FACILITIES - SUPPLIES - PEOPLE

Heckelman on Smart Tech, Bheemarasetti on Revenue by Court Hour

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Rod Heckelman & Pruthvi Bheemarasetti
August 30, 2026

How Smart Tech Can Save Tennis

By Rod Heckelman


The recent concern about the lack of growth of tennis is understandable, but it may be a bit of an overreaction. The actual statistics are not nearly as bad as reported, and some very promising new technologies may really help bring a resurgence of popularity to the sport.  

First, note that the huge surge in tennis back in the early 70s started with several events that received a great deal of attention. We had a handful of very popular American players get headlines; the Riggs vs. King match was one of the most watched sporting events of that era, and an alarming growth in tennis facilities, especially indoor courts, all of which contributed to a tennis boom. Essentially, we suddenly had popularity, participation, and then access. Today that list would work again, but it needs to be backwards. Accessibility should be first on that list. Without access, people have no way to enter the game to make it more popular. Without access, there can be no participation.

The governing bodies of tennis know this, but are struggling to find unity to address these issues. The USTA has helped make the US Open a huge success. They have made Adult Leagues more popular than ever. Junior tournaments are still going strong. Junior development programs and independent tennis academies are creating new top players. Organizations, like those for coaches, and new competitive groups like UTR, are doing their best. But all of these organizations, with all their good intentions, are still struggling to help recreational players. Those are the participants who love to get out and play once in a while, or take the time to watch or attend the professional events. Those people were the ones who made the sport popular and provided a large portion of tennis participation. They also provided most of the income for the tennis industry through equipment, facilities, court fees, and, yes, coaching income. Those are the players who really need help accessing the sport.

There is good news, very good news. In this new era of technology, most people find their information through software programs that enhance access. That is exactly what the doctor ordered for the ailing racket industry.  But first, let's look at other social venues and how they used tech to solve their problems.

Kyle LaCroix: Most people aren’t stuck. They’re repeating themselves. Same habits. Same thinking. Same circle. Same skills. Same excuses. Same results. Year after year. Then they wonder why their career hasn’t changed.

Kim Bastable: "I got so confused, I just gave up." Those are not words you want to hear from a mother trying to find tennis lessons for her children if you are a business within the racquets industry. A parent who never signs up due to frustration is invisible to you, but they exist, so what can or should clubs do??

Years ago, depending on where you lived or your age, if you wanted to meet someone and develop a social relationship, you might go to a bar, dance hall, or sponsored event that was gathering groups of people with common interests. Then came the Pandemic, which temporarily put a halt to this type of social behavior. But it also gave birth to a new way to connect people socially. The challenge was met by techs who used their products via the internet to connect people. Unfortunately, the tennis industry as a whole didn’t capitalize as much as they should have to grow the game via new online technology. There were a few individuals who tried to get something going through social media, but struggled to create a common national product. They came up against an industry that was too fragmented as well as a sudden new growth and interest in other racket sports.  

Unfortunately, tennis still has too many organizations that compete, rather than collaborate. Just look at what is happening in the instructional segment of the tennis industry. As the saying goes, “too many cooks in the kitchen.”

Look how united golf is, almost complete unity in their approach, and despite the cost of playing, it has grown at all levels. The increase in usage is over 38% since 2019. Much of it could be attributed to their new tech products such as Deemples, JoinMyRound, or OnlyGolfers, all designed to provide that wonderful quality, “easy access.” But again, most importantly, they have a united interest to provide for all levels and all locations.

If the tennis industry can collaborate and find a more common way via affordable and easy-to-use software programs, our sport would prosper. Again, the good news is that new sites and programs are out there and work quite well. Remember, at the end of the day, tennis players are just looking for a fair opportunity to find court time that works with their schedule and then connect with other players; any new type of technology that can provide this will become a successful new service. It’s not just about players finding competition, but rather about connecting with every tennis enthusiast who is just looking to meet others to enjoy the sport.

Helping recreational players find others in their community should be at the top of the priority list. When each set of courts is an island rather than a community resource, access to appealing events is limited. 

Victor Bergonzoli: I really enjoyed this conversation with Dustin Heise on Defining Moments. We talked about entrepreneurship, resilience, taking risks, and a journey in sports technology that started more than 25 years ago.
But most importantly, we talked about why we built SportsEdTV.

Shaun Boyce: I spent the last few weeks talking to operators, directors, and coaches across the country. Three things kept coming up.
A facility deal in Myrtle Beach died in diligence. Five million dollars, gone before the first court went in. Meanwhile, clubs in the same city with the same demand are posting wildly different numbers. The difference isn't the market. It's who's running the building.

That is an issue that pickleball does not have because that sport endorses drop-in play that inherently supports mingling and meeting other players.

Of course, it is not just a technology issue, but a cultural issue. At this time, facilities are not willing to share players; instead, they guard by seclusion. The fear that sharing an event with non-members will somehow depreciate the value of a membership seems contrary to the fact that almost every club encourages lessons to be taken by non-members, and, of course, there are the very successful adult leagues. These leagues are successful because they are based on providing an interactive relationship with other facilities. Time to move away from “Members Only” facilities.

Want this to happen? Then tennis facilities or any local tennis venue should research to find new answers that are emerging through technology. Don’t wait for the large organizations to help with this, and don’t expect to see too many convention trade shows, as they also have gone by the wayside.

Do the research…check out the new products, and give them a try. There may be many choices these days, but find what fits, and hopefully that choice will help develop and grow the game of tennis that will in turn grow your facility, grow the next public facility, grow the next recreational tennis program, grow the next great social tennis activity, grow the next family that loves playing tennis, grow the next…?

Patricio Misitrano: You never know where a friendship or a connection can take you.
Sometimes it leads to a business opportunity. Sometimes it leads to a new partnership. And sometimes, it leads to a last-minute text asking if you want to jump on a padel court with a superstar. That’s what happened yesterday. I played padel with Marat Safin.

Rod Heckelman

Rod Heckelman's career started in 1966 when he began his 5-year role as a teacher at John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch in Carmel Valley, California. Later he opened as the resident pro for Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch on Camelback in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In 1976, he took over as head professional/tennis director at the Mt. Tam Racquet Club in Larkspur, California, and added the title and responsibilities of general manager in 1982. After 48 years, he retired to work exclusively in helping others in the industry. 

In 2010, he was awarded “Manager of the Year” for the USPTA NorCal Division and the “Manager of the Year” at the USPTA World Conference. Rod has written several books, including “Down Your Alley” in 1993, “Playing Into the Sunset” in 2013, and most recently, “250 Ways to Play Tennis.”

He also produced the “Facility Manager’s Manual” and the “Business Handbook for Tennis Pros,” which is distributed by the TIA.

The Court Ledger #1 — Racquet Sports Needs Its Own RevPAR 

By Pruthvi Bheemarasetti

Two clubs sit twenty minutes apart. One runs 90 percent occupancy, and the manager is proud of it. The other runs 65 percent, and the manager is apologizing for it. Ask which business is healthier, and almost everyone in this industry picks the first — without asking a single question about what those hours earn. 

That instinct is the problem this column exists to poke at. Occupancy is a count. Counts can't see rate, and rate is half the business. 

The industries that sell time-perishable capacity figured this out decades ago, and each of them landed on the same kind of fix: one number that fuses how full you are with what full is worth. Hotels settled on RevPAR — revenue per available room, not per occupied one — and by the mid-1990s it was the standard the entire industry reported, compared, and managed against. Airlines run on revenue per available seat mile. Restaurants got their version, RevPASH — revenue per available seat hour — out of the revenue-management research program at Cornell. The pattern is identical everywhere: once an industry adopts a capacity-revenue metric, "how busy were we?" stops being the health question, because everyone can finally see that busy and profitable are different things. 

Laura Bowen: You want to know what has kept me engaged at USTA Florida for the past 15 years? It’s in these photos. What you see here isn’t a week or even a month’s worth of work. It is what happens when people come together in pursuit of a bigger purpose and chase it for years, consistently, with a commitment to serving the greater good — even when it’s difficult.

Racquet sports never adopted one. We have occupancy, sometimes, when the booking report gets pulled. Nothing standard fuses it with rate. 

So here is the candidate, and it costs nothing to compute: RevPCH — revenue per court-hour. Take everything your courts earned in a period — open play, programs, lessons, leagues, memberships allocated however you already allocate them — and divide it by every court-hour you had, not just the ones that sold. Ten courts open fourteen hours a day for thirty days is 4,200 available court-hours, whether anyone booked them or not. 

The "available, not occupied" part is the whole trick, and it's the same one RevPAR pulled on hoteliers. Dividing by occupied hours flatters you — empty capacity quietly disappears from the math. Dividing by available hours makes empty capacity cost something visible, because every unsold hour drags the number down. 

Watch what it does to our two clubs, as an example. Make them both ten courts, fourteen hours a day — illustrative numbers throughout; the arithmetic is the point.

Jarrett Chirico, The Directors Club: For Immediate Release: Dan Santorum Named Chief Executive Officer of The Directors Club

From the very beginning, The Directors Club has been about people. Our stories have always been intertwined, and our future is waiting to be written by this family. The Directors Club is about lifting each other up, pushing each other forward, opening doors, and believing in something bigger than ourselves.

The 90-percent club fills its calendar with discounted blocks and bulk-rate programming and blends out at $14 per booked hour: roughly $52,900 for the month, a RevPCH of about $12.60. The 65-percent club protects its prime time, prices its programs at what they're worth, and blends $24 per booked hour: roughly $65,500 — a RevPCH of about $15.60. The "emptier" club earns about a quarter more from identical capacity. On an occupancy report, it looks like the laggard. On a ledger, it's the better operator. 

If you can quote your occupancy but not your revenue per court-hour, that isn't a personal failing — it's a missing industry standard. Nobody handed you the number. 

That's not an argument that 65 beats 90. Fill and rate is better than either alone — that's exactly what the metric rewards. It's an argument that neither occupancy nor total revenue, alone, can tell you which lever needs pulling. RevPCH decomposes cleanly: it is utilization multiplied by realized rate, the same way RevPAR is occupancy times average daily rate. When the number moves, you can immediately ask which factor moved it — did we get emptier, or did we get cheaper? Those are different problems with different fixes, and a club that can't tell them apart ends up discounting its way out of a rate problem or marketing its way out of a pricing one. 

A few honest caveats, because a metric oversold is worse than no metric. RevPCH is a speedometer, not an engine — it tells you what an hour of your capacity earned, not why, and not what to charge Tuesday at 2 PM. It needs consistent accounting to be comparable: decide once how memberships and multi-court programs allocate, then hold the rule. And a single month of it means little; the value compounds when you can put this July against last July, the pickleball conversion against the courts it replaced, the new junior block against the open play it displaced — one axis, every decision. 

The encouraging part is the same one I keep finding everywhere in this industry: the inputs already exist. Revenue by booking and available hours by court sit in the booking system every club already runs. No new software is required to start writing this number down monthly — a spreadsheet and a definition will do. Hotels didn't adopt RevPAR because it was clever; they adopted it because comparing a property to itself, its season, and its market without it was guesswork dressed as management. Thirty years later, nobody in that industry would run a board meeting without it. 

Tim Owens: Seems like everyone in our space is racing to build a "system of action." Here's my hot take (sorry!)... club operators don't actually have an action problem. They have a "what do I act ON" problem. And, I should know… I also own a pickleball club and have advised thousands of operators over the past 10 years at CourtReserve.
Ask anyone running tennis, pickleball, or padel clubs. They can do a million things this week. Tweak pricing, chase unpaid dues, discount dead court time, call members who drifted.

What they can't do is know which of those million things actually moved the needle last month, and which one is quietly slowing sales right now.

Racquet facilities are, functionally, hotels for hours of sport. The math transferred a long time ago. The habit hasn't — yet. 

Follow-up piece next month: What the empty hours are actually worth, and why the most expensive court at your club is the one nobody's playing on. 

Pruthvi Bheemarasetti

The most expensive court at a racquet club is the empty one. Pruthvi Bheemarasetti founded HeavyRally to put a number on it — sitting on top of the booking system a club already runs, telling operators what empty hours, drifting members, and flat rates actually cost, so those decisions stop running on instinct. A junior tennis competitor then, club player now. Six years shipping multi-vertical enterprise AI at C3 AI, engineering at Tesla before that.