Can You Build a Tennis Club Without Owning a Court?

A tennis club has traditionally been defined by its courts and clubhouse. Network Ace is testing a different idea: organise the players first, then give them a familiar community wherever they play. Its founders Julia and Ewan say 2,000 people joined their London activities before they began building an app, and they have since taken the model to Manchester. We asked them what younger recreational players want from a club, how a low-cost membership can become a sustainable business, and whether the welcome that draws people in can survive expansion to other cities.

You describe Network Ace as a “global decentralised tennis club”. What does that mean in practice, and what can your model offer players that the traditional bricks-and-mortar tennis club cannot?

Decentralised is a bit of a buzzword these days and we’ve used it intentionally to make us both recognisable as part of the modern age of tennis but also raise exactly the question posed here. Is it possible to ever be a decentralised tennis club given the sport is so deeply rooted in location? We believe that you can, simply by giving people a way to connect beyond their usual bricks-and-mortar club. We really do envisage a world where not only can the amateur tennis player play at their “home club” in different locations around the world, but also to experience amateur tennis in a curated way by trying out new formats, playing on new surfaces and meeting new friends (who may well turn into new opponents). 

We also don’t think we’re offering anything a traditional tennis club cannot, in theory, offer themselves, but we’re building on existing offerings by layering technology that fosters community atop our social tennis activities, and combining that with a unique approach to marketing that portrays our club in a fun, casual way. Casual is not a word usually associated with tennis, we typically view tennis as elite, technical and exclusive and while pro tennis is that, amateur tennis does not need to be, necessarily. That belief and positioning removes some of the barriers that traditional tennis has that may intimidate people and lets us speak to a broader target audience who are still very passionate about the sport but may not be getting their chance to engage.   

Network Ace began because you wanted to play more tennis and meet people but couldn’t find a community that felt right. What do you think traditional tennis clubs have historically misunderstood about what the next generation of recreational players actually wants?

We are prime examples of passionate players that have never been part of a club. There are multiple reasons for that. Firstly, it’s quite hard to get into a London club (as non-London born players), but, even before that, we would probably be happy to tell you that we’re not good enough to get into one. Of course, skill level isn’t always a pre-requisite, and perhaps further outside of London we would not feel that way, but there is a real intimidation factor; for example, take runners who go to social run clubs versus to a track training session. We all engage with the sport at a different level. That said, we still tried to create a format that speaks to most levels. 

The other element is that tennis clubs are very successful at targeting both junior players (i.e., U18s) and mid-age to senior players (i.e., 50+ - apologies, this is a very big generalisation!!) much more successfully, with a general assumption that the ‘middle generation’ of recreational players is already playing or being serviced. This thought has been reinforced to us in a few conversations we’ve had with private club owners or even the LTA themselves, who tend to direct their funds and focus towards attracting members who fall under the previous buckets. The actual reality in tennis clubs is that those who fit our target segment, those aged 20-40, end up being underrepresented, with women and people from minority backgrounds being even more rare. This can again be linked to the fact that the image of a traditional tennis club is very white male and … well… traditional!

You don’t need to own courts to build a tennis club, instead you’re effectively creating a club around people, technology and existing public-court infrastructure. Does that make the Network Ace model easier to scale, and could you eventually replicate it in almost any city with enough courts and players?

In theory yes that’s the goal, and we know there are enough players out there. They might just not have played for a few years and are considering whether or not to pick up their racket again, or they’ve had a couple of lessons and don’t feel brave enough to organise their own games. 

We think this model presents a whole host of opportunities that wouldn’t be available to traditional clubs. For example, our membership is far less of a commitment. It gives people the opportunity to opt in and out as they please, which we can afford to offer because the only fixed overheads we’re subjected to are the costs to run our app, versus a tennis club which has a facility to own, maintain and operate. We’ve recently launched in Manchester, and whilst yes, that is still in the UK, we’ve proven to ourselves that we can set up and operationalise the same model that is hundred of miles away from us as founders, which is a great first step.

It would be remiss of us to not acknowledge the barriers too. The single biggest challenge will be replicating our essence or what we always call our “vibe”. The combination of friendliness, accessibility and coolness that makes Network Ace attractive to such a large and varied group of players. There’s no doubt in our minds that we’ll need to tweak our playbook city by city, especially as we look to expand beyond the UK, but we firmly believe that our technology, in combination with our marketing approach, gives us a unique edge. There’ll be cities where we look to establish the “Network Ace model”, and there’ll be cities where we look to work closely with existing communities to support them using the Network Ace app, but regardless, the mission remains the same. Attract as many amateur tennis players as possible to engage with the game in a way which best suits them.

Community appears to be at the heart of the business, but technology is increasingly doing the work traditionally handled by a club or its members, finding opponents, organising sessions, booking courts, communicating and recording results. Where should technology stop and the human side of running a successful tennis community begin?

Technology can’t run it all. We insist that each of our social sessions is hosted by an individual. The host’s responsibility is to set the tone and ensure that everyone feels welcome. As founders, we’ve not only attended all of our tournaments, but we’ve played in them too. Of course this won’t be possible as it scales, but we truly believe Network Ace works because we have taken part as much as any other player would and we enjoy it. It’s this hands-on, community building experience that we think gives us an unfair advantage versus the majority of new apps and technology that are increasingly popping up in the racket sport space. Two thousand players in London had joined before we even contemplated building our own app, and by that point, we had so much more intel both on the gaps from a social tennis community perspective, and what “good tech” should do to fill those gaps effectively.

For tennis more generally, it would be foolish to take the social out of the sport. Personally, we wouldn’t want to meet a complete stranger to play a game, we’d much rather have someone who is part of a larger community, who is vetted by that community, who equally cares about engaging on the platform. The app is built around the insight that technology and community can reinforce each other creating connections that are further strengthened by every online or offline interaction. 

Network Ace is currently free to join. As the community grows, what is the business model behind a decentralised tennis club, and how do you monetise it without creating the membership costs and barriers to participation that your model potentially removes?

Somewhat correct. It’s free to download our base app, but we do have a membership cost - £2.99 a month currently - and we regularly joke that it is the cheapest tennis club membership around. Whilst we call it a membership, we see it in a similar light to Strava or Runna where there is a premium subscription to the app that gets you better features and more personalized recommendations. We do, of course, recognise that we’ll need to add further (more expensive) tiers of membership to be able to financially sustain the business in the future, but we’re keen to take things at our own pace, and only introduce additional tiers when we’re confident that we’re adding that level of additional value to our members. Otherwise, players do have the option of using the app for free and simply booking onto one of our sessions or events (from which we currently also generate margin) in a more ad-hoc, pay-as-you play fashion. 

If Network Ace succeeds at the scale you envisage, what does it become? Is the ambition to build one enormous borderless tennis club, a network of local communities, a technology platform for recreational tennis or ultimately something that could change our definition of what a tennis club actually is?

In short, it’s a little bit of each. You’ve listed all the possible things it could well become and we are currently leaning into all of those equally as we build and improve both our app and general social offerings.

If you look at our tagline, to become the world's first decentralised tennis club, what does that actually mean? Well essentially, you can be a member of a club that has a global membership base, so that wherever you go, you can play at YOUR club. Think about some of the gyms which offer this type of membership; Anytime Fitness, for example. We’re members at home, but when we’re away for work, you can find your nearest Anytime Fitness facility and nip in for a quick workout - same principle. You’re a Network Ace member in London, but you’re heading back to Manchester to visit your family and you want to get down to a social session where you’re familiar with the format and know what type of people are going to be there. So yes, in that sense, an enormous borderless tennis club. 

How we get to that point will depend on our ability to grow our reach. Of course, we would love to take the Network Ace social session model to as many cities as we can, but we recognise this won’t be possible independently in every city. We envision the Network Ace app becoming the de-facto technology platform for social/recreational tennis worldwide, and we only achieve that by becoming a network of social tennis communities, and to do so, we have to ensure our technology answers to the specific needs of those running their own communities. Again, we feel our experience of setting up our own community ensures we’re speaking the right language.

And so finally, yes, we do believe we can categorically change the definition of what a tennis club can be. This isn’t to say we’re going to replace them, not at all. Rather, we think we will always sit alongside tennis clubs and, in time, open up the broader tennis ecosystem so that recreational players can dip their toes into our format alongside the traditional tennis club world. If we do that successfully, we’ll have fulfilled our mission.