ARE MAMMOTH (FOR PROFIT) YOUTH SPORTS COMPLEXES THE WAY OF THE FUTURE?

One of the most startling developments in the world of youth sports is the booming businesses of giant sports complexes all over the country.

These are humongous real estate developments that are for-profit, and basically are being put together to attract travel and club teams to play in games, tournaments, and showcases…all for a hefty fee, of course, which the parents pay.

The facilities are first-class, with state of the art fields, courts, rinks, whatever. Unlike in the past, if your kid was on a travel team and was playing in a tournament, you might have had to drive him or her to different venues to play in the games, the major advantage of these one-stop complexes was that every field was in the same spot.

From the perspective of smaller towns who are always looking for new revenue streams, these sports complexes seem to be the solution for all of their financial needs.

It all sounds good in theory – everybody wins –- kids have a chance to travel to a giant sports complex in which to compete, the parents stay right there and don’t have to drive their kid all over the area to games, and of course, there’s an excitement about playing other teams from all over the country.

Problem is, these behemoth operations are very hard to make profitable. In a wonderful article written by Roman Stubbs that ran in the Wash Post last week, most of these huge money-makers provide everything…except it’s not clear whether they make a lot of money. We had plenty of provocative calls on the show this AM about this topic. Listen below:
https://omny.fm/shows/rick-wolff-the-sports-edge/the-sports-ed-d93b19c9-577d-4124-8c9f-cb585ab92dce