Sports Facilities are Evolving

Facility Spotlight: Elite Sports Academy

Here is the reality of a sports facility, specifically baseball and softball facilities: in the winter they are overflowing with athletes looking to refine skills and get in some reps in the off-season. But, in the summer… crickets. So Elite Sports Academy got creative and covered their facility’s turf with multipurpose flooring to drive revenue in the slow season.

Here are just some of the details and outcomes of their innovative approach to the summer months: 

Protecting the Turf 

Rather than pulling up their turf and relaying it for the winter, Elite Sports Academy did the research and found a way to have the best of both worlds. They used plywood with rubber matting attached to the bottom and snap sports multi-purpose flooring on top to build out two basketball courts of space in their facility. 

New Programs and Events

Elite Sports Academy welcomed a whole new community of athletes to their facility with basketball camps and clinics being a huge success over the summer. They also offered an open gym membership that brought in consistent revue throughout the summer and was their top-performing offer of the slow season. The facility was also able to offer indoor community events like fundraisers, cornhole tournaments, etc. 

With the growing popularity of pickleball, Elite Sports Academy is looking to introduce that into their summer offers and plans to have leagues and tournaments next summer. 

Timing

While this is their first year trying out the off-season changes to their facility, Elite Sports Academy plans to leave the courts up until the end of October, and then transition back to their turf fields for the baseball and softball busy season. Based on their research and experience with turf, they do expect a week or so of transition timing to prepare the turf and repaint the lines. 

Community

Opening up your facility to additional sports and programs not only builds your revenue sources, but it expands the community at your facility. We push each facility, no matter what sport they specialize in, to run with a “sports facility” model, rather than a baseball, softball, etc. Facility only. Building a bigger community gives your staff the opportunity to build more relationships and get a look at a whole new world of sports and embrace the different seasons. 

Takeaways

The biggest takeaway from Elite Sports Academy is to utilize your slow season to enter new markets, expand your program offerings, and use creativity to build consistent revenue streams. Maybe you take their lead and implement a sports court, or build out additional strength training programs to target athletes that are in their off-season in the summer. Whatever it may be, the advantages of expanding into new sports and opportunities FAR outweigh the efforts it takes to get there.

If you’re a serious business owner who needs help building, managing, and evolving your sports facility, book a consultation now.

If you’re tired of cumbersome scheduling software — or worse, pen and paper — eSoft Planner is a robust solution for the cost-conscious sports facility. Contact us for a demo of eSoft Planner today to see how you can spend less time and hassle on administration and more time supporting your club and your members.