Opening a tennis club can be very lucrative but requires a solid business plan. A tennis club business plan is a comprehensive document that will help you efficiently open and manage your fitness facility. From marketing and staffing to competition. Doesn’t matter if you are creating a new tennis club or improving an existing one.
Key Takeaways
- A business plan is a document that describes all aspects of running a tennis club: finances, advertising, staff, clients and competition.
- If you are writing a BP for an investor, he will be interested in how you plan to secure funding and how your marketing efforts will translate into the successful operation of the club.
- The more detail, the better the document: describe everything from indoor courts or grass courts, to court maintenance, upcoming events, and even proper insurance coverage.
Download Free Tennis Club Business Plan Template
What is a Tennis Club Business Plan?
A tennis club business plan is a detailed document outlining the objectives, strategies, and planned activities for launching or expanding a tennis club. It serves as an essential guide for anyone looking to start or grow their own facility in the tennis club industry.
How to Write a Tennis Club Business Plan (Step-by-Step)?
- Step 1: Gather answers to important questions from the list below before writing your plan.
- Step 2: Are you opening a club with an innovative gym business model? It is better to wait to start writing a BP immediately to verify whether this model can succeed.
- Does the gym have a traditional gym business model (e.g., hour-scheduled group training sessions) already existing in the market? You can skip this step and create a BP immediately.
- Step 3: Create a tennis club business plan using the ready-made template (pattern) described below.
- Step 4: Review the BP regularly, every month in the first months of running the gym, and at least once a year in subsequent years. A business plan is a living document that will help your fitness place grow.
What to Remember When Creating a Tennis Club Business Plan?
- Write short, precise, and specific.
- Use numbers in all calculations.
- Assume worst-case (black) scenarios – if the business still works, you can outperform the market.
- In the first months, review the business plan daily and update calculations and assumptions.
- After reaching break-even, revisit the plan at least once a year.
- Discuss the plan with your team; consider sharing profits to build strong commitment.
- Treat the BP as a long-term document – update it regularly.
Where to start writing a gym business plan? (10+ questions to start with)
Start writing your document by answering a few important questions. The questions help you create a good business plan for opening a club and, above all, help you design a business that perfectly suits your needs:
- Why do you want to start this club?
- How much would you like to earn per month?
- How many clients do you plan to serve per month?
- What kind of club do you want to run? (e.g., group training place, personal training place, specialized club for one kind of clientele).
- What area will you operate in?
- Who will be your client?
- How many direct competitors are there where you want to operate?
- How will your tennis club stand out?
- Who do you need to hire to start the business?
- What metrics will you keep track of? (e.g. retention rate, customers opinions).
- What will your club look like inside and outside?
- What will the atmosphere of your club be like?
- What will your fitness offer look like?
Recommendation: Sample Tennis Lesson
Remember that a sample of your fitness classes can attract potential customers. A well-performed meeting will help you sell your idea. The trainer’s performance and place’s image are your #1 sales tools.
What to write a business plan for?
- A BP is an action plan. You will stop dreaming and start turning your idea into a real business.
- Running a business is working in a company. Creating a plan is working “on the company,” i.e. its design and improvement.
- A tennis club BP will allow you to verify your assumptions. You will observe it in a year, two, or five years. It’s super satisfying to watch how your knowledge grows every year.
- Writing this document allows you to translate your vision into a specific project and actions. It also allows you to rethink to what extent your business idea is a recipe for success and what you still need to refine.
- Creating a BP for a tennis club will help you assess the reality of your dream. You’ll check the possibilities of its implementation, as well as check the chances of its success. It’s also important to assess the risk you have to take.
- A business plan forces you to be specific. If you don’t know the answer to a question in our guide, you may be blind in this area, which is very risky.
- If you already run a club and don’t have a plan, fix this mistake. Every gym should have some sort of ideas for the present and future actions. You can also organize your performance better, for example by introducing useful documents, like a gym schedule template.
When is it worth writing a business plan?
In our opinion, it’s always worth it 🙂 You plan to open a successful tennis club, right? Not having the basic elements of your fitness business written down and calculated… dooms you to failure. Remember to verify them regularly too.
Only regular analysis of the results and planning the next moves (in the form of a business plan) allows you to have full control over the company.
Of course, the external motivation is looking for an investor or support (then you are even forced to create this document).
Free Tennis Club Business Plan Template
A typical business plan in the tennis club industry example includes:
- Executive summary for a tennis club
- Tennis club description
- Market Analysis, Location Analysis
- Market analysis
- Competition analysis
- SWOT analysis
- Investment plan (Cost Analysis, Financial Analysis)
- Investment costs (one-off to start)
- Operating costs (fixed monthly costs)
Financial Projections - Profit and Loss Account
- Break-even analysis
- Sensitivity analysis
- Team (Employees, Founders)
- Founders
- Employees
- Fitness marketing plan
- Company description of the vision for further development of the tennis club
Download Free Tennis Club Business Plan Template
1. Executive Summary
The executive summary should be completed after the entire tennis club business plan is written. It serves as a concise overview, highlighting the most important information in a clear and brief format (maximum 600 words, roughly 1–2 pages).
Focus only on the essential aspects of your tennis club concept. Present the information in bullet points for clarity and impact.
2. Description of the Tennis Club
This section aims to show you the details of your tennis club. Include those elements there:
- Mission statement and vision
- Mission: why do we exist?
- Vision: what we want to achieve in 1, 2, and 5 years.
- Structure
- Business Type: Is your tennis club a sole proprietorship, partnership, or other business?
- Tennis club concept
- Club name (get inspired by this list of gym names).
- Club type: specify the type of the tennis club: tennis courts for rent, tennis lessons with instructor (group lessons or individual lessons), events for the tennis community, tennis equipment rental for tennis instruction, etc.
- Specific location: write exactly where your new tennis club is (or could be) and why you chose this place.
- The style of the place: what will be the colors, atmosphere, decorations, do you provide music for people who play tennis, etc.
- Hours of Operation: What hours will the tennis facilities be open? Why are these?
- Offer
- Your tennis business offer is surely connected with your experience and skills. But remember to be creative and have 1-3 differentiators from the competition (Unique Selling Points).
3. Market Research and Competition Analysis
You should thoroughly analyze the space to create your tennis facilities. Oh, unless you are introducing real innovation to the market – or maybe especially then 🙂What needs to be observed? Analyze the market and competition, focusing on the following:
Industry Analysis
Your target audience is the key to any gym’s success. Knowing the demographic structure, preferences, and training habits of your tennis enthusiasts is critical to a business plan. Read more about gym statistics to understand the membership trends.
Competition Analysis
Check out other gyms that are or could be your competition.
- Are there many tennis clubs, local schools or any other tennis facilities in your area? Make a list of them.
- Revenue and number of customers they can achieve: Estimate how much such tennis clubs can earn.
- Offer and prices: Analyze what these places offer and what is their gym pricing strategy. Try to calculate their revenue cost (it is how much you need to spend before you start earning).
- Competitor marketing activities: See what makes them successful and their weaknesses.
- Competitive advantages: What will be your advantage?
SWOT Analysis
The abbreviation of the gym SWOT analysis comes from the words: S for Strengths, W for Weaknesses, O for Opportunities, and T for Threats. Fields S and W are related to the gym’s launch situation. While the O and T fields are related to the success of your project in the future. It is worth conducting such an analysis in the form of a table:
4. Investment Plan: Cost Analysis
In this section, you will present the costs associated with the initial investment and the spending plan for the first year of operation.
Investment costs include, among others:
- Rental or purchase of the real estate (are you planning indoor courts, outdoor courts or both?)
- Renovation and adaptation of the tennis courts and the rest of tennis facilities.
- Purchase of tennis equipment: rockets, balls and other special equipment.
- Purchase of room furniture and equipment:
- Chairs.
Reception Desk.
Lighting. - Unified Work Clothes for the staff (if you plan it)
- Chairs.
- IT software and hardware:
- Gym POS software.
- Payment terminals.
- Computer hardware for the POS system.
- Marketing and promotion costs:
- Logo.
- A website with online booking.
- Flyers.
Regarding point 5 and 6, consider investing in tennis club software – a monthly expense that ultimately saves time and money. Compare tennis club management software providers, but we recommend WodGuru for its fair pricing, useful features, and excellent support.
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- Insurance of the premises and equipment.
- Organizational and legal costs (e.g., regulations, documentation).
- Costs related to permits and licenses (e.g. license to conduct exercises according to a patented pattern and name).
- External training costs.
- Operating costs.
- Rental of tennis courts (if the premises are rented).
- Utility charges:
- Electricity.
- Gas.
- Water.
- Staff wages: trainers, receptionist, outsource trainers etc.
- Purchase of additional items like finger food and drinks if you want to implement gym juice bar ideas.
- Equipment maintenance and servicing costs.
- Service charges:
- Cleaning.
- POS system support.
- Fitness scheduling software.
- Employee insurance.
- Marketing and promotion costs:
- Online and offline advertising.
- Printed materials.
- Running social media.
- Website positioning (read more about SEO for gyms and other fitness facilities).
- Taxes and fees.
5. Financial Plan
The financial forecast is made up of three key components:
- Projected Profit & Loss Statement – outlines expected revenue streams and profits over time.
- Break-even Analysis – identifies the point at which the tennis club will cover its costs and start generating profit.
- Sensitivity Analysis – evaluates how financial results change under challenging scenarios, such as a temporary 50% drop in turnover.
Profit and Loss Account
You will need to estimate the value of the sale considering the size of your gym, target market, sales volume, and revenue cost. You will get a profit and loss forecast, comparing this with the costs. The easiest way to prepare a profit and loss account is in the form of a table:
Months of running a business | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 | e.t.c… |
Number of fitness classes per month | ||||
Average class value | ||||
Monthly income (turnover) | ||||
Variable costs per month | ||||
Fixed costs per month | ||||
Profit per month | ||||
Profit margin (in percentages) |
Break-even Analysis
How much revenue will you need to generate each month to break even after all fixed and operating costs are considered? In the analysis, you should show how you intend to generate the necessary revenue streams, even in difficult months with lower sales.
Sensitivity Analysis
It is worth doing it to assess the negative scenarios in your marketing strategies. What if…?
- The other tennis courts will be stronger, and you will have to lower the prices for tennis lessons.
- You lose key employees.
- There is a decrease in sales by 10 or 20% compared to what you assume as a successful tennis club.
This will allow us to be prepared better for different financial crises and reduce stress when such a situation arises.
6. Team
Business is people. Describe what your team will look like, dividing it into two groups:
- Founders.
- Employees.
Founders
If you are looking for investors, this area can be critical for them.
Describe the founders:
- List of founders.
- Experience.
- Successes.
Employees
Which staff roles are essential for the day-to-day operations of the tennis club? For example: receptionist, full-time tennis lessons coach, outsourced trainer, or social media or marketing strategies specialist. Also, who can provide backup support in case of emergencies?
Think about which people you already know with the necessary competencies. Which ones will you have to look for or train as your employees from the beginning of the new tennis club? The cost of necessary training should also be included in your BP.
Describe the team you need to build:
- List of job titles.
- Duties.
- Remuneration.
- Type of contract.
7. Marketing Plan
A marketing strategy for a new tennis club or an existing one should include the items we listed. Below we describe how to do effective marketing in your branch.
- Brand building (logo, colors, a distinctive name on the tennis market, tennis club slogans, etc.)
- Building your own website or app (Here you can check how to create a fitness app)
- Selling training sessions or booking online from your own website (as the main way of selling online)
- Launching a gym loyalty program
- An action list on how you will attract potential customers offline
- Flyers.
- Radio.
- PR.
- Events.
- An action list on how you will attract online customers
- Will you run social media?
- Will you be implementing gym SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
- Will you add a business listing on Google Maps?
- Will you run email and SMS campaigns, and if so, how often? How will you build your subscriber base?
- Will you be blogging?
- Will you be running a fitness newsletter?
- Will you be doing paid Google Ads and Facebook Ads?
- Will you be offering promotions? If so, what types?
8. Vision of Further Development
Determining the direction of development is very important at the beginning of your business in the tennis industry. When setting club goals you want to achieve in a certain time, you should start with the wider ones, reaching those at the everyday level. It is also worth considering how you want to achieve these goals.
During project execution you need to observe and adapt initial goals. It enables effective management and reduces losses in marketing, service, and other areas. Your gym’s written plan should clearly outline the vision and strategies to achieve desired objectives.
FAQ
To set up a tennis club, start by planning your tennis club project with both outdoor courts and, if possible, indoor courts for year-round play. Create a solid financial plan based on the tennis market, defining your target market and outlining clear revenue streams such as club memberships, lessons, and events. Focus on building a thriving tennis community to ensure long-term success. But first, organize a grand opening event to make yourself known and distinguished among many tennis clubs.
A great tennis club offers outdoor courts and facilities for year round play, combines group lessons with private lessons, and may include a fitness center. Strong social media marketing, regular community events, and the sense of belonging to your own club all help create an engaging, successful environment.
To write a business plan for a new club, define your target audience, analyze the competitive market, and outline pricing for court rentals and court fees. Include strategies for online marketing, partnerships with local businesses, and plans for court maintenance. Show how you’ll attract customers and build a welcoming environment to ensure long-term success.
To run a successful club, follow local regulations, promote through social media ads, and organize events with varied tennis activities. Focus on building brand awareness, creating a strong community presence, and forming local partnerships to ensure growth and engagement.
