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Absolutely true in terms of the marketing-of-product, but I would highlight
marketing as one of the huge differences between golf and cycling.
Golf is a suns-out/guns-out multi-headed marketing machine, especially now
that they are bleeding participants faster than tennis and a lot of courses
are in trouble financially. You have marketing from manufacturers but you also
have a huge amount of marketing from courses (which employ a lot of people),
from communities that are golf destinations (they employ a lot of people), and
- entirely anecdotal - members of clubs (that life-time membership you sprung
for up-front isn't worth diddly squat if the club goes out of business).
Cycling has stayed ~ flat in terms of sales over the last many years (with a
number of brick-and-mortar stores closing -- just like golf stores). Cycling
participation is up in places that have built infrastructure (bike lanes), but
I haven't seen any reliable stats re. more vs. less mountain bikers: other
then trying to indoctrinate our friends, the members of our club don't really
care if anyone else is doing it.
There are obvious exceptions like Whistler, or the occasional advert I see
from Moab, Sedona, or Tourism Yukon, but by and large it is a participant
driven activity and most the non-manufacturer marketing I see is trail
associations out reminding people, who are already participants, to give back.
Nov. 12, 2014, 8:22 a.m. - DrewM
#!markdown Absolutely true in terms of the marketing-of-product, but I would highlight marketing as one of the huge differences between golf and cycling. Golf is a suns-out/guns-out multi-headed marketing machine, especially now that they are bleeding participants faster than tennis and a lot of courses are in trouble financially. You have marketing from manufacturers but you also have a huge amount of marketing from courses (which employ a lot of people), from communities that are golf destinations (they employ a lot of people), and - entirely anecdotal - members of clubs (that life-time membership you sprung for up-front isn't worth diddly squat if the club goes out of business). Cycling has stayed ~ flat in terms of sales over the last many years (with a number of brick-and-mortar stores closing -- just like golf stores). Cycling participation is up in places that have built infrastructure (bike lanes), but I haven't seen any reliable stats re. more vs. less mountain bikers: other then trying to indoctrinate our friends, the members of our club don't really care if anyone else is doing it. There are obvious exceptions like Whistler, or the occasional advert I see from Moab, Sedona, or Tourism Yukon, but by and large it is a participant driven activity and most the non-manufacturer marketing I see is trail associations out reminding people, who are already participants, to give back.