Our garbage gym Lifetime Centreville is ripping out the indoor basketball courts and replacing it with all pickleball
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Anonymous
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Basketball courts in gyms have always been more about having the option/amenity to put in brochures and attract sign ups to give you option to occasionally burn off steam shooting a few hoops, rather than making money off the actual regular basketball players (there’s like 20-25 and they tend to be heavy users and often part of family memberships ie kids). I’m guessing the pandemic resulted in lots of casual members buying Pelotons and Tonals and staying at home, so pickle ball is a way to get a new demographic to sign up - you can’t play pickle ball at home.
Makes business sense…leagues, lessons, etc. Until the fad dies out for the next fad. But I think gyms overall are hurting so might as do what works now. |
Anonymous
| Its frustrating to pay such a high membership fee and the business keeps taking away things you thought were included. Whatever happened to growing your profits by providing a good value and keeping loyal customers hapoy? |
Anonymous
That's not how gyms work. They want to sign up as many people as possible who pay alot and use the space the least. The family membership add on kid who shows up for pick up every day during peak evening hours is low margin and high usage, the exact opposite of what they want. |
Anonymous
Yet climbing is in the Olympics with some of the most insanely strong athletes you will ever see. And Pickleball for your grandpa. I’d love to see your dumb ass even attempt any climb at a real climbing gym, you diosh@t. |
Anonymous
The problem is that the families do not generate enough revenue for them. If family memberships and birthday party rentals generated enough revenue, they wouldn't redesign the facility to try and make additional revenue from the facility. |
Anonymous
That might be what they want but they also have to balance that with trying to retain paying customers and attracting new customers with amenities, as well as paying lip service to customer service. Now they obviously have a number cruncher who thinks focusing solely on the pickleball market is worth the cost of remodeling as well as losing all the family/young adult members. I could see doing maybe one test Senior Citizen oriented Pickleball gym in the whole area and seeing if it is more profitable than the business model they started with ( trying to appeal to families as much as possible). Maybe they already tested it out in other markets and it was an insane money maker. |
Anonymous
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Whether you love it or hate it, it's THE fastest growing sport in the country .
You can generate a lot more revenue, advertise, host clinics, lease to leagues, etc with indoor pickleball courts. The rock wall was probably an expensive liability that didn't pay off and just a money-suck for them. From a business model, converting to pickleball courts was a smart move. |
Anonymous
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Its an interesting business pivot.
Their whole selling point was all the different amenities, including things to appeal to families. They have decided to completely upend their business model and solely focus on the pickleball/older adult market. Usually you don't see such a clear attempt by a company to NOT want to sell to an entire large demographic (young people, families). At least, not a gym. I am not a pickleball or basketball person but it is surprising to see a huge gym chain basically decide there is no profit in customers who are the most active groups of people! |
Anonymous
I didn't care about pickleball either way but it does seem to be crowding out all the existing usual sports like basketball, tennis and for some reason pickleball people seem to stir controversy everywhere, why is that? |
Anonymous
You said that already. They have childcare but I think there is a time limit (2 hours?). If you mean older kids and teenagers, they are all paying members and don't need daycare supervision. They are allowed to use the weights at age 13, I believe. So you are complaining about paid members....using the gym they pay to be members of? Lifetime's whole schtick was that you could spend lot of time there. Cafe, pool, spa, courts. Lifetime has decided they don't want families and young guys' business and are going for Pickleball Only. |
Anonymous
Time to find a new gym. Lifetime made their decision and yes, that means they don't want to be the basketball hangout for families. |
Anonymous
| I think it is a bit much to criticize paying gym members for....using their gym memberships! That's ridiculous. Lifetime is expensive, they should expect more people to show up and use their facilities for $200/month then Planet Fitness. |
Anonymous
That's a good point. Its easy to see how the Planet Fitness business model is based on people showing up. Do the high end gyms like Lifetime (is it really $200 per month!!!) also run on that plan? Their preference is to sell memberships and then not have the customers show up? That seems unrealistic, if people are paying that much I would think they would want to be there every day. |
Anonymous
| not showing up obviously |
Anonymous
Who is criticizing them? People are pointing out the logic of Liftetime's decision to add a new offering, even if that means removing a less profitable one used by some people. They want to appeal to a new market and potentially new members more than they care about the drain families place on aging amenities. It's baffling that people can't wrap their minds around the idea that things change and gyms are chasing fads because they are probably bleeding money. They don't care to have families spending hours and hours a day hanging out with a fixed price membership that doesn't result in any extra revenue for such heavy usage. |