Sports Teams use Focus Groups

Professional sports teams such as the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers have conducted focus groups over this past year to get input on making modifications on their stadiums. It is interesting to read how Qualitative research, like focus groups, can be used for not only a product or good but also a service like a sporting event.
This shows that sports teams highly rely on their fans and consumers to make a profit. So why not have their input when making a big decisions such as expanding a new stadium. The consumers are the ones who are going to be spending money to enjoy the game. The articles below prove how qualitative research has proven to be very helpful in the long run.

The article on the Minnesota Vikings, included PDF files of the Focus group questions and guidelines. The questions started off with an icebreaker, speaking about the state of Minnesota then slowly progress into talking about the Minnesota Vikings and then finally the new stadium they wanted to build.



Using both sports fans and people not interested in sports. They were surprised to find that their results were very positive, and people seemed really interested in the new stadium.

With other teams having great success in decision-making using focus groups, the Green Bay Packers are also rumored to hold their own focus group in hopes to attract the community about their new stadium.

Even a team like the New York Yankees could benefit from doing such research.

This article shows a poor marketing decision by the New York Yankees. Maybe if they would have researched more they wouldn't have problem selling tickets in their new stadium.

The Yankees recently built a new stadium that opened for the 2009 season, and although they have had many success on the field, the Yankees have not been able to sell out games like they did in the old stadium. Why? Because by building the new stadium they have put themselves in a little bit of debt. Therefore they increased ticket prices to attend games, and now a lot of fans can not afford to go. If they have done more research, the Yankees organization would've been able to make the new stadium more appealing to the wants of the fans and consumers.