Here at Pickleball Business Advisor, we’ve developed financial projections for dozens of pickleball clubs. No two are alike. Each entrepreneur we’ve worked with has a different vision for their business: scale, amenities, vibe, co-located ancillary businesses, food & beverage, location demographics and more. As new clubs open, a wide variety of approaches are being explored. That said, every pickleball club is governed by one fundamental economic reality.
You have an inherently limited resource for sale: Court time.
The core resource for a pickleball club is court time. It is a simple function of number of courts times hours open per day. This reality means your challenge as a club owner is to generate as many dollars per court hour as you can. Your rent is a fixed cost, and in most markets its expensive, especially given the large square footage required for a club. So how do you drive enough revenue out of a limited resource to have a financially successful club?
Its critical to build a pickleball club revenue plan
Multiple revenue streams woven together will be at the core of a plan to optimize revenue. This has implications for your startup costs, your staffing, your pricing model, your branding, your automation technology and more. I believe the notion that memberships dues and court rental can drive these businesses is becoming more and more obsolete. We just completed a detailed plan for a club that featured 14 separate revenue streams, several of them unrelated to pickleball court usage. Which brings me to a final thought.
Consideration of ancillary / synergistic businesses
Many clubs have food and alcohol operations and that is absolutely one way to broaden the revenue potential of a club. That said, there are staffing, operational, square footage, and startup cost issues around pickleball driven restaurants that many club owners (who are not restauranteurs) shy away from. There are other possibilities, for creative entrepreneurs to leverage your limited resource: square footage. Other sports, related health and wellness offerings, unique retail, services, and more. This strategic thinking should be something considered in the early stages of your operation, not something you scramble to develop once you open and aren’t optimizing revenue.
*Pickleball Business Advisors is brothers Bill and John Pryor. We provide a variety of consulting services based on extensive experience in fitness business development, and research into the fast growing pickleball marketplace. To initiate a feasibility assessment for your pickleball club, or for other consulting, contact us so we can learn about your project.
