While many clubs take a break during the summer, Curling Des Collines changes sports! This is the story of a club that maximizes its facilities, which could inspire other clubs with concrete bases.
“In the winter of 2023 several members of the club suggested to the board members that they should investigate turning the club into a pickleball facility during the spring and summer months. The committee decided that they would invest in nets, paddles, balls and tape to create the courts needed for this start up. In late June of 2023 the four courts were ready and invitations to our curling membership went out. We started with 3 session per week, Tuesday to Thursday 9 am to noon and 6:30 to 9 pm all drop in format and costing $10 per session per person. The uptake was slow, and it took time for the word to get out, but by the end of the summer we averaged close to 16 people per session. We held a closing tournament for which we had 32 players participate in and was a success in that people came out to play pickleball and enjoy our bar which was open and earned extra profits for the Club that would not be there if it was not for the Pickleball activity. That season we grossed approximately $4,000 for the year.
This year 2024 was very different as the Board of Directors decided to hand over the management of the Pickleball season to an individual who was passionate about turning this into a profitable activity for the Curling club. A business / marketing plan and budget predictions were presented in early April. The Board of Directors approved the plan.
The plan was put into action as fellow volunteers started getting the courts painted and we were ready by the 3rd week of May to begin receiving clients. During this process other volunteers contributed by recruiting individuals who were interested in running their own weekly leagues at our facility. The decision was made to have more sessions per week to accommodate more participants and volunteers were sought to run these sessions. We decided to accept 22 players per session so as not to have too many people waiting to play and were open 4 days a week with three 2-hour sessions per day. The plan was a success as we were able to accommodate 7 leagues resulting in $2970 per league for the season (15 weeks) totaling a revenue of $20,790. We also had 5 other open drop-in sessions at $10 per person which we sold prepaid cards at the price of $100 per card for 10 sessions. We held a free open house week and publicized everywhere we could so that people knew of the facility. This turned out to be a great success as we sold close to 100 prepaid cards for a revenue of $10,000. All of this was paid for in advance of starting the pickleball season and the Board was extremely happy with the new revenue stream that was not budgeted for. People came from all over the region to play in our dedicated facility as there are not many facilities like ours that charge a very reasonable price to play. In the end we averaged 20 people per drop-in session and our leagues were at full capacity (22 paid players per league). We also held our second season ending tournament which had 43 individuals participate in 2 divisions which is just another example of the growth that happened over one year. All of this resulted in meeting all expected Budget predictions and very happy pickleball participants.
What was once an empty building during the curling shut down time was now being used for a purpose that was not being fulfilled in our community and the people using the facility are very happy to be able to play pickleball in a controlled environment. Climate change is affecting many people’s ability to participate in this sport outdoors and we now offer a solution. We continue to learn with each season that passes and are working to ensure we keep up with what we learned.
This is an example of good people making good decisions about how to render a curling facility that closes during the summer months more profitable and become more than just a curling rink. We are now a multipurpose facility open year-round. This will only continue to grow as demand for Pickleball facilities continues to expand at a very fast rate. It is a sport that has very low investment cost and high revenue generation stream.”
