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State of the Sport - Part I

In a recent state of the industry report, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association reported that wholesale industry sales grew by about 6.8% in 2005, outperforming the U.S. economy which grew 4.3%.  Participation in almost all the 100 activities measured by American Sports Data (ASD) has either decreased or grown more slowly than the overall population itself.  Running/jogging has held its own, and is one of the small number of sports tracked by ASD that had more participants in 2005 than prior years.  The U.S. running industry continues to grow by all measures as shown here.

Running Merchandise

• More running/jogging shoes sold: 40,274,000
• More dollars spent for those shoes: $2,156,733,000
• More female users of shoes: 49.2% in 2005; 48.1% in 2003; 38.4% in 1993
• More running clothing purchased: $656,200,000
• More track running shoes sold: 815,000; $40,071,000
• More trail running shoes sold: 528,000; $27,324,000
• More running shoes sold in specialty athletic footwear stores: 24.5% of dollars

Runners

• More runners who ran at least once in 2005: 37,810,000
• More runners who ran at least 6 times in 2005: 29,246,000
• More frequent runners who ran at least 100 days in 2005: 11,583,000
• More mail runners in 2005: 21,204,000
• More trail runners as defined by Outdoor Industry Foundation: 40.4 million
• More Hispanic runners: 48% of surveyed Hispanics run or jog
• More college students who are runners: 3,693,000 (students age 18 to 34)
• More college-educated runners: 17.3 mil males + 19.7 mil females
• More runners with $75,000+ annual household incomes: 16.033 million

Road Races

• More money raised for charities by running events: $656 million
• More road race finishers in the U.S. in 2005: 8.1 million
• More 5K finishers in the U.S. in 2005: 3.1 million
• More 10K finishers in the U.S. in 2005: 1.045 million
• More half-marathon finishers in the U.S. in 2005: 536,000
• More marathon finishers in the U.S. in 2005: 432,000

Data extracted from State of the Sport - Part I, Florida Running & Triathlon, November/December 2006.

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