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“Big Ten” Conference TV Revenues

The “Big Ten Conference” is the oldest Division I college athletic conference in the United States. It has twelve member institutions, despite its name, and is slatted to add two more in 2014. These are flagship research universities in their respective states, well-regarded academically and with relatively large student enrollment. They are located primarily in the Midwest.

In the Big Ten conference, revenue from television contracts helps to cover the cost of coaches salaries, scholarships, travel and game-day expenses. TV revenue also helps to cover the cost of athletic programs that do not bring in sufficient revenues to sustain themselves, such as tennis, gymnastics and rowing.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association requires athletic programs to maintain at least 16 varsity sports. The Big Ten conference requires 20. According to Sports Illustrated, the expansion of the Big Ten conference to 14 schools in the 2014-2015 school year will help to nearly double the per-school television contract revenue by 2017-2018. The data shown are on a per-school basis.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2012-2013 and 2017-2018
Market size: $25 million and $40 million, respectively, per school
Source: Editorial Staff, “MSU Athletics Win Off The Field, Too,” Lansing State Journal, July 14, 2013, page 7F and Chris Solari, “Power Play,” Lansing State Journal, July 14, 2013, pages 1D, 5D.
Original Source: Sports Illustrated
Posted on July 16, 2013

Hospitals in the United States

Today we update an earlier post on a part of the huge health services industry, namely, hospitals. The graph shows the total annual revenues of all U.S. hospitals as they are defined by the Census Bureau, below, over a fifteen year period. Annual revenues for this industry appear to rise, regardless of economic conditions, recessions, financial crisis, nor business cycles.

This industry is identified within the industry coding system, NAICS, with the code 622 and is defined by the Census Bureau as including hospitals whose primarily business is to “provide medical, diagnostic, and treatment services that include physician, nursing, and other health services to inpatients and the specialized accommodation services required by inpatients. Hospitals may also provide outpatient services as a secondary activity. Establishments in the Hospitals subsector provide inpatient health services, many of which can only be provided using the specialized facilities and equipment that form a significant and integral part of the production process.”

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2005 and 2012
Market size: $620.85 billion and $904.47 billion respectively
Source: Yearbook 2010, “Table 1 – Selected Services, Estimated Quarterly Revenue for Employer Firms,” Annual Benchmark Report for Services through 2012, a series of reports put out by the Census Bureau in conjunction with their Service Annual Survey, published every non Economic Census year. The Service Annual Survey reports are accessible on the Census web site here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau
Posted on July 10, 2013

Hearing Aids and Instruments

The market for hearing aids is on a growth path as the population in the industrialized world ages. Demographics point in one direction for this industry, up. The rising costs of health care generally are of some concern to this industry because it suggests that changes are coming in how medical insurance systems will handle reimbursements for such devices. Demand, however, is expected to rise.

Today’s market size is the estimated number of hearing instruments sold around the world each year, based on figures for 2011. The number of units sold does not include Cochlear implants nor Middle-Ear implants, rather it refers to hearing aid devices that do not require surgical implantation.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2011
Market size: 10 million units valued at $6,500, which includes hardware only.
Source: “Hearing Loss Treatment Market Profile,” Hearing Instruments: hearing loss = profits, May 24, 2012, page 32, Cheuvreux–Credit Agricole Group. This investment report is available online here.
Original Source: CA Cheuvreux
Posted on July 3, 2013

Elevators & Escalators

Elevators and escalators are an almost invisible part of the infrastructure of large building, invisible only in that they are taken for granted by most of their users. For the industry involved in making and servicing these complex machines, invisibility may well be the just fine, after all when attention is drawn to them it is often for all the wrong reasons—slowness, jerkiness, and/or safety problems.

Leaders in this industry include Otis, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp and KONE, each representing around 20% of the world market. The areas of greatest growth in new installations are areas of the world that are seeing the largest increase in both urbanization and high-rise construction. Maintenance of existing machinery is a part of the business that is strongest in the well-established industrialized world and is an important part of this industry.

Today’s market size is the estimated number of new elevator and escalator installations around the world during 2012 as well as the installed base that year.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2012
Market size: 670,000 new units added to a base of slightly over 11 million
Source: “Elevator and Escalator Market,” published in 2013 by KONE and available here with geographical breakdowns of the global market.
Original Source: KONE
Posted on July 1, 2013

Public Transportation—Lansing, Michigan Area

The Capital Area Transit Authority (CATA), in Lansing, Michigan, is the largest public transit provider in the tri-county area near the State Capital, including Ingham, Clinton, and Eaton counties. CATA has been operating public transportation in the mid-Michigan area since 1972 and has been twice named the best transit system of its size in North America by the American Public Transportation Association.

Ridership grew steadily during the 1970s, before leveling off during the 1980s and most of the 1990s. During the 1980s and 1990s, the number of rides fluctuated around 3 to 4 million annually. In 1999, CATA took over the Michigan State University bus service. Since then ridership has increased nearly 3-fold. In contrast, the population of the tri-county area grew by 22.6% from 1970 to 2010. In 2012, CATA set a third-consecutive yearly record for number of rides. Data represent the number of rides annually on CATA vehicles in 1972 and 2012.

Geographic reference: Lansing, Michigan
Year: 1972 and 2012
Market size: Fewer than 1 million rides and 11.86 million rides respectively
Sources: “Growth in Ridership Remains Strong”, CATA 2013 Community Report: Moving You Toward Your Dreams, June 2013, p. 4; “Riding High with Record Ridership,” CATA 2012 Community Report 40th Anniversary Edition: Greater Lansing on the Move, August 2012; “CATA Demand Grows with Community Need,” CATA 2011 Community Report: Greater Lansing on the Move, August 2011; Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, “Tri-County Regional Growth: Choices for Our Future,” Draft Report, August 2002 available online here; “Ingham County, Michigan” available online here; “Clinton County, Michigan” available online here; and “Eaton County, Michigan” available online here;
Posted on June 26, 2013

Venture Capital for Clean Technology

Clean technology is a somewhat ambiguous term but one heard more and more often today. According to Clean Edge, a research firm specializing in the study of this sector, clean technology refers to a diverse range of products, services, and processes that make use of renewable materials and energy, strive to use fewer natural resources, and to reduce emissions and wastes in both the process of their production and their use. Such companies may be in fields like renewable energy, electric motors, green chemistry, water use management, public transportation, sustainable agriculture, and areas of information technology specifically aimed at helping to reduce or eliminate emissions and waste in any number of processes.

Today’s market size is the amount invested by venture capital firms around the world in clean technology endeavors. The amounts for both 2011 and 2012 are shown. Clear from these data is that investment in such endeavors fluctuates greatly from year to year, despite the seeming relentless admiration for such clean technologies in the media at large. The New York Times article from which this market size comes (a link to which is provided below) tells an interesting story about how one company is using niche market products to help bridge the gap between proof of concept and small scale production to high volume production, a gap often referred to in the industry as Death Valley.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2011 and 2012
Market size: $9.6 billion and $7.4 billion respectively
Source: Diane Cardwell, “A Side Trip on the Road to Clean Fuel,” The New York Times, June 23, 2013, page B1, and available online here.
Original source: Cleantech Group’s i3 Platform
Posted on June 24, 2013

High School Volleyball

Today’s market size is the number of high school students participating in volleyball in the United States during the academic year, 2011-2012. In that school year, participation in high school volleyball was dominated by women. Of all the sports in which both males and females compete at the high school level, volleyball was the one in which female participation totally dominated the statistics. Young woman make up 89.5% of high school volleyball players. The source document, linked to below, provides participation data on all the major sports programs in U.S. high schools.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2011-2012
Market size: 468,370
Source: “2011-2012 High School Athletics Participation Survey,” August 2012, available online here.
Original source: National Federation of State High School Associations
Posted on June 18, 2013

False Lashes

Everything old is new again, or so the saying goes. In the first decade of the century false eyelashes have been one of the fastest growing of the cosmetic industry’s many categories. Today’s market size is the total estimated revenue brought in by the sale of false eye lashes in the United States in 2000 and again in 2010.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2001 and 2010
Market size: $15 million and $44 million respectively
Source: “Look No Further: Frequently asked questions,” Novalash Eyelash Extensions, web site posting is available here. Brendan I. Koerner, “The Goods; Fake Lashes: Not Just For Tammy Faye,” The New York Times, April 25, 2004 and available online here.
Posted on June 17, 2013

Military Active Duty

Today’s market size is the number of active duty military personnel in the United States and in China. When looking at comparative national data, always be sure to take into account how the measure… measures up, if you will, on a per capita basis.

Geographic reference: China and United States
Year: 2011
Market size: China: 2,285,000 (equal to 1.69 persons per 1,000 in the population)
Market size: United States: 1,430,000 (equal to 4.52 persons per 1,000 in the population)
Source: “The Growth of The Chinese Military,” Military Education, A Non-Government Military Education Resource, available online here. Various figures were also taken from the CIA World Factbook, available here.
Original Source: Central Intelligence Agency
Posted on June 14, 2013

Trucking Industry

In the United States, trucks move more freight than do all the other forms of transportation combined and this is true when measured measured in terms of tons moved (68.2% in 2010) as well as in terms of the value of that freight (65.5%). The pie chart shows the percentage of total freight moved by each type of transportation vehicle, both in terms of weight and value. What is clear and quite logical is that the value of items moved by air is quite high but those items don’t weight much. To move heavier freight, such as construction materials, heavy machinery, argicultural commodities, coal and the like, the nation’s highways, waterways and railways are the economical answer, and for the heaviest items, the later two networks are the more economical.

Today’s market size is the weight of domestic freight moved by trucks in the United States last year and the revenue those movements produced for the trucking industry.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2012
Market size: 9.4 billion tons moved, generating $643 billion in revenue for the trucking industry
Source: Benjamin Preston, “Wheelies: The Stingray’s Stinger Edition,” Wheels.blogs.nytimes, May 30, 2013, available here. The data used to produce the graphic are from Freight Facts and Figures 2011, “Tables 2-1, 2-1M and 2-2.
Original Source: American Trucking Association and the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration.
Posted on June 5, 2013