Regardless of a club’s location, it is likely to experience seasonal membership and open-play ups and downs. Whether members return to their primary home or choose outdoor over indoor play when weather permits, fluctuations are a part of club ownership.
Pickleball Club Magazine has gathered some tips and ideas from pickleball clubs that are finding ways to keep numbers solid in the off-season, which can be implemented in clubs of all sizes.
Seasonality is one of the most consistent operating challenges in the industry. For a fourth perspective on the same problem, see how Prestige Pickleball Club sets up for success through seasonal fluctuations, and for the membership side of the equation, how to turn summer membership changes into opportunities to grow.
Key Takeaways
- Seasonal swings are structural, not a failure of management. Snowbirds leave, outdoor courts open up, and indoor traffic drops. Every club feels it regardless of size or market.
- Guaranteed court time is a product. Pickleball Garage in Jackson, Wyoming found that players will book and pay in summer specifically because reservations remove the uncertainty of free public courts.
- Discounting open play is usually the wrong first lever. Pickleball Garage considered cutting open play pricing, then concluded that players who want to play will play, and protected its margin instead.
- Structured programming beats open play for off-season dependability. Score Hub treats leagues, clinics, and camps as the revenue floor, with open play layered on top.
- A calculated giveaway can outperform a discount. Minneapolis Pickleball Club gave new Standard Members free unlimited open play all summer and hit peak membership numbers.
- The common thread across all three: know your market, protect your business model, and take small, reversible risks.
Three Clubs, Three Off-Season Playbooks
| Club | Size and market | Slow season | Primary lever | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pickleball Garage | 2 courts, Jackson, WY | Summer | Guaranteed court time plus visiting pros | Players returned in year two to lock in court time |
| Score Hub | Large club, Minneapolis / St. Paul | Summer evenings | Leagues, clinics, camps, and multi-sport options | Strong evening traffic maintained through summer |
| Minneapolis Pickleball Club | Indoor club, downtown Minneapolis | Summer | Free unlimited open play for new Standard Members | Peak membership numbers reached in summer |
Chart: Three Pickleball Clubs, Three Approaches to the Same Seasonal Problem. Club size and market shape the lever, but all three protected pricing and invested in programming rather than cutting rates. Source: Pickleball Club Magazine.
Pickleball Garage: Sell Certainty, Not Discounts
This two-court facility located in Jackson, Wyoming, experiences lower traffic in the summer when pickleball players turn to the plethora of free courts in the area to enjoy the warmer temps. Rather than accept the seasonal slowdown, owners Sara Dolentz and Fiona Wilson made some adaptations to their summer offerings after the first summer season.
“Our first summer was slow. However, our second summer in business saw players returning to our courts because they knew they were guaranteed court time,” Sara says. “We saw groups of four specifically booking time to ensure they could play when they wanted.”
That is a useful reframe for any operator competing against free outdoor courts. The product is not the court. The product is certainty: a known start time, a known partner group, and no waiting in line. Small facilities in particular can win on that promise, as detailed in how a small, single-court facility can win big.
Bringing In Outside Pros to Create New Reasons to Visit
Pickleball Garage also books outside professionals, especially regional pros, in the summer to create new reasons for players to visit. Bringing in highly skilled professionals to teach smaller, boutique-sized classes keeps player traffic flowing.
And, since these sessions are open to the public, new players come through the doors and are able to experience the facility and hopefully join or at least return.
This is a two-for-one: the clinic itself generates revenue, and the public access turns the clinic into a low-cost acquisition channel. Clubs building a similar funnel should review how to grow your club by leveraging beginner clinics and the top three ways to fill downtime on your pickleball courts.
Why the Club Decided Against Cutting Open Play Pricing
Sara adds that at first the club thought they might discount open-play pricing to encourage players. They then realized that wouldn’t help as much as they needed and that if players wanted to play, they would.
Knowing your market and keeping an eye on the bottom line pays off in the end by not compromising the club’s space or revenue.
This is the discipline most operators skip. A discount lowers the ceiling on every future price conversation and rarely creates demand that was not already there. The margin math behind decisions like this is covered in from courts to cash flow: Devan Egan on running a successful pickleball club.
Score Hub: Build the Revenue Floor on Structured Programming
For larger clubs like Score Hub in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, the key to offseason success is focusing on leagues and organized activities along with offering a variety of sport options.
Manager Donny Mark says relying on open play isn’t a sound financial decision since it is seasonal and less dependable than structured programming. After experimenting with different ideas and strategies, the club has found that leagues and organized activities help maintain strong evening traffic even during the summer when many players enjoy being outside.
Once the club understood the seasonal behavior, it was able to plan programming, staffing, and revenue expectations more realistically.
That last point is the operational payoff. Seasonality stops being a surprise and becomes a line item you can staff and budget against, which is the same principle at work in turning player time into revenue.
Youth Camps and Member-Requested Clinics
“We offer youth pickleball camps Monday through Friday for all levels staffed by our coaches that have been very well received,” Donny says. “The club also takes advantage of lower bookings to fill those courts with more clinics at the request of our members.”
Youth programming does double duty in the summer: it fills daytime courts that would otherwise sit empty, and it builds the next generation of members. SPORTIME’s interclub league model shows what that pipeline looks like once it matures into a revenue line.
Adding Staff and Sessions Instead of Cutting Them
Score Hub added a new coach specifically for summer and added more times and offerings, including Advanced Drilling for 4.0+ Friday late morning and Twoey clinics early Saturday afternoons.
Adding structured play during slower times provides multiple revenue streams rather than relying on a single type of court usage.
Hiring into a slow season takes nerve, and it only works when the programming is priced to cover the coach. Operators weighing that call will find useful framing in lessons from SPORTIME Pickleball on hiring and developing staff and leveling up your team and your profitability. Note also that Advanced Drilling sessions built around a DUPR skill band give competitive players a reason to stay indoors when the weather is good.
Off-Season Levers by Club Size
[INSERT CHART IMAGE HERE, file: seasonal_levers_by_club_size.png]
| Lever | Small club (1-3 courts) | Mid to large club (4+ courts) | What it fixes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guaranteed reservations | High impact | Moderate impact | Competition from free outdoor courts |
| Visiting or regional pros | High impact | High impact | New reasons to visit plus public exposure |
| Leagues and organized play | Moderate impact | High impact | Unreliable evening traffic |
| Youth camps and clinics | Moderate impact | High impact | Empty weekday daytime courts |
| Multi-sport offerings | Low impact | High impact | Single-use court dependency |
| Membership incentives | High impact | High impact | Flat or declining summer signups |
Chart: Which Off-Season Levers Fit Which Club. Small facilities win on certainty and boutique instruction. Larger facilities win on programming volume and sport variety. Source: Pickleball Club Magazine.
Minneapolis Pickleball Club: A Calculated Revenue Risk
Taking a calculated revenue risk turned into a big payoff for Minneapolis Pickleball Club.
This summer, all new members who purchased a Standard Membership received free, unlimited open play from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM. Club Director Eric Larsen said when he proposed this idea to the owner, he wasn’t sure how it would be received. Luckily, the experiment was a great success.
“This idea wasn’t a play for revenue; it was to keep the club feeling alive and happening and, of course, grow our membership,” Eric says. “We give a lot of tours in the summer, and we wanted to show prospective members a closer idea of what the club looks like in the winter when we are booked and busy.”
Selling the Winter Experience During the Summer
He says the community and environment speak for themselves, and giving new members a chance to see a more realistic idea of the fun and camaraderie that is more typical paid off.
There is a sales insight buried in this. A prospect touring a quiet facility in July is evaluating an empty room. A prospect touring full courts is evaluating a community. The giveaway was not a discount on open play; it was an investment in what every summer tour looked like. Marketing an atmosphere rather than a price point is the same approach that worked in how marketing helped the Al Kruse Pickleball Center expand membership.
“Unlimited play was a great success! The club hit peak membership numbers this summer and there are a lot of new and now recurring faces. We are excited to see these players stick around and look forward to seeing them in the fall and winter too,” he says.
Community is the retention mechanism that carries those members into the busy season, a dynamic covered in keeping the game and community top of mind at Cedar Falls Pickleball Club.
What Operators Can Take From These Three Clubs
When thinking about minimizing profit loss during the off-season, the overarching theme of success with these clubs is sticking with your business model, knowing your customers, and taking small risks that can lead to big payoffs. Investing in staff and member loyalty is always a solid business model.
Five moves translate directly to clubs of any size:
- Sell certainty instead of cutting price. Guaranteed court time is worth paying for when the alternative is waiting at a free public court.
- Protect your rate card. If players want to play, they will. Discounting open play compromises revenue without reliably creating demand.
- Make structured programming the floor. Leagues, clinics, and camps are dependable in a way open play is not.
- Use the slow season to add offerings, not subtract them. New coaches, new time slots, and visiting pros create reasons to walk through the door.
- Test one reversible giveaway. A membership incentive that fills the room can pay for itself in tours, signups, and retention.
Clubs looking for additional off-season revenue beyond court time should also look at retail, explored in how Pickleball Central turns club pro shops into revenue engines, and at differentiated offerings, covered in how Dynamite Pickleball Club creates unique offerings in a competitive landscape.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do pickleball clubs experience seasonal fluctuations?
Seasonal fluctuations happen for two main reasons: members return to a primary home for part of the year, and players choose free outdoor courts over paid indoor play when the weather allows. Indoor clubs in warm-weather regions typically slow down in summer, while clubs in snowbird markets slow down when seasonal residents leave.
Should a pickleball club discount open play during the off-season?
Not as a first move. Pickleball Garage in Jackson, Wyoming considered discounting open play pricing and decided against it after concluding that players who want to play will play regardless of a modest discount. The club protected its rate card and invested in programming instead, which preserved both space and revenue.
What is the most dependable source of off-season revenue for a pickleball club?
Structured programming. Score Hub manager Donny Mark says relying on open play isn’t a sound financial decision since it is seasonal and less dependable than structured programming. Leagues, organized activities, clinics, and youth camps produce more predictable traffic and let a club plan staffing and revenue expectations realistically.
How can a small pickleball club compete with free outdoor courts?
By selling guaranteed court time. Pickleball Garage saw groups of four booking reservations specifically so they could play when they wanted, which free public courts cannot promise. Small clubs can also bring in regional pros for boutique-sized classes that are open to the public, generating revenue while exposing new players to the facility.
Do free membership perks actually grow a pickleball club?
They can when structured as a limited, reversible test. Minneapolis Pickleball Club gave all new Standard Membership purchasers free unlimited open play from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM for the summer. The club hit peak membership numbers, gained recurring players, and made its summer facility tours more compelling by keeping the courts full.
What programming fills empty weekday courts in the summer?
Youth camps and member-requested clinics are the two most effective options. Score Hub runs youth pickleball camps Monday through Friday for all levels staffed by its coaches, and uses lower booking periods to add clinics that members have specifically asked for.
Should a club add staff during a slow season?
It can be the right call when the added programming covers the cost. Score Hub added a new coach specifically for summer along with more time slots and offerings, including Advanced Drilling for 4.0+ players and Twoey clinics, which created multiple revenue streams rather than relying on a single type of court usage.
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