Delaware North, Compass). Janitorial almost always outsourced (ABM, ISS, Aramark). Sales motion = three layers: team/owner, operator, contracted services. Most actual MRO buying happens at the operator or contracted-services level, not the team.
College Athletic Facilities (D1)
D1 football stadiums 40K-110K seats; basketball arenas 8K-22K; multi-venue athletic complexes spanning 1M+ sq ft.
Overlaps Higher Ed but with athletic-specific dynamics. Athletic department usually has its own facilities staff separate from campus FM. Sports turf manager is a specialist title. Donor-funded capital improvements move faster than academic side. Game-day turnover lives in its own world.
Public Arenas & Convention Centers
5K-30K seat arenas; 100K-3M sq ft convention centers. Owned by city/county/state authority.
Authority owns the building; private operator (ASM Global / Oak View Group / SMG-merged / Spectra) runs it. Day-to-day MRO buying done by operator's GM and operations director. Capital-side buying done by authority board. Two different sales motions in the same building.
Private Fitness Chains
Planet Fitness (2,500+ US clubs), LA Fitness (~700), Equinox (~100 luxury), Lifetime (~170 athletic resorts), Crunch, Anytime Fitness franchises.
Corporate procurement at HQ for big chains; some franchise discretion at unit level. Locker rooms and equipment cleaning are the chemistry-heavy zones. Pool chemistry where pools exist. Membership-based business = one bad bathroom kills retention.
Golf Courses & Country Clubs
~16,000 golf facilities US (10K public/daily-fee, 4K private member, 2K resort/semi-private). Private clubs 200-1,000 members at $5K-$50K dues.
Superintendent (turf manager) is the most specialized buyer in MRO outside of brewing. Golf has its own distribution channel (SiteOne Landscape Supply, John Deere Landscapes, Harrell's, Target Specialty Products, Wilbur-Ellis). Private clubs buy direct; daily-fee runs leaner. Member committees control any visible change at private clubs.
Aquatic Centers & Waterparks
Municipal pools, YMCA aquatic centers, school natatoriums, private waterparks (Great Wolf, Kalahari, Schlitterbahn). Volume ranges 50K to 5M+ gallons per facility.
Pool chemistry compliance is non-negotiable — state health departments inspect regularly. Aquatics director is a specialist. CPO (Certified Pool Operator) certification required. Chemical mishandling = pool closure = revenue stop.
Key personas you'll meet
5 researched personas for Sports & Recreation. Each one carries its own vocabulary, pain-point ranking, and discovery question bank — used to make every brief persona-specific.