The Pellucid Perspective - July 2021 - 2

MARKET ANALYSIS
Golf and the 2020 US Census
Why you should pay attention!
By Stuart Lindsay
E
very 10 years since 1790, the US has conducted a Census.
You may not remember from your Civics classes, but the
Census is a very important event that subtly impacts many
aspects of our daily lives. Golf is no exception.
Pellucid's Golf Local Market Analyzer (GLMA) uses Census
data as the backbone for its calculations of golf participation
and its adjustments for Age, Ethnicity and Income which can
shift significantly over a 10 year period. Those shifts are not only
important for the raw increases in base population, but also the
geographic dispersion of those changes.
We are already seeing the initial 2020 Census data trickling
out - the primary reason for the Census is to determine the apportioning
of the House of Representatives in Congress. While
we know that the base US population increased 7.4% 2010 -
2020, the gain was not uniform on a state by state basis. For example,
Texas is picking up 2 seats in Congress while New York is
losing 1. Altogether, 7 seats are shifting - Florida, Arizona, Oregon,
Montana and North Carolina are joining Texas as winners
- California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and West Virginia are joining New York in the loss column.
That is really the tip of the iceberg - teams of mathematicians,
economists and sociologists will be poring over the new
Census data. And it is not only to add the new numbers; but also
to adjust (correct) all the estimates and projections made since
the last Census in 2010. Estimating the amount and location of
population growth between Census years is a big business that
2 The Pellucid PersPecTive
fuels market research over a full decade - including the Pellucid
GLMA platform. Sometimes those corrections can be significant.
While
the demographic providers such as Experian, Acxiom,
Woods & Poole and others compete to see whose projections are
the most accurate between Census dates; those projections remain
estimates. Our GLMA platform provider, Alteryx, is considered
one of the best - they were the first to project election results in
2012 - but even Alteryx can produce " end of period " adjustments
that create noteworthy variances. As an example, as recently as
December, 2020 some " experts " were projecting a change of 9
Congressional seats instead of the 7 that actually occurred.
We were looking at a proposed project in Colorado in 2011
which showed 20% population growth in 2009 alone. That was a
2010 Census " catch up " adjustment where they had under-estimated
the growth since the 2000 Census. We did a project for a
major Water Management District in 2016 - they used another
demographic vendor that we were able to compare with ours.
There were some noticeable differences. The important point
is really that the further you get from the base Census year, the
more likely it is that variances will occur.
This also means that the initial deployment of 2020 US
Census data will provide the most accurate assessment of a golf
course's local market conditions in a decade. Pellucid will be the
first company to provide updated 2020 Census data specific to
the golf industry later this year.
July 2021
ILLUSTRATION BY TARIKVISION / SHUTTERSTOCK
The Pellucid Perspective - July 2021

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