PARENT SATISFACTION WITH US YOUTH SOCCER PROGRAMS

My dissertation thought process was simple. Write about female entreprenuership but when I actually began the journey of writing a research question, the frustrating experiences of being a sports parent were more front of mind. I assessed these experiences compared to what I knew of customer experience as a professional and realized that the research I was finding not focused on the reality of daily life of a sports family. My goal was to bring together the art of CX with Youth Sports and here we are today, a framework for organizations to improve CX and support longer sports retention for kids.

This is where my journey all began. The book started here.

Today, my high school kids are still playing soccer. Despite what challenges exist in competitive sports, they are still taking the pitch.

Full Research Article: https://business.fiu.edu/academics/graduate/doctor-of-business-administration/docs/2024/michelle-mullman-etd.pdf

Abstract of Article:

Youth sports in the United States has leaned heavily towards a pay-for-play model as compared to more community-based programming which was once the American style of youth sports over 40 years ago. The role of privatized sports entities has become a social norm for US families and there is plenty of research focusing on both the physical and mental impact of these trends on young athletes. The problem is that youth sports organizations do not invest in resources to effectively manage marketing, operations, and customer experience which are core components of a more mature business. Thus, performance management of key success metrics (success outcomes) suffers when these resources are not available or in place. Youth sports leaders view parents as the gatekeepers in the purchase decision yet do not give parents a voice. Considering these dynamics, key stakeholders in the youth sports process are not given a sufficient voice, leading to the potential of poor customer experiences driving a reduction in lower levels of dedication to the sport.

This research supports the development of a Parent Stakeholder Assessment for youth sports indicating that as parent engagement and player happiness increase, parent satisfaction will increase, and this will lead to positive business outcomes (loyalty and reputation). The study involved conducting a quantitative assessment using a survey designed for this study (including multiple EFA analysis) for a youth soccer club in Naples, FL. The result of this study, using anova and linear regression analysis, supports the positive relationship between the factors with additional impacts of HH income and spend influencing Parent Engagement and Satisfaction. Future studies using this model will further test impacts of player attributes, geography, organizational types and organizational ethos on all the relationships and will also incorporate other types of sports. These findings support the need for youth sports organizations to understand parent satisfaction as a strategy to improve their reputation in the market and deepen the relationships with their customers (players and parents). These outcomes will support higher levels of player development as well as more formats of the sport to deepen the relationships players have with the sport.