Business Research Analysis on

the Launch of a New Sports App

Team 411
Amy Rausch
Cristina Moraru
Deep Rabadiya
Jose Miguel Cevallos Garcia
Reina Adriano
Thai Son Hoang

Submitted to
Professor O’Donnell
December 10, 2017

Introduction
 The goal of the survey is to see if there is enough interest among the potential
customers for a sports mobile app that shows all the possible sporting events that are located
near them. Through this particular market research, the team wants to consider all the
possible features and pricing options that can be accommodated by the sports mobile app to
be made.
The survey further aims to gather responses from people who frequently attend sports
games in all levels. By analyzing the specific interests from the target market, the survey
results hope to focus on the needs of these people in order to create unique experiences for
everyone. The sports app targets tourists, major sports fans, patrons and donors, students, and
families of the league players.
As the survey will be conducted online, the team wants the respondents to have the
convenience of taking it in their homes and work spaces in their answering of it. However,
the team is also aware that the survey may be devoid of errors which is why we will take
precautionary measures in order to avoid those errors. Once the survey is finally ready for
receiving responses, it will be sent to the e-mail addresses of people who usually buy tickets
for sports events.
By focusing on both the responses from the interview as well as the quantitative
results derived from the numerical responses, the team wants to see if the creation of the
mobile sports app will have a significant effect in the people’s intent to watch a live sports
game. Finally, after interpreting all the relevant data, the team aims to provide conclusions
and recommendations on how the creation and launch of the mobile sports app should go.
Survey Data Analysis
The survey was conducted for three days within a period that allowed us to gather
answers from 53 people. The main focus was on HULT students that are interested in sports
games and would like to be always updated about the local events in sports. However, three
responses were not considered because they did not give responses to half of the
questionnaire, which in our case would construe the overall data analysis process and provide
wrong conclusions. Hence, we narrowed down the population to only 50 people. The survey
questionnaire included 10 questions: multiple choice, open-ended questions, and level of
satisfaction.
The purpose of the first question was to identify the proportion of male/female
interested in a Sports app. Fifty-four percent (54%) of the respondents were female, which
means that there is a new trend of having more women using mobile apps while only 46% of
the respondents were male. The difference is not significant, but it creates the profile of the
potential customer. The second question is part of the customer profile meaning our goal was
to identify the age range. Given the fact that our focus was the students, the age range
between 21-30 accounted for 88% of the respondents and only 12% aged between 11-20
years.
The third question was one of the key-questions aimed to identify if there is any interest
in sports. Eighty-six percent (86%) of the people had a positive answer, which means there is a
big addressable market of sports fans. Out of those 86% of respondents we aimed to identify
the main channel that informs people about the events. The main source is the online
communications (43.5%), which means that we can build our strategy around this channel. For
example, we can advertise our app on different online platforms or provide opportunities to
download the app on various sports websites. The second channel is the word-of-mouth
(34.8%) that we cannot control but can influence by providing the right information about the
events (schedule, price, location).
The main driving question was to discover opportunities in the market, mainly to ask
people whether they would be interested in our new product which is the Sports App.
Seventy-six percent (76%) of the people responded positively, which means we can define
the size of the potential market. It allows us to forecast the level of future downloads and
revenue.
The next question identifies the place where people would prefer watching the game.
Fifty-five point one percent (55.1%) would prefer to attend the game and watch it for real,
which gives us an advantage because people will start looking for the date time and schedule
of the game. Our product will solve their needs and keep them updated with the next sports
events.
The following graph (Table 2, Appendix B) reveals the main features that the
customers would like to have on their app and how they perceive the option. The most highly
recommended features would be price information and available seating due to the highest
number of respondents (25 - price information and 26 - available seating).
According to Table 3 (Appendix B), 22 of the respondents (which is the highest
number) are very interested in having the Major Leagues included in the app. In the case of
Minor Leagues, 16 people have a neutral attitude. In case of Local Leagues, 17 people out of
50 were interested in Local Leagues. As a conclusion, the main focus should be the Major
Leagues, followed by Local Leagues (more people are interested rather than neutral).
According to Table 1 (Appendix B), 16.7% of the respondents are not using any App
that would allow them to get information about the sports events. The potential sources of
information are reports, websites or official app of a particular team. It is an opportunity for
our company to combine all the potential sources in one application where people can find
the future sports events together with time schedule and teams.

Statistical Analysis
In order to check whether the team can rely on our data or not, we will calculate the
standard deviation and normal distribution. In the following table (Appendix C), the team
was looking if there is any correlation/causation between the number of female/male who
responded and if they have ever attended any sport game. We assume that there are more
positive answers from females due to the fact that the survey was primarily addressed to
people who like sports. Besides, there is a growing trend of women who enjoy going to
sporting events. By calculating the standard deviation, we found out how reliable our data is.
In our case the standard deviation among the number of female/male is 0.06 which is
relatively low, therefore, we can rely on our results even though the sample mean is low. The
same applies to other standard deviation results, which are low and allow us to rely on them.
We applied the same formula to find the connection between the number of
females/males and the interest of having an App that shows all possible events near them.
The standard deviation obtained is relatively low, which means that we can rely on these
results as well even though the number of respondents was low. We find out the normal
distribution to find the probability of a distribution associated with a variable to cumulative
probability. The overall results of normal distribution say that the probability of our
questionnaire answered is 100%.
Interview Data Analysis
Given the following questions (Appendix E) provided to the invited respondents for
one-on-one interview, the team has discovered that most of the people in Boston are
interested primarily in the sports teams of their city, primarily basketball (Boston Celtics),
baseball (Red Sox), and hockey (Boston Bruins). While some fans are very willing to spend
time watching live games, the ones we interviewed had hesitations since they are still non-
earning graduate students.
According to the interview questions, the potential customer’s profile is an average
student interested in sports who would like to be always updated with the upcoming matches.
They would be willing to spend an affordable amount of money in order to enjoy the
atmosphere of a real game. Besides, they would like to attend the games with their friends to
share the moments of support and joy.
Based on the interview taken, the team has decided that launching the sports app in
Boston would be a good start since the sports atmosphere in the city is very conducive for
people who are interested in watching sports and taking note of the team scores.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Following the methods used in conducting this study, the team therefore concludes
that the mobile sports app will generate a good number of downloads and uses from people
interested in sports all over the world. We found that the app will help with making the search
process for getting information on sporting events easier.

Strengths and weaknesses

We tried to consider the launching of a new sports app by conducting a survey for
people who are active, like sports and entertainment activities. We narrowed the number of
respondents to a more focused and interested population - students, which saved the time and
gave a more specific perspective of the product. Another strength was the ability to generate
and visualize the data through charts and diagrams that allowed us to track some trends.
As a weakness, we could not use the regression model to elaborate the results because
the survey was composed of Yes/No questions, based on experience, satisfaction level and
new trends rather than data (in numbers). Besides, due to the relatively small amount of time
we gathered only 50 responses out of 1,000 students. Initially, there were 54, but due to the
fact that only half of the survey was answered, it might have given unreliable data to work
with.
Learning outcomes
We got a lot of information from the interviews and surveys. With most of the
information coming from the interviews, we were able to find out that people were able to
elaborate on how they felt about the questions rather than just selecting an answer and
moving on to the next. We were also able to keep asking them questions based on their
answers in order to receive all the information we needed. During the interview we were able
to assess how they felt about what they were using currently and how they would feel about
our app once it is launched, providing us the impression that they really are into using it for
their own convenience in the next matches that they intend to go to.
Recommendations in the future
The future researcher should build a pilot survey and interview to test the correctness
and relevance of the questions to your goal and product. The number of respondents should
reflect a relative high proportion of the population in order to get unbiased and more reliable
results. The questions should also contain some numerical data. In addition, in order to
identify trends, the responses collected should be correlated meaning the questions should be
built upon each other and not separated (without any linkage). It will help to gather the small
pieces of information and put them together into a big picture.
 APPENDIX A. Survey Questions

1. What is your gender?

2. What is your age?
3. Have you ever attended a sporting event?
4. If yes, how did you hear about the event?
5. Are you interested in an app that shows all possible sports events near you?
6. Where do you prefer to watch games/events?
7. Based on satisfaction, which features would you like to see on the app?
8. How interested would you be in having the following leagues present on App?
9. Are there any apps that you currently use when getting your sports information? If
yes, what App? If no, move to the next question.
10. What social media platform do you use most of the time?
 APPENDIX B. Charts and Graphs from Survey Responses
Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Appendix C. Statistical Analysis

Standard deviation formula:
 APPENDIX D. Interview Protocol

INTERVIEWER:
We want to thank you all for taking the time to meet with us today. Our names are
Amy Rausch, Cristina Moraru, Deep Rabadiya, Jose Miguel Cevallos Garcia, Reina Adriano,
and Thai Son Hoang and we would like to talk to you about the new sports app we are
creating. We are interested in finding out more about the target audience, the need or want for
this kind of App, and how effective people think it will be.
This interview should take less than an hour. We will be taking notes throughout the
interview to remember the information that will be helpful with the research and will also be
taping the session because we don’t want to miss any of the comments and we will be
interviewing several people so we want to make sure we get all the information. Because we
will be on tape we ask that you please speak up so that we make sure we don’t miss any
comments.
All responses will be kept confidential; your responses from this interview will be
kept between us and we will ensure that information that is provided in reports do not identify
you as the respondent. Also remember that you don’t have to talk about anything that you do
not want to and can terminate the interview any time you want.

Do you have any questions about the interview?

Are you willing to participate in this interview?

____________________ _______________________ ____________

Interviewee Witness Date

_____________________________________
Legal guardian (if interviewee is under 18)
 APPENDIX E. Interview Questions

1. What is your favourite sport?

2. How much are you willing to spend on a sports activity?
3. How often do you practice or watch sports?
4. What other services do you like when going to a sporting event?
5. Do you enjoy outdoors or indoor sports?
6. What is your main reason to attend sport events?
7. Where do you search to know about games?
8. Is it currently easy for you to search and find out about sporting events?
9. What type of practicant are you? (pro, amateur, beginner)
10. Are you attending/practicing the sports for a long, medium, short term?
11. What are the main issues when attending a sports event?
12. Do you attend sporting events on your own or in groups?
13. What part of the country are you going to be mainly using the app?