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Is Tennis Dead? Tips From a Top 50 USTA Facility
57 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we're joined by Elliot McDermed, the brain behind this thriving sports facility as an employee-turned co-owner. Elliot shares some of the secrets to their success, from diverse membership options to embracing the rise of pickleball. This one is full of tips on how to run a tennis club from a top 50 USTA facility.
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Transcript
Introduction to Overland Park Racquet Club
00:00:00
Speaker
Today on the Facility Playbook, I got to sit down with Elliot McDermott, who's one of the co-owners of Overland Park Racket Club, which is one of the top 50 best tennis clubs in the nation. We got to hear how they took an existing facility and built it into a top tier tennis experience, upgrading the bar, adding clay courts, and even adjusting to allow pickleball. Was it worth it to cover up and fill in their pool? You'll find out on this episode of the Facility Playbook.
00:00:28
Speaker
Do you own or manage a facility? Well, you were in the right place. Welcome to The Facility Playbook. I'm Luke Wade, founder and CEO of Facility Ally, and this podcast is about helping facility managers and owners learn from pioneers and veterans in the industry who have built and managed successful sports facilities, entertainment venues, and clubs. Did you know that most of the facilities I just mentioned use between four and six different softwares to manage their memberships, reservations, lessons, camps, clinics, and more?
00:00:54
Speaker
revolutionize your facility with Facility Allies all-in-one system. Learn more at facilityallie.com.
Elliot McDermott's Tennis Journey
00:00:59
Speaker
And today we're actually at one of those amazing clubs and sports facilities here with Elliot McDermott from Overland Park Racquet Club. Thanks so much for coming in today. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. But I'm here at your facility. Thanks for having us today. Can you tell me a little bit about your background that led you to Overland Park Racquet Club?
00:01:16
Speaker
Sure, I've been playing tennis my whole life. Grew up in California, moved here in my early 20s, played college tennis. And I had one year of college tennis remaining at Baker University. And when I got done, the athletic director came to me and said, hey, would you like to coach?
00:01:38
Speaker
And I thought, well, yeah, I think that might be fun. You know, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life. So let's get let's get to it. So got into coaching right out of college and found how much I loved it and began thinking that I was going to be a college coach. And before long, I realized that working with kids and trying to make people better and really looking at the whole development process
00:02:08
Speaker
That's what really got me into this. I ended up here at the Overland Park Racket Club actually as a young guy just trying to figure out what was next. Before long I met my business partner, Eric Rand, and we decided in 2008 to go out on our own and start our own junior tennis academy.
00:02:36
Speaker
We were focused on helping kids that wanted to play in college just like we did. And we grew that business into the best tennis academy business really in the Midwest.
00:02:52
Speaker
We attracted a couple of investors that really believed in what we were doing and helped us come back here to Overland Park Racket Club in 2014 and purchase the facility.
Recognition and Renovation of the Club
00:03:10
Speaker
So here we are. So started out as an employee here and then basically six, seven, eight years later, we were able to come back and actually buy the facility. That's got to feel good.
00:03:21
Speaker
So what do you believe, and I know you said you built the best tennis academy in the Midwest, but you also were telling me earlier that Overland Park Racquet Club also got identified as another like top in the Midwest or the country, right? So maybe talk a little bit about Overland Park's recent accommodation. Yeah, we were
00:03:38
Speaker
We were looked at by the USTA, who was going around and evaluating all of the tennis facilities in the United States. And what they wanted to do was identify the 50 best tennis clubs in the US. And they wanted to endorse those facilities as what they consider premier USTA facilities. And we were chosen as one of the 50 best in the United States. That is awesome. Congratulations. Thank you.
00:04:05
Speaker
So maybe tell us a little bit about what is Overland Park Racquet Club and then we can get into why you're one of the top 50. Sure. Well, it was built in 1978. And at the time that was when tennis was booming, but it was also just the beginning of people thinking they could play tennis year round. So it tended to be more, you know, seasonal when the weather got bad.
00:04:29
Speaker
people started to do something else. And some pioneers, you know, business guys decided, hey, let's build indoor tennis courts and, you know, if you build it, they will come. And it was a big risk to build a facility of this size in 1978. It was not a proven business model. And they built this
00:04:52
Speaker
club really well. This is a very well-built architectural facility and it's withstood the test of time. And from 1978 until a couple of years before we purchased it
00:05:11
Speaker
You know, it was what I would consider a premier facility. But like most facilities, they started to get run down and so did Overland Park Racquet Club. And I think the owner who was not involved daily in the operation just, you know, neglected it a little bit.
00:05:31
Speaker
And I think with any good business renovation, we came along and said, hey, we're going to restore this facility and make it even better than it's ever been. And so we embarked on that mission in 2014. So when it opened in 1978, how many courts did it have? What all was included kind of in the facility? That's a good question.
00:05:53
Speaker
There were no outdoor courts. There were all 14 indoor courts. Where we sit right now was part of a full service restaurant. It was the thing that you did for fun and recreation and social. People would come and spend the whole day at the club.
00:06:19
Speaker
And and just you know over time. I think the owners then added the pool out back and they added some outdoor courts. After.
00:06:36
Speaker
We bought the facility, we realized the pool is not really getting the attention it deserves, and we were a little worried about getting rid of it, but once we made that decision,
00:06:52
Speaker
We didn't hear anything from anybody, and we realized we had made a really good choice. We kept the outdoor hard courts, similar to what we have indoors, but we decided to add four clay courts.
00:07:08
Speaker
And the clay courts were really something that we felt was gonna separate us from the rest of the tennis world in Kansas City because there really was no clay left in Kansas City.
Club Offerings and Community Involvement
00:07:25
Speaker
And for people that have played on it, they realize,
00:07:28
Speaker
what a great playing experience it is. And so we wanted to bring that back to Kansas City and to our members here and give people the opportunity to experience playing on that surface. And that's about where we are today. So pretty similar to where it started in 1978, get rid of the pool, add some clay quartz, and there you have it.
00:07:53
Speaker
So today, 14 indoor tennis courts, four outdoor clay courts. There's a gym here, locker room, shower, food. I mean, there's pretty much everything you can imagine, right? And so, and then you have memberships. Is that really what drives the business of Overland Park Racquet Club? Is it memberships or really talk about maybe what's the number one thing you feel like you do best here? I think we've got three silos. One would be membership.
00:08:23
Speaker
two would be instruction of every level, and three would be competition or play. And I think all three of those are really important, not just for us as a business, but for tennis as a whole. And the reason being, yes, we have a really robust membership,
00:08:51
Speaker
But I think that in order for tennis to continue to be healthy, you've got to be able to bring in the community and give them an opportunity, not just to learn the game, but to experience the facility and to use the facility for whatever they want to do. So for instance, tournaments are a really big part of what we do here.
00:09:15
Speaker
And while tournaments are probably not the best financial decision for a club, because you could probably make more money, be more profitable doing other things on the courts, whether giving lessons or renting the courts out to members or whatnot, the tournaments have a lot to do with
00:09:39
Speaker
growing the sport. Same with the leagues. So for instance, today we have a citywide women's league playing here. Not all of these women are members of the club, but we feel like it's important to the community and to the growth of tennis to allow them and to welcome them in here to use the facility. And then the third part being the instruction. I think tennis is a very difficult sport.
00:10:06
Speaker
not only to learn, but to really master. And so it's a sport that requires a lot of instruction. And we want to provide the highest level instruction possible anywhere in the United States. And we really work hard to reach that goal every day. Well, it sounds like you've got there with the top 50 from the USTA. So that's great. Did they give you any metrics around why you were picked at the top 50? Yes.
00:10:37
Speaker
One being the leagues and the tournaments. So the USTA, the United States Tennis Association, is really the driver behind leagues and they're the official provider of leagues and tournaments in the US. We provide them more courts and more court hours than any club in the region. And we provide certified coaches
00:11:07
Speaker
to instruct players. Every single coach in this building is certified with either the USPTA or the PTR, the Professional Tennis Registry. So they've been certified and that gives them a license to officially know what they're doing. And then the quality of the
00:11:34
Speaker
courts, the quality of just the overall environment. And I think, you know, a bit of an intangible is the reputation of the Overland Park Racket Club. All of those, I think, went into the, you know,
00:11:54
Speaker
The award or yeah, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's really cool. So what do you feel like, you know, outside of those metrics, you know, what are some of the secrets to running your facility or this facility day to day? Secrets. Don't have to be secrets or, you know, it could be, you know, what are some of the things that you believe what you do makes you, you know, top 50. I think what makes us unique is that my partner, Eric and I,
00:12:22
Speaker
We worked at a number of different tennis clubs throughout our careers and as players. And I think at each one of them, you look around and say, man, if I could make the decisions, if I owned this facility, this is what I would do different.
00:12:42
Speaker
And I think we took all of that experience and put it to use when we bought this club and said, we understand what it is to be players and we understand what it is to work in facilities. And so we want to create the best tennis playing experience for the people that play here, but also for the people that work here.
00:13:08
Speaker
So if you could say that what's the secret, I would say that's that's the
Operational Challenges and Improvements
00:13:12
Speaker
secret. We talked a little bit about with Casey Crew, you know, in the beginning, I looked at every other league and I decided, you know, I wish I could do that differently. I wish they did that differently. And then I just did it in my own. After that, I relied very heavily on feedback from people who played in the leagues. You know, I used to umpire every game and I told people I was the umpire. I didn't tell me the owner, right? Because if you're the owner, people are like, I love it. I love it.
00:13:30
Speaker
If you're the umpire, they scream and yell at you and tell you everything that you did wrong. And so I got a lot of feedback from that and was able to really just guide my direction in my leagues how I wanted based on what people yelled at me. Do you rely on customer feedback? What are some of the ways that you kind of listen to your customers and give them what they're asking for?
00:13:47
Speaker
I'll field a lot of the emails and phone calls from people who would like to complain or maybe better constructive criticism. And I always like to listen to those. I also love to get the positive feedback, which is rare, but very valuable because it also gives you a touch point of the things that you are doing well. And so we definitely listen and
00:14:17
Speaker
I think we make adjustments where we can. And I think we've made a lot of improvements that have made the playing experience here what it is, you know, whether it's the LED lighting or resurfacing all the courts or cleaning the court surface regularly, which you wouldn't think is that big of a deal. But that really makes a difference to tennis players and
00:14:47
Speaker
When you do those things, those little things end up showing up as as big differences. Yeah, people notice, you know, it's all about that experience. And if you can do a couple of things that just elevate that experience just a little bit, it's enough for them to stay here and come back another time. So that's great. So what would you say are some of the biggest day to day challenges of running a facility this size? I mean, 14 courts like this place is huge. So what are some of the challenges you have with that? Yeah.
00:15:14
Speaker
I would say daily challenges are to make sure that people that want to play and do what they want to do on the tennis court, just making sure we're taking care of them.
00:15:30
Speaker
I think with 14 courts, it's actually something that's an advantage to us over most facilities which have between 4 and 10 courts. Because with 14 courts, nobody really gets slighted on
00:15:48
Speaker
what they want to do and when they want to play. So it's big enough that we can give people what they want when they want. And nobody, you know, gets kind of pushed to the side, right? Sorry, you know, the seven o'clock slots full, you're going to have to play at nine. So being a club of this size is a real advantage in that way. You know, the the challenges
00:16:17
Speaker
aren't really that big honestly. I think like any facility you want to
00:16:26
Speaker
you want to bring more people into the game. And so it's not necessarily a daily operations issue as much as it is just getting out there and getting people more interested in playing the game. Well, that's a great segue into our next question is essentially with the rise of pickleball, do you feel like that's affected Overland Park more today than it has five years ago? Or what are your thoughts around the pickleball rise? And we talked a little bit about this offline, but
00:16:56
Speaker
A lot of people are saying tennis is dying. And I keep hearing it, I keep hearing it, but I'm like, I haven't really seen any stats or done any research around it. And I feel like people are just saying that because the growth of pickleball is so big. So love to hear from someone who lives and breathes tennis every single day.
Tennis and Pickleball Dynamics
00:17:08
Speaker
Right, right. Tennis is not dying. In fact, the growth of tennis has been phenomenal over the past three years. And I think a lot of that had to do with the pandemic, frankly.
00:17:22
Speaker
people getting outside and and getting reacquainted with tennis or or golf or pickleball and that has reminded a lot of people about what a great sport tennis is and it's really exploded since then so
00:17:42
Speaker
The pickleball part of things is more, I agree with you, that because so many people are coming in and that sport is exploding,
00:17:54
Speaker
It looks like you're getting a lot of people leaving tennis and going to pickleball. But in fact, we don't see that here. I think pickleball has been good for tennis. And I think tennis has been good for pickleball because I think you can cross over. And there's a lot of people that are doing that. I also think getting a paddle or a racket in somebody's hand, regardless of which sport they're playing, is good for everybody.
00:18:23
Speaker
That's awesome. I love that perspective. And so have you added or looked at pickleball or how are you guys kind of, you know, tennis facility? Obviously, you can't ignore pickleball. So what have you guys kind of done to kind of, you know, appease the pickleball fans? Sure. Well, actually, right behind us, we have converted three tennis courts into multipurpose courts with permanent pickleball court lines and movable nets.
00:18:51
Speaker
in order to provide pickleball at times that we can do that. So we do...
00:18:59
Speaker
We host tournaments through Casey Crew and some leagues, some clinics, and just open play for people that want to get out of the heat or the rain or the cold. And I hope to see that side of things grow. Currently, we can't turn these permanently into pickleball because we just have too much tennis play here still.
00:19:22
Speaker
Well, that's awesome. You heard it here first. Tennis is not dead. I love it. So you said this used to be a kitchen, full service restaurant. It's obviously dialed back a little bit, but you still offer food and beverage. So maybe talk about how important that is or how you kind of manage your food and beverage for the club here. We did food made to order professional kitchen for years. And actually, during the pandemic shutdown,
00:19:50
Speaker
stopped doing that and have never brought it back. However, part of the renovation of the club was to build a new bar and we added six beer taps and top shelf bourbon and whiskey and a full service bar.
00:20:11
Speaker
And that has been really well received. So while we took a backseat on the food side of things, we really upped the ante on the beverage side. And I think the members have really appreciated that. What were some of the reasons for that decision? Obviously, the pandemic was like, hey, maybe this makes sense to not do food. Was it already on your mind of maybe we should get rid of this?
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah, frankly, you know, the food was was one of our lost leaders. I think it's difficult in today's day and age with people coming and going and doing as many things as they are to just stop, order some food, wait, sit and eat, you know.
Membership Structure and Equal Opportunities
00:20:58
Speaker
Yep. And while we have a lot of traffic in here, if we've got this place booming,
00:21:05
Speaker
14 courts times, let's just say four people, it's still not that many people. So the traffic from a food side of things isn't heavy. So going a little bit back to memberships, you mentioned membership is one of the top things that you have here as a driver for Overland Park Racket Club.
00:21:24
Speaker
How many times have you changed? Do you feel like you're finally at the spot where, hey, we know what we should offer in our memberships? Or what all went into deciding the levels of membership and what's included in those? Because I feel like more and more people are offering memberships or trying to refine their memberships. And I've seen a lot of people that I feel like don't know what to include for what level of pricing. So I'd love to hear since you guys do it so well, what went into that for you? The first thing that comes to mind is simple has worked best.
00:21:53
Speaker
early on and especially just when we bought the facility, I can't even tell you how many levels of memberships they had and what those all entailed. And it was super confusing and it wasn't doing the trick.
00:22:08
Speaker
And so we slowly pared back and refined the membership down to some really simple levels. And we wanted to look at it from the customer's perspective of if a tennis court or a tennis membership is worth X, then everybody should pay X. And so we
00:22:37
Speaker
We basically got down to a junior membership, a kid, and a family and an individual.
00:22:48
Speaker
That's basically what we've got. And everybody gets the same access. And while the pricing is a little bit different based on the age or the size of the family or whatnot, for the most part, if you're a member here, you get full access to the facility. You get full privileges.
00:23:14
Speaker
and you fall into one of those categories. Do you find that, you know, like you said, multiple family, you know, because a lot of places will have family memberships and like, you know, couples memberships and military memberships and all those different things. Do you find the families with more kids, you know, push back on that a little bit because they're paying the same amount even though they're bringing more kids in or what has been the reception of that?
00:23:37
Speaker
No, I think I think that it's worked out great. I would say that our our family membership is by far the best buy. But that's also because, you know, we want families participating here. You know, we want this to be something that, you know, families can do together. And if, you know, if you've got
00:24:02
Speaker
three or four or five people in your family and you're all playing here, that's good for us too, right? We do actually have a couples membership, sorry. We have a couples. Okay, cool. So with everything that you mentioned, you know, and kids obviously being a focus and the family being the focus is, what are some of the things you've had to consider around, you know, not just adults, but also having kids here? Oh boy, that's a tough question.
00:24:31
Speaker
I think there's some stereotypes that we've had to overcome because it does look like
00:24:39
Speaker
A lot of the play here is with kids. That's Eric and my background starting in the tennis academy business. We have a passion for helping kids get better and pursue whatever level of tennis they want to play at, whether it's professionally or just make their high school team.
00:25:03
Speaker
and everything in between. And, you know, at three o'clock in the afternoon and you come in here between three and six, you're going to think the only person that plays tennis here is a kid. But when you actually boil down the, you know, the membership ratios, it's about half and half. So half adults and half kids. And so that's been been hard to overcome because, again,
00:25:34
Speaker
You want to make sure that everybody is able to play when they want to play and everyone gets equal opportunity for use of the facility. And as long as everybody recognizes that, you know, they have that, then it runs really smoothly. But you you've got to provide information that that lets, you know, the
00:26:02
Speaker
mom and dad know that you know they're getting their court time just as much as you know the sophomore in high school. Let's talk a little about the outdoor clay courts you'd mentioned you know trying to putting those in to kind of take you a step above has it really paid off the way that you thought it would play off and then for anybody who maybe doesn't know tennis that or has regular you know normal indoor tennis courts and they're thinking about doing that what are some of the challenges or benefits of adding those?
00:26:29
Speaker
Well, first, the answer is no. It hasn't paid off at the level that we anticipated that it would. Playing on clay is a great experience. The ball bounces slower.
00:26:45
Speaker
It's softer, so it's better on your joints. The points become much more interesting because of the way the ball slows down. It provides each player more time. The movement is a lot smoother on a clay court than pounding on a hard court.
00:27:08
Speaker
All of those things make for a really interesting game and much better on your body. And in the summertime, funny enough, a lot of people don't know this. It's much cooler to play on a clay court because the sun's heat gets absorbed into the clay rather than the hard courts, which reflect the heat. So all of those factors make it a much better playing experience.
00:27:37
Speaker
but I think it's getting people out there to just give it a try. And if you only try it once, you know, there's a little bit of a learning curve. So you go out there once and maybe it's, you know, it's a little awkward or you're off balance on some shots here or there, or you might get a bad bounce from time to time. And then you walk away and don't give it a,
00:27:58
Speaker
give it another look, but two or three times, I can almost guarantee that you'd rather play on clay. So if there's a facility out there considering adding clay, knowing everything you know now, would you tell them to do it or not? Oh, man. Oh, you got me with that one.
00:28:19
Speaker
It depends on the day, how I feel about that. Depends on the day. I'm very thankful that we've done it. While I was sure I did the right thing when I got rid of that pool, I think I'd be doing the wrong thing if we got rid of the clay.
Diverse Demographics and Collaborations
00:28:37
Speaker
Okay, that's interesting. And I've never played on clay. So I've definitely I would love to try it. And I didn't even know you guys had those here. It's it's so you're the setup of here is so amazing because driving by it looks like this like short building and then you come in here and it just goes on and on and on. So the more you're talking about it, I'm like me I know they had 14. So anyway, I'll have to check those out on the way out.
00:28:58
Speaker
You're open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. How do you focus on filling your non-peak time? So I know that's a huge problem with most facilities is off-peak times during the day, different times is just dead time. They're just losing money because nobody's in there. So how do you guys keep it activated and fill your non-peak times?
00:29:16
Speaker
Well, tennis is one of those sports that, you know, just like pickleball where you can play it at any age. And I think that is helpful for us because we have a lot of, you know, I would say non-traditional work schedules for adults where they can get out here at eight o'clock in the morning or
00:29:42
Speaker
You know, really our only downtime is probably right around the lunch hour. So whether it's stay-at-home moms or men or women who work from home a few days a week or, you know, have part-time jobs or one of our biggest demographics is recently retired people.
00:30:04
Speaker
And they've got all kinds of time. So the afternoon and evening times are kind of slam dunks for us. Kids get out of school. They come over. People get off work in the evening. That's when the adults play. Those are easy. The daytime has been more challenging, but also
00:30:31
Speaker
It's been great. When you've got people that can play tennis into their 80s and they're retiring when they're 65, I mean, they're gonna play 15, 20 years of tennis here. It's phenomenal. And like the league that we have this morning, the Citywide Women's League, we're running clinics and leagues here every morning.
00:30:56
Speaker
five days a week. That's awesome. Yeah and the most places you know like Casey Crew were mostly adults right that aren't retired young adults and so we got to wait for them to get off work to do anything so we're not really running anything during the day. So it's cool that you've been able to kind of create those opportunities for every age and every level which obviously can help fill your facility so that's great. So you talked about this other league the women's league so it sounds like that's more of a partnership
00:31:21
Speaker
where they come in here and probably bulk rent your courts. Are there any other partnerships that you feel are, you know, dynamic for Overland Park Record Club? Sure. Yeah, that's called the TCKC. I think it stands for Tennis Club of Kansas City. I'm not positive about that, but I think that's what it is.
00:31:41
Speaker
That organization as well as there's what we've called for years the 10 cap league. I think they've actually rebranded. They're also an independent league organizer.
00:31:58
Speaker
We give them access to play matches, league matches. The United States Tennis Association is the biggest provider of league tennis in the United States and we provide as many courts as possible that we can for them.
00:32:17
Speaker
Casey Crew, of course. And then there are a couple of other smaller organizations, such as the Stephanie Waterman Foundation, which is a nonprofit that raises money for outreach in the inner city for not only tennis, but academic support as well. We provide them some space.
00:32:44
Speaker
And I think that all of those community organizations are key to running a successful facility. Sure. And when you talk about partnerships, you know, obviously you guys have a lot of equipment here, you know, rackets, balls. Do you have any sort of partnerships around equipment that you've been able to work out that have benefited you guys and maybe got promotions for some of these brands or have you worked any of those out?
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, we have a great partnership with Adidas. Adidas America has been a great supporter of us for a number of years. They help outfit our staff. They provide discounts for all the members. They provide a couple of sponsorships a year for our junior players that are traveling nationally.
00:33:32
Speaker
And our entire pro shop is really Adidas focused. On the racket and string side of things, we also have a really good setup with head racket sports. And I think one of the keys to having any sort of a relationship with a brand is that
00:33:59
Speaker
You make sure that you're authentic about what you're what you're promoting, right? So whether it's Adidas or or head.
00:34:13
Speaker
There's other brands out there and you can't be one of those guys that goes around and tells everyone that this is the greatest racket in the world or the best shoe in the world because for some people it may not be. I think what we
00:34:32
Speaker
What we like to talk about is that the racquet or the shoes are really well made. They're great products and
00:34:46
Speaker
we support them because they support us. And if we didn't believe in the product, we wouldn't be using those. So, you know, head's been great with similar to what it uses done. I think I think it goes hand in hand that if you have a relationship with some of those brands, really what you want to be doing is giving opportunities to your players.
00:35:09
Speaker
And all of those things are expensive. And anything that you can do to lessen that cost for your members, you should do
Transition to Digital and Future Plans
00:35:17
Speaker
it. Sure. That's awesome. So what's one solution that you implemented that you're most proud of?
00:35:25
Speaker
Getting the word out about the facility is always difficult. You know, you have you have some background in the digital side of things. And I think our ability to adapt and and to to trust some advice that we've had from from some people on our digital promotion and stepping into that side of things where a lot of the tennis clubs around the country are really old school.
00:35:55
Speaker
You know, they've got old owners, they're stuck in their ways, they're nervous about going into new areas, whether it's software. I mean, there are a lot of these tennis clubs that are still running off of paper reservation sheets. You know, when we purchased this club, this is in 2014, they had a giant
00:36:17
Speaker
sheet about three feet long that had every court and every hour the whole day and they had multicolored pencils within a racer that they were managing the facility on. This is in 2014. So I think moving into that digital space both just with operating the facility but also the outreach part of it and trusting that, you know,
00:36:46
Speaker
those were going to not disenfranchise our current members, but actually bring in new people and add to the overall experience was a bit of a leap, but that's paid off for us big time.
00:37:03
Speaker
I can't imagine what that was like going from that sheet of paper to digital. That must have been really challenging. So I would say that's definitely a great solution. I couldn't imagine walking into that, like being a tech guy myself, like I would have probably freaked out. But that's awesome that you were able to overcome that. How long did that take to go once you kind of took over to implementing it? Yeah, we had a rough year.
00:37:25
Speaker
It for sure took us a year. We had early on, we had months where we had a whole lot of billing issues. When you start to erode the trust in your members when you're having billing issues, that's hard to recover from.
00:37:43
Speaker
And we had to work really diligently. We've got a great team that did that. But I definitely say it was more than a year. And I could say it took us even three or four years to really get things humming.
00:38:03
Speaker
We're still making tweaks. Every day we make tweaks on whether it's software or converting people from just giving the facility a try to playing more regularly and becoming a member. So it's a constant challenge. I'm curious, are there some of the ways that you found of converting someone to get them to play more?
00:38:29
Speaker
that work the best? Yeah, this is probably similar to pickleball. I'm not a pickleball player, but I, you know, just from observations, correct me if I'm wrong, but from a tennis standpoint, it's a really addictive sport. So you get somebody out there and just get them hitting balls.
00:38:53
Speaker
And before long, it's organic and it takes care of itself. Yep. Very similar to golf. Once you hit that one good shot, you're like addicted and you're like, you're mad for the rest of the week.
00:39:03
Speaker
you're not playing as well as that one good shot. So that makes total sense. Yeah, I think, and that was, for me, that was the frustration when I started pickleball. There's so many rules and it was really hard to understand. And so unless I was really dedicated, which I was to learning those, I think it could have really pushed me away. And so I think, you know, having somebody there to like show you how to hit the ball correctly and how to understand the rules more efficiently gets you to playing better, faster, which then would make me want to play more.
00:39:29
Speaker
Right. So I think the lesson side of things, the coaching is definitely a big, a big piece of that, too. Because if I'm hitting it wrong and playing horrible, I'm like, I'm going to give this up. But if you give me a couple of tricks that I'm like, oh, I hit some good shots, I hit some like, all right, now let's play some more. You know, so I could definitely see that as as being a reason to start playing more. So that's that's interesting take on it from the pickleball side that I hadn't really thought about. So what does the next three years look like for the Overland Park Racquet Club? I think we're going to see more pickleball play, for sure.
00:40:00
Speaker
I think that we have to continue to look at how do we find that next generation of players, whether they're tennis players or pickleball players. You know, there are so many options for kids and for adults in the sport world. Getting them to pick up a racket or a paddle, I think is a big challenge.
00:40:30
Speaker
You know, I would like to see our synergy between our gym downstairs and the tennis courts upstairs develop. So what I mean by that is
00:40:45
Speaker
In order to have a successful group of players, you got to keep people healthy. And I think more and more people are recognizing whether that's what they eat or how they recover at night or just how they stay fit is also how they keep from getting injured. So if we want to keep them on the court,
00:41:10
Speaker
We got to keep them healthy. And I think that's one area that we would like to evolve.
00:41:16
Speaker
And I think that's also something that is really underestimated by others in this business. And we want to be on the forefront of that. So I would say, I would say that's that's going to be one of our top focuses in the next three years. I love that perspective of like, hey, if we want to keep them on the court, you know, we got it. We got to make sure we're focusing over here and that's a way we can generate revenue as well. Then why not? Why not go after that? That's awesome. I love that. Well,
00:41:44
Speaker
Thank you so much for having us out today and telling us a little bit about Oberlin Park Racket Club. Really appreciate it. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. We'll see you next time on the Facility Playbook. Tennis is not dead.