USIndoor's Official Magazine is a quarterly publication, dedicated to owners, managers, program administrators and other professionals, startups and providers involved with indoor recreational sports facilities.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/68815
SPORT by Sylvie Green When Galen Beers moved to sunny Southern California after graduating from Cornell's Johnson School of Management, he had no idea he would be getting into the business of sport and social clubs. He had no idea sport and social clubs were indeed a business. Over the course of the last two years, however, he has discovered how hearty the industry is. T hrough his network of Cornell alumni and friends, he landed an internship at VAVi, a sport and social business in San Diego. In 2010 the job market was already bleak, and Galen was not interested in what many of his fellow MBAs were pursuing, which included moving to New York or Boston. VAVi gave him an opportunity to do something new. "I did not envision a business that ran sports leagues and social events for adults to be this sophisticated, organized and large," says Galen. He began to think, "What do other companies like VAVi do?" Through his internship with VAVi, Galen learned of the history of sport and social clubs in the U.S., an industry that was disconnected. In the late 80s, an attempt was made to organize clubs across the country through a central office in Chicago. The business was eventually sold to a dot-com, which failed, and everyone who was running a club in one of the local markets lost their businesses. Individuals who maintained a sport and social club either bought naming rights or converted the business. The clubs ran on their own, and the industry was, once again, diffuse. The markets for sport and social clubs are quite different, from the ages they target to the sports they play. Some clubs are more "sport" while others are more "social." "That doesn't mean that we can't work together, that we can't have an organization that brings people together to realize the benefits. Everyone can own their own business, but we can benefit from what we have in common." What the clubs have in common gives value to the group. The Sport and Social Industry Association (SSIA) is a non-profit trade organization that unites the clubs. Benefits of scale include knowledge-share, cost-savings and sponsorship. "Networking–meeting with other people and finding out what they do–that alone has been the reason we're at more than 50 members in a year and a half. There is a small cost involved, but people don't want to miss out on what we're doing. They know there's value in it."