The Cost of Sport
September 14, 2010 in Uncategorized
I have been warning squash and tennis players for years not to take their sports for granted. I have said over and over again that free public tennis courts — at least courts on which it is possible to play full competitive matches — are soon to be a thing of the past. I have also said that squash courts priced at under $20.00 an hour are seriously under-priced and completely unsustainable.
Few are willing to listen, of course. Most players prefer to imagine that they will be able to continue paying unsustainable prices forever. They would rather pay nothing and eventually see a facility closed forever than pay a fair price that ensures it will be able to keep its doors open for this generation and the next.
And so we come to reap the harvest we have sown. Squash courts are converted to spin studios or craft rooms. Tennis courts are first abandoned, then closed and finally torn up and grassed over for soccer pitches. For a short while, the very same players who refused to pay sustainable prices are outraged. A few even write letters of complaint. But eventually life moves on and people forget that squash or tennis was ever played there.
Every sport has to pay its way these days. Indoor tennis in Calgary costs $26.00-32.00 per hour per court. Indoor badminton costs $20-$25.00 per hour per court. The same is true for pickleball. So why do squash players imagine that they should pay less than $20.00 per hour for their courts?
Outdoor tennis isn’t free either. The Oakridge Community Centre recently completed four new tennis courts at a cost of $150,000 each. If each of those courts lasts for 25 years and is used 20 hours per week over 25 outdoor seasons, the cost per court per hour works out to $20.00.
That’s right. I’m talking only about original construction costs. Add in the cost of staffing and maintenance and the real cost of running those courts is closer to $50.00 per prime time hour. Who in Calgary is willing to pay that much to play outdoor tennis?
No wonder investors are unwilling to build new indoor tennis facilities in Calgary. There are faster and more entertaining ways to go broke than investing in a tennis club and watching your money slowly circle the drain before vanishing completely.
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