The people at Southcoast pickleball are all about community. Co-owner Adam Rogers calls the Southcoast a “community-centric” club. Everything that the club does centers around forming and growing a vibrant sense of community. Southcoast has a large number of regulars, but it does not offer traditional memberships. Rogers remarks, “We are not a membership-based club.” Instead, the folks at Southcoast rely on strong programming and hospitality to bring in regular attendees. For Southcoast, hospitality and community bring people back to the facility, not necessarily memberships.
Southcoast Pickleball is a mid-sized pickleball facility in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The 22,000-square-foot building holds seven indoor courts, two of which are championship-sized courts. Spectators can find seats throughout the facility with a clear view of the pickleball action. Looking to kick back and relax? The Southcoast facility also comes with a spacious players’ lounge and a snack-filled concession stand. Players also have access to changing rooms. The walls and floors are covered with various tones of white and blue.
The owners at Southcoast also decided to invest in quality net dividers that separate each court. Rogers compares the netting to the netting someone might find at a golf driving range. The nets are hung from wires which are hung from tall metal posts strategically placed around each court. Rogers comments that the nets are not overly flexible which helps prevent player injuries. The nets also prevent rouge pickleballs from flying into other courts.
Southcoast also shares its property with an independently run mini golf course and food truck which function as great places for socializing after pickleball.
Southcoast Pickleball is a business, but Rogers remarks, “We’re in the people business.” The owners see pickleball at Southcoast as a way to facilitate relationships, stay healthy, and grow pickleball “all in one token.”
One of Southcoast’s most striking things is that it does not offer club memberships. The owners decided not to offer memberships because they wanted to keep the facility open to everyone at all times. Memberships certainly have their benefits, but Southcoast’s choice to avoid them removes one more obstacle between pickleball and potential players.
Since they don’t offer memberships, the folks at Southcoast have other ways of maintaining player retention. First, they put a strong emphasis on providing “good, solid” open play sessions that bring large groups together. Lively open play with a friendly community is a powerful attraction for any player. Those at Southcoast also emphasize player education through a variety of clinics. If a club equips a new player with the skills her or she needs to play quality pickleball, then it is far more likely that the player will come back for pickleball. Southcoast’s high value on hospitality and building relationships also ensures that plenty of their players come back.
Rogers leaves aspiring pickleball club owners with a couple of pieces of advice. First, be patient. Rogers can reflect on many days early on when the facility was empty and no one showed up to play pickleball. But now, Southcoast pickleball fills up with players on a daily basis. Second, Rogers advises that pickleball owners make it a priority to listen to the players. He says, “If you listen, people tell you, they tell you what they want or what they don’t want, sometimes they say it directly to you, but even if they don’t, they’re gonna tell you.”
Southcoast is an excellent reminder of the importance of community and relationships when forming a club. Southcoast is also proof that you don’t necessarily need a complex membership system to build a community or succeed as a pickleball business.
