Marketing pre-school sport and physical activity

It is parents who ultimately choose to pay for, and attend, pre-school enrichment; therefore, understanding what content parents are exposed to on the webpages of popular pre-school sport franchises is important. This chapter examines the webpages of five UK-based franchises that provide organised sport-based enrichment classes to pre-school children. To do this, a content analysis of five franchises offering pre-school and enrichment classes across a range of sports-based activities was undertaken to look at the language and images used to sell the activity and the merchandise that is sold to parents at an additional cost. The franchises selected all operate on a national scale across England, with three of the five franchises also operating internationally. Findings indicate that franchises are selling more than just sport. Pre-school sport providers are selling a legitimacy to parents that comes from aligning programmes to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework or by selling educational and developmental opportunities that may provide an advantage.