“Everything happened very quickly, it’s impressive”. Almost seven months after the start of confinement, Sarah Ourahmoune still seems surprised by the number of subscribers which continues to grow on her social networks. Since last March, the former world boxing champion has gone from 17,000 to more than 41,000 subscribers on her Instagram account, and already has nearly 4,500 Internet users on her YouTube channel. While she had been offering small sports videos online on the Internet for more than a year, the boxer, crowned ten times champion of France, saw the number of her followers soar during confinement. “Like everyone else, I had more time in front of me. So I started doing lives on Instagram, offering sessions for beginners, the most experienced, parents, and even seniors”, says Sarah Ourahmoun.
In full confinement, and while, for the majority of French people, sports halls are no more than a distant memory, the concept takes hold: the Olympic vice-champion creates her YouTube channel, shares her sessions in replay, commits to do “three to four lives a day”. Motivated by these online sessions, offered free of charge, her subscribers are getting used to it: in May, at the end of confinement, Sarah Ourahmoune notices that many of them continue to train, and send her feedback on their sessions. The successive restrictions announced by the government, in particular on the closure of sports halls, confirm Internet users in this new habit. “Some have lost five or eight kilos, others are simply happy to have returned to sport or to have discovered certain disciplines. It makes me want to continue, to create even more adapted, more regular programs”, confides the boxer, recently named laureate of the “Committed to Covid” promotion of the Institute of Commitment for her initiative.
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In the midst of a pandemic, Sarah Ourahmoune illustrates the new desire of the French to learn about sport online. According to an Ifop poll, produced at the end of confinement and published on May 29, 24% of those questioned had taken sports, fitness or bodybuilding lessons on the Internet – for 15% of them, this practice was a novelty. And the motivation does not seem to have stopped at the end of this forced isolation: at the end of May, 14% of French people indicated that they wanted to take online courses “over the next few weeks”.
“This corresponds exactly to current demand”
“The digitization of sport has already existed for several years, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries. In France, the Covid has considerably accelerated this phenomenon”, deciphers Pierre Rondeau, sports economist at the Sport Management School and member of the Sport Observatory. and Society at the Jean Jaurès Foundation. “The applications or lives on the Internet allow the development of an individual sport, disconnected from federations and sports associations. It leaves your hands free, to practice the sport you want at a much lower price than if you had been a member. of a private club… In short, this corresponds exactly to current demand”, indicates the specialist.
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On social networks, dozens of YouTube channels confirm this trend: accessible to all, sports coaches and influencers offer their training to users via online videos, posted regularly. The YouTuber sissy mua, which has more than 1.2 million subscribers on Instagram and 1.68 million on Youtube, thus posted, during confinement, daily lives accessible free of charge to its subscribers. A marketing strategy that is bearing fruit: the online coaching application co-founded by the young woman, paying, now brings together more than 400,000 “2.0” athletes.
“I paid for a gym whose subscription cost me 400 euros a year,” says Alix, who recently “converted to Sissy videos”. “After discovering her free lives during confinement, I saw a real change in my body,” says the young woman. “I subscribed to its application for less than 100 euros per year, and I benefit from hundreds of training videos, dietary advice, exercises to do without equipment, in peace, at home, without the gaze of others. , the constraint of the curfew or the mask to be put back on leaving”, she argues. “There is a real enthusiasm for this type of application, a real audience to seduce”, analyzes Pierre Rondeau. “More traditional companies today have an imperative of results, and must adapt to this new trend: despite the closure of gyms or sports shops, lessons broadcast live can be a real fallback solution”, explains- he.
“Quick, structured, short, accessible sessions”
NeoNess, Basic Fit, Domyos, Nike… Faced with the successive measures put in place by the government, fitness clubs and sports brands have had no choice but to adapt. This is how the Decathlon E-club, which offers live group lessons via a “digitalized fitness room”, has seen its number of subscribers skyrocket since confinement. From 5,000 sessions done per week via the application before confinement, the brand noted more than 100,000 courses followed per week during this period of isolation, “with peaks amounting to more than 150,000 sessions”, specifies Jérôme Lacoste, responsible for the Decathlon sports practice service platform. Attendance at the Decathlon Coach application, which offers a free digital coaching service, doubled during confinement, going from 350,000 sports sessions per week to 700,000 sessions. “Currently, the trend is continuing with a slight drop: 500,000 sports sessions are practiced via the app each week”, specifies the brand.
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Same story on the side of Basic Fit, whose total or partial closure of the rooms since March 16 has “pushed users to install the application reserved for club subscribers”, assures Fabien Rouget, business manager within the business. During confinement, the company thus experienced “a peak in use at European level”: at the end of March, the use of virtual group lessons GXR (Group Exercise Revolution) was seven times higher than that “at the beginning of the year “. If the use of these group lessons has since “returned to a level close to before confinement”, Fabien Rouget is aware that this trend is “to be watched closely”. “It’s a real demand: customers now want to do quick, structured, short sessions, accessible anywhere”.
Facing the “modernization challenge”
For Thibaut Aoustin, of the Social Council of the Sports Movement (CoSMoS), the rooms “have been obliged to offer this kind of service to their customers”. Faced with the stars of YouTube and Instagram, “all the associative clubs, the fitness clubs, the federations, found themselves having to adapt. They have no other choice but to take the step”, explains t -he. “The French individual sports market is hypercompetitive,” adds Pierre Rondeau. “To function, you have to be able to build subscriber loyalty over several years: this is where professionals who quickly implement digital solutions will come out on top.”
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A new trend which could also give rise to “unpublished” practices, according to Pierre Rondeau. “It works for sport at home, but also for sport watching: in these times of curfew and confinement, we have to revolutionize the digital relationship between supporters and the club”. RC Strasbourg has thus set up its own application, while “PSG makes a lot of effort on its communication via YouTube, for example”, illustrates the sports economist.
But, if this trend “tends to continue over time”, it could also weaken the “more traditional” players within the sector, dreads Pierre Rondeau. “This new practice could well be to the detriment of associative clubs and federations, which experienced a drop of more than 50% of their licensees at the start of the school year in September,” he recalls. According to the specialist, the various Federations today have a “share of responsibility”. “They must now face the challenge of modernization, make a sufficient effort to capture this new audience, for example by offering competent applications”.