| Skyd 2012 Reader Survey: Results

The results are in! We’re honored to have heard the voices of so many awesome Skyd supporters and fans of the sport. Over 1670 Skyd readers took our survey and helped us to get a better sense of who you are, what you like, what you’d like to see changed, and which ultimate player you’d like to see on a Wheaties box. To a large extent, Skyd’s destiny is in your hands, so we sincerely appreciate those who took the time to share with us.

So who is the typical Skyd reader? We’ve broken down a lot of who our readership is based on our survey below. The basics are that the majority of our readership is male, around 20 years old, attending college, and living in the USA. Still in school or just starting out in the working world, our readers has been throwing the disc around for several years and scrapes together enough cash to attend several tournaments each year. That’s dedication. Our readers dine out a couple times a week — probably with your many, many Ultimate buddies — own a car, play a variety of other sports, and are very aware of ultimate and other sports brands. Our readers have a scar on your right knee from when your sister pushed you down the stairs, and your favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is Raphael. Your social security number is…okay. I’m being told by my editors that this isn’t funny.

Our typical reader checks out Skyd at least weekly and spends 10 minutes or so on our website. You’re okay with the site design, but wouldn’t mind a bit of an improved look and feel (especially our archives), and you’re appropriately critical of poor grammar and misspellings. Our readers find the level of advertising acceptable and, frankly, are perfectly okay with more if it keeps Skyd subscription-free. Without question, you’re passionate about Skyd, want to support us financially to the extent you can, and give us props for our advocacy of the sport we all know and love.

So let’s get down to some specifics in survey data:

Age

14 and under: 0.2%
15 – 18: 6.7%
19 – 22: 42.5%
23 – 30: 39.1%
31 – 40: 9.0%
41 and over: 2.6%

Gender

Male: 81.6%
Female: 18.4%

Education

High school: 7.7%
College attendance: 68.6%
Post-grad or higher: 22.9%

Location

United States: 85.6%
Canada: 5.1%
United Kingdom: 1.9%
Australia: 1.0%
Germany: 1.0%
Netherlands: 0.9%
Denmark: 0.4%
Ireland: 0.4%
France: 0.3%
New Zealand: 0.3%
Austria: 0.2%
Belgium: 0.2%
Philippines: 0.2%
Poland: 0.2%
Russia: 0.2%
Spain: 0.2%

Other countries with one or more respondents: Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Israel, South Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine

USA respondent location

California: 10.1%
Pennsylvania: 7.1%
New York: 6.3%
Massachusetts: 5.6%
Washington: 5.3%
Illinois: 4.7%
North Carolina: 4.3%
Minnesota: 4.0%
Georgia: 3.2%
Maryland: 3.2%

All states were represented except for Wyoming (come on, Wyoming!)

Employment status

Full or part-time student: 47.9%
Employed full-time: 37.3%
Employed part-time: 7.8%
Unemployed: 6.7%
Retired: 0.3%

Income

< US$ 20,000: 47.2%
$20,001 to $50,000: 22.3%
$50,001 to $100,000: 14.7%
$100,001 to $200,000: 3.2%
Over $200,000: 0.5%
I prefer not to answer: 12.0%

Years playing ultimate

< 1 yr: 2.7%
1 – 3 years: 23.9%
4 – 8 years: 50.3%
9 – 12 years: 15.4%
> 13 years: 7.7%

Heard about ultimate

At school: 61.2%
From friend: 58.8%
Revelation from on high: 7.4%
Internet: 3.6%

Other sports/activities (top 5)

Basketball: 31.6%
Soccer: 30.6%
Camping: 25.7%
Hiking: 24.4%
Cycling: 19.1%

Equipment purchased within last year

Cleats: 92.4%
Compression Shorts: 74.3%
Socks: 77.3%
Water bottle: 54.0%
Hat: 49.5%
Bag: 42.3%
Compression Shirt: 29.1%
Sunglasses: 21.5%

Lots of shoutouts for sports bras… this is what happens when you have people without breasts make your poll. Sorry about that, everyone!

Brands owned

Five Ultimate: 86.0%
Nike: 82.1%
Under Armour: 69.0%
Patagonia: 62.7%
VC: 55.9%
Adidas: 49.7%
Breakmark: 39.7%
Savage: 29.9%
Spin Ultimate: 29.3%

Opinion on observers and referees

I want observers: 69.2%
I want referees: 15.4%
Complete self-officiating: 9.3%
No opinion: 6.2%

Other ultimate websites frequented

USA Ultimate: 76.0%
Nexgen: 64.9%
Ultiworld: 50.9%
Rec.sport.disc: 50.8%
Huddle: 31.6%
Local Disc Organization: 25.9%
Ulti.tv: 21.0%

Skyd Advertising

Acceptable: 51.6%
Don’t even notice: 29.5%
Enjoy it: 12.0%
Adblock anyway : 6.5%
Makes me sick: 0.3%

Quotables

Go to town. The more money you make, the better it is for the Ultimate community!
I border on enjoying it. Love the idea that sponsors think it’s viable!
It makes me glad to see you supporting other Ultimate companies.
Don’t let me see the RSS stream: make me go to the website!!

Paid subscription based Skyd

Not at any level: 64.3%
5$ / month: 30.1%
$10 / month: 5.2%

Should be yearly fee
Please, please keep it free. I’m broke and I needs me my Skyd.
Maybe for premium content (Skyd Insider articles, like ESPN).

Pay for premium features?

No: 37.0%
Unsure: 35.6%
Yes: 27.5%

Live streamed games: partner with NGN?
Skyd store discount
Secure team access, interviews, stats/analysis
Fantasy ultimate!
Ultimate porn!
Just get more advertisers!

Other non-subscription options

More sponsored features/contents: 57.9%
Annual fund-raising: 40.5%
Pay-per-visit: 1.6%

Skyd tournaments for profit
Indiegogo/kickstarter
Make Skyd donation button more prominent
Get more big-time sponsors like Nike, Adidas, Gatorade

Some of our favorite/representative comments:

“You should send out tweets for new content.” — We do in fact at @skydmagazine
“I enjoy what you’re doing for the sport. Thanks.”
“You guys are the pioneers for Ultimate journalism. Keep it up!”
“I love this website. It’s my homepage. It’s helped me grow as an Ultimate player and has really fueled my passion for the sport.”
“I think you guys are great. It’s nice when the authors’ personalities come through in their articles, so trying to keep that individualism alive and not trying to ESPN-ize everything would be great. Skyd is sort of like everybody’s inside source for news, and it’s nice to feel that it still sticks to Ultimate culture even as it grows. More hard strategy stuff would be great so it can also be a resource as well as a news source.”
“Skyd is amazing. When I first heard about it, I was skeptical, but it has proven to be an absolute necessity for the Ultimate world. It makes things so much easier to follow, it gives great insights into the game, it’s awesome.”
“You guys are doing an awesome job covering the sport of Ultimate. If you can increase the exposure of your magazine so that even non-Ultimate players end up reading the articles it might help the sport even more. Maybe do something like Sports Illustrated and have a “Hot Ultimate Players of the Year” section or something?”
“Its pretty much the best Ultimate resource around – keep it up!”
“Continue what you’re doing, it’s thunderf***ing fantastic what you’ve done and keep doing on a weekly basis. I continue to meet Ultimate players in China who read Skyd regularly, it’s pretty damn cool.”
“There are often typos or slight grammatical errors with many articles which, while minor, detract slightly from the overall professional appearance of the articles.”
“I’m incredibly grateful for all the work you do and the high-quality nature of it – you’re truly on the cutting edge of the sport and present a very impressive and appealing face of Ultimate to the rest of the world.”
“Internships for students would be free, help perpetuate college coverage, and be good experience!”
“As stated before, your site has completely changed the way Ultimate is covered. GREAT work and keep it up!”
“Did I leave my cleats at your place?”

Well, that’s about it. There were a couple of other open-ended questions on other features you’d like to see (like more Bryan Jones and more Lou Burruss), so we may write-up a follow-up blurb to provide an overview of the many, many insightful suggestions we received. Or we may just go ahead and implement some of them. We’ll probably hold-off, however, on the suggestion that we start our own cable-TV network, unless someone wants to throw us a big wad of cash…

In all seriousness, Skyd remains to be a huge passion project for those involved. We run Skyd because we love the sport and we love being able to provide a resource for our community to communicate. We’re passionate too about making Skyd a better and better resource for ultimate. While progress may sometimes be slow, we want to do better. Ultimate deserves better and some great updates are on the horizon. We will continue to strive to keep Skyd the premier source for all things ultimate.

Some plans for the future

While it’d be difficult to say when these updates will be implemented, I wanted to give you a taste at what we’re working on: