Our garbage gym Lifetime Centreville is ripping out the indoor basketball courts and replacing it with all pickleball

[Anonymous]

Can't do anything about it but I would be salty too if a gym took out my elliptical and put in pickleball.

[Anonymous]

Ugh I can't believe the rockville gym got rid if the childcare! I really feel like thats where this is headed.

[Anonymous]

For those who use the bball courts -- are they all guys? I'm just wondering b/c I've only seen males use the bball court at my gym. Pickleball is much more gender neutral. Relatively equal numbers of men and women. Seems like that alone is a plus for a business... provide facilities that are used by both genders.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

PP was complaining about kids "hanging out" at the gym for 3-4 hours. They are paying customers.

People like that are taking advantage. Like the people who sit in Starbucks all day and get one cup of coffee, hoarding a table. They also argue they are "paying customers" but they are taking advantage. Starbucks and gyms don't value customers like that.

What!? People paying for a gym membership and then going to the gym and using the offered amenities are "taking advantage'? WTF?

Yes. Spending all day every day is not the ideal customer for the gym. Do you not understand that businesses target specific types of customers, demographics, and behaviors? Out are the teen loiterers, in are the new memberships of people who are in and out. It's a business, not a half-way house charity.

The teenagers are paying customers.

Are they? What are they buying?

A membership (via their parents, most likely, but that counts). I would think that is obvious.
But, additionally, I'm sure they are doing the teen events (movie nights) and buying stuff from the snack bars.

A family of 4 with 2 teens is about $259/month. A empty nest family is $189/month for a basic membership. You can't see how targeting some demographics might make more sense? More money, fewer people. If that family of 4 was paying $378 then it would be more fair and accurate to say they are paying customers. They are getting a huge discount as family members which may no longer be sustainable.

Finally, someone comes with the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its a little sad how defensive that one pickleball guy is about his hobby. Its cool, dude! You do you. Get on with your 3.5 whatever that is self.

He is really cringe trying to sell pickleball. I've played people like him (4.0 here) and it's nauseating. Slapper who can't slice and has no touch. Too much ego. Yes, there are some great tennis folks who are great at and enjoy pickleball. The vast, vast majority are just enthusiasts who like how easy it is to pick up, how social it is, and how you don't really need to move all that much (so, lots of old people like it). The real athletes in hoi polloi are playing platform tennis, padel, squash and racquetball as their second racquet sport.

So just tell it like it is. It's a bit of a fad, it's really annoying to others (it's very loud, and is being banned in outdoor parks), but yeah, it's great for certain demographics to get a bit of exercise and for some people, a bit of ego lift when they get to go be the Big Man at Pickle in their League. King Sour.

Gyms can do what they want; it just seems very shortsighted to cater to one demographic. I would say the same thing if gyms started overhauling their setups to be all yoga studios -- they're going to lose other people. That's fine. People are elastic with where they can go and spend their money. Gym renovation costs and overhead--not so much.

Glorified ping pong

[Anonymous]

Kids like pickleball too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I can't believe the rockville gym got rid if the childcare! I really feel like thats where this is headed.

FTR, the Gaithersburg location has kept all the kid amenities but it's too far for me. I find the vastly different vibes at the gyms surprising given how tightly the corporation is managed. For me, the issue is tons of Arora fitness classes on the schedule. I am not young and I want to be pushed. I don't want a dumbed down class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids like pickleball too.

Its nice for kids to have an activity they can do with their grandparents but my kids would 1000x rather play basketball or rock climb then pickleball. Pickleball is even exercise for them. I think it's great that older people are getting out the house and doing something social. If this was our gym, I would be pretty disappointed to lose all the family/sports activities to make room for 100% pickleball though.

[Anonymous]

is NOT even exercise, obviously. Its really more like playing pool or ping pong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I can't believe the rockville gym got rid if the childcare! I really feel like thats where this is headed.

FTR, the Gaithersburg location has kept all the kid amenities but it's too far for me. I find the vastly different vibes at the gyms surprising given how tightly the corporation is managed. For me, the issue is tons of Arora fitness classes on the schedule. I am not young and I want to be pushed. I don't want a dumbed down class.

They are probably running the prototype for Senior Citizen Destination gym at a few locations to guage the profitabilty. They are probably hoping to turn most of their cheaper, smaller gyms (like Centreville) into old people specialty gyms, and force everyone to pay more and drive to a few "top tier" gyms that actually have the features all their gyms used to have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ping pong is harder

I am terrible at ping pong with zero hand eye coordinator and the one time i played pickleball, it was so easy and frankly, boring. I can't imagine a gym deciding this is really even an athletic activity, let alone replacing real sports with it. I guess they think its more profitable, But at what point are you not even a gym anymore and more just a senior citizen third place?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

PP was complaining about kids "hanging out" at the gym for 3-4 hours. They are paying customers.

People like that are taking advantage. Like the people who sit in Starbucks all day and get one cup of coffee, hoarding a table. They also argue they are "paying customers" but they are taking advantage. Starbucks and gyms don't value customers like that.

What!? People paying for a gym membership and then going to the gym and using the offered amenities are "taking advantage'? WTF?

Yes. Spending all day every day is not the ideal customer for the gym. Do you not understand that businesses target specific types of customers, demographics, and behaviors? Out are the teen loiterers, in are the new memberships of people who are in and out. It's a business, not a half-way house charity.

The teenagers are paying customers.

Are they? What are they buying?

A membership (via their parents, most likely, but that counts). I would think that is obvious.
But, additionally, I'm sure they are doing the teen events (movie nights) and buying stuff from the snack bars.

A family of 4 with 2 teens is about $259/month. A empty nest family is $189/month for a basic membership. You can't see how targeting some demographics might make more sense? More money, fewer people. If that family of 4 was paying $378 then it would be more fair and accurate to say they are paying customers. They are getting a huge discount as family members which may no longer be sustainable.

Finally, someone comes with the math.

Yeah, I've wondered about that discount they give to teens over certain age. It is like $40 per teen? Price is too low. A teen over 14 should be same price as an adult. Looking forward to when my kids are teens and we'll become permanent Lifetime members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I can't believe the rockville gym got rid if the childcare! I really feel like thats where this is headed.

FTR, the Gaithersburg location has kept all the kid amenities but it's too far for me. I find the vastly different vibes at the gyms surprising given how tightly the corporation is managed. For me, the issue is tons of Arora fitness classes on the schedule. I am not young and I want to be pushed. I don't want a dumbed down class.

They are probably running the prototype for Senior Citizen Destination gym at a few locations to guage the profitabilty. They are probably hoping to turn most of their cheaper, smaller gyms (like Centreville) into old people specialty gyms, and force everyone to pay more and drive to a few "top tier" gyms that actually have the features all their gyms used to have.

That actually makes a lot of sense. I like the gym alot but if that happens I'll go to Equinox or the St. James.

[Anonymous]

One of my kids under 9 likes pickleball. The kid does not like basketball for some reason, but enjoys the majority of solo or two people sports like skating, racket sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lifetime doesn't cost $200 per person. For a family...yes. but it's more like $129 for the first person (at Chantilly) and goes to $189 with a second adult or $159 with one adult + 1 child.

Why is there so much vitriol around pickleball? Becsuse when something changes, there are often winners and losers...and it happens that pickleball is the new popular thing (i.e. the winner) and everything else that has to adapt considers themselves "the losers" (space, sound, money, attention). It's not the pickleball people that are bitter. It's those who have to move over for the new sport.

So two adults and two kids would be over $200?

It depends on the location. In Moco all the Lifetimes are $189 first adult, 80 second adult. Add a few kids and price is $350 minimum. Don't understand why the Fairfax/Centreville locations are so cheap. There was one in Moco last year with the 129 price and then it changed to 189 like all the others, for no reason.