PICKLEBALL NOT PROFITABLE IN CALGARY

I found an interesting article in Calgary's Pickleball News.  It describes the state of affairs for Pickleball in Calgary which is supported financially by Brent's Racquet Network.  Brent is losing money with his pay for play agenda and the only thing keeping him afloat is the sale of paddles and other equipment.

Here's the article in its entirety.  The last paragraph is certainly an eye opener.

Pickelball Not Profitable in Calgary

In the fall of 2010, Racquet Network administrators promised our players that we would carefully study the revenue numbers for pickleball over the winter and report back to them in the spring. Now that spring is here, we can do that.

In summary, pickleball activities in Calgary cost Racquet Network more than they earned over the winter of 2010/2011. Attempts to expand to Marlborough during prime time were particularly costly when the number of players who actually participated failed to match the number of players who indicated they would participate. Our competitive program at the West Hillhurst Community Centre also lost money when the number of competitive players failed to live up to expectations.

But even if we set those costly mistakes aside, it is clear that pickleball in Calgary has a long way to go before it can be considered a profitable activity.

Example: Southland Leisure Centre

The Southland Leisure Centre rents us courts on Tuesday mornings for the city’s largest pickleball program. The facility has eight courts, but only seven of these can be used because we need space for players to gather and be sorted into teams. This gives us a maximum of seven functional courts.

In order to access this facility, Racquet Network has to sign a contract and pay for all courts up front. The total paid in advance last season was well over $2000.00. These court rental costs are then added to staff wages, equipment costs, marketing costs and administrative costs and then divided to give us a total cost per session.

Once all costs and revenues are taken into account, the numbers break down like this …

When half of the courts at Southland were occupied last winter, we lost $47.62 per session. When three-quarters of the courts were occupied, we made $10.48 per session. When all of the courts were occupied we made $68.58 per session.

Only once over the winter of 2010/2011 were all of the courts at Southland occupied. In fact, 74% of the sessions were half-full. This means that Racquet Network lost money on 74% of the pickleball sessions we ran there last year.

All in all, Racquet Network paid out $318.85 more than we took in on the Southland Leisure Centre pickleball program in 2010/2011.

Under these circumstances, one might reasonably expect that the program would be cancelled for next season — something we seriously considered.

Fortunately, the program at Southland also generated just enough in sales of racquets, grips, shoes and other merchandise to make up the difference. So, overall, the program came close to breaking even and is considered a reasonable risk for 2011/2012.

So what does this mean for next season?

In order to minimize risk for next winter, Racquet Network will be sponsoring only three pickleball programs. One will be at the Southland Leisure Centre, two will be at the West Hillhurst Community Centre. Two of these programs will be day time programs, one will be a competitive, prime time program.

If these programs fail to cover their costs, Racquet Network will have no choice but to abandon support for pickleball the following season. While we genuinely love the sport, we cannot support any activity that is not able to at least cover its own programming costs.