Is the golf simulator market saturated?

The natural instinct for any new golf sim operator is to size up their competition by counting sims already in their area—but the right approach is far more granular and targeted. 

Drawing on the elements of the actual process successful operators followed, we’ll walk through the five-step approach to market research before you open your doors, so you can pinpoint the real opportunity and build a golf simulator business positioned to be profitable from the start. 

The Playbook: 5 steps to properly researching the market

Before diving into the steps below, you should get clear on what questions you need an answer to, and what influence those answers will have on your actual business strategy.

Brian Stenson, owner of Golf630, shared a few of the questions he asked himself when sizing up the opportunity: “Could I make this profitable based on what I could find out? How many golfers are in the area? How can I price this? What does my competition look like?”

Step 1: Map your competitors inside the geographic radius that actually matters.

Despite this being the obvious first step, it’s also one most operators get wrong. There isn’t one set radius every owner should use to identify their competition. 

What matters more is how saturated the market is in your specific area. Highly urbanized areas or popular golf communities may have several competitors packed into a small radius, while more rural areas with lower population density and fewer businesses might need to look farther out. 

Nick Notto, owner of Pin High PGH, follows the same logic, “Your business is focused on your immediate ZIP code... with Brian, it's about three miles around him. With mine, it might be a little bit bigger.”

Method:

1. Set a radius that makes sense for your specific location and search Google Maps for keywords like “golf simulator” or “indoor golf” to identify how many are your direct competition. 
2. Record the details in a spreadsheet: the name, address, distance, and type of venue (heavier on food + beverage, or more performance-based). This list is what you’ll price out and try test-booking in the following steps.

Step 2: Check your area’s income profile

The raw number of competitors in your area tells you nothing about what potential customers are willing to spend on a session, so as a first step to pricing out bookings, do a deep dive on your region’s median annual income. 

Method: 

Pull median household income for the radius you just set from the Census Bureau and record it. This is a strong indicator of how much your customers might be willing to spend—whether that’s on the session itself, food and beverage, equipment, or other add-ons. 

Step 3: Price out every single competitor 

The best way to shape your own pricing strategy is by looking at two factors together: your area’s income profile and how your competitors price themselves. Together, they can help you identify gaps in the market, spot business models that are missing, and determine what people in your area may be willing to pay. That upfront work helps you build a pricing strategy that stays competitive long term.

Method:

For each of the competitors in your radius, record the following:

1. Hourly bay rates
2. Membership rates and what each tier includes
3. Peak and off-peak pricing rates

Note: If they don’t list their pricing, that’s worth recording too because you could serve the price-transparency gap by publishing your rates publicly. 

Step 4: Book a bay for yourself

Give the booking process a test run as if you were a customer. Why? Not only will you spot any gaps in the experience, but you’ll also get a firsthand look at what is booked and when. 

If there’s a lot of bay-time still available, for example, that could be a sign that the venue’s pricing strategy isn’t working for the area. 

Method:

1. Sign up for a free trial or attempt an actual reservation with each competitor.
2. Record what you observed in the spreadsheet. Everything you notice is another piece of information you use to guide your own pricing strategy. 
3. Repeat this during different times of the year if your location is affected by seasonality.

Step 5: Identify who is not currently being served in your market

With all the information you’ve gathered, now’s the time to figure out where the gaps in the market are, and ultimately, where you’ll fit in.

Method:

1. Build a 2 x 2 grid. 
   
   1. One axis is who your competitors serve. At one end it’s recreational golfers and at the other end is serious golfers.
   2. The other axis is what your competitors offer. At one end it’s just practice/memberships and at the other end it’s a full food/beverage event space.
2. Plot each of your competitors on this chart.
3. Look for an empty box or one with the least amount of plots. That’s the gap you should look to fill.

If the chart shows a relatively even number of plots across all four quadrants, you have a pretty clear answer about whether your market is saturated. A saturated market is one where the existing businesses already cover the needs of nearly every type of potential customer. 

Follow the framework above, and you’ll walk away knowing not just whether your market is saturated, but exactly where your business can fit.