Is Owning a Sports Facility a Good Investment in 2026?
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Written by: Ian Inman
Is Owning a Sports Facility a Good Investment in 2026?
The short answer is yes. The complete answer is that it depends entirely on how the facility is built, financed, and operated, and the coaches who get those decisions right are building some of the strongest small business returns available anywhere right now. The ones who get them wrong are the reason the short answer needs a longer explanation. I want to give you both in this post because you deserve an honest picture before you commit to anything.
The Market That Makes This Worth Looking At
I want you to understand the environment you'd be building into before we talk numbers, because the market context matters more than most coaches realize when they're evaluating this decision.
The U.S. youth sports industry currently generates over $40 billion annually and is growing at 8% to 10% per year. Over 30 million athletes participate in organized youth sports in this country right now. The average family's per-athlete spending rose from roughly $700 per year in 2019 to over $1,000 per year in 2024, and roughly a third of families are now taking on debt specifically to fund their kids' sports participation. These are families who have decided that youth athletics is not optional spending. It's infrastructure for their children's development, and they're treating it that way financially.
Between 2024 and 2026 alone, more than $2.5 billion was invested in new or upgraded youth sports complexes across the country. Private equity firms that had never touched the youth sports space before 2022 are now competing aggressively for quality facility assets. L.E.K. Consulting published research earlier this year identifying youth sports facilities as one of the most investable segments going into 2026, specifically because the demand is noncyclical, the revenue is recurring, and the market remains fragmented enough that a well-positioned independent operator can dominate a local market without fighting institutional competition.
I have seen coaches look at that context and think the opportunity is too crowded. I want you to think about it differently. What that capital flow tells you is that the investment case for this asset class has been validated at the highest levels of institutional finance, and the coaches who move now are building positions in local markets before consolidators arrive and change the competitive dynamics. The market is not the risk here. The execution is where coaches win or lose.
What Makes a Facility a Good Investment
A sports facility produces real returns when the financing structure fits the revenue model, the business is built around training programming rather than rentals alone, and the location is validated before a dollar is committed. When those three conditions are true at the same time, the financial picture is hard to argue with.
A sport-specific training facility in the 5,000 to 25,000 square foot range, built correctly with a strong programming model, can generate $300,000 to $700,000 in annual gross revenue at a 30% or better net operating margin once operations are stabilized. At the most accessible entry point we work with, a micro training facility funded with $15,000 down through an SBA 7(a) loan can generate over $30,000 per month in cash flow and build toward $360,000 or more in estimated equity over 10 years. At the mid-tier, $50,000 down on a $500,000 facility can produce $75,000 or more per month in cash flow and over $1,200,000 in estimated 10-year equity.
The reason the return on invested capital is so high at every tier is the SBA 7(a) leverage structure. Ten percent down unlocks 90% financing, which means the coach's capital is producing returns on ten times its face value. A coach who puts $50,000 down on a facility is not earning returns on $50,000. They're earning returns on a $500,000 asset. That leverage is what makes these deals produce outcomes that most other small business investments, and most conventional real estate investments, don't come close to matching.
Think about what that means for a coach's family. Instead of a savings account that barely keeps pace with inflation, $50,000 deployed correctly into a sports facility can build toward $1,200,000 in equity over a decade while generating income every single month along the way. That's not a projection designed to impress you. That's the math on 10x leverage at a 30% operating margin, and it's available to coaches who qualify through the SBA program right now.
What Makes a Facility a Bad Investment
I want to be honest with you about the failure modes because understanding them is what separates the coaches who build something real from the ones who spend two years and a significant amount of their family's money finding out what didn't work.
The most common reason facilities fail is a revenue model built on rentals rather than training. Renting cages, courts, or field space is the easiest revenue to generate and the hardest to build a profitable business on. The overhead in a sports facility is high and mostly fixed. I have seen coaches build genuinely beautiful facilities, fill their rental calendar completely, and still lose money every month because $30 to $60 per hour rental revenue doesn't cover a $15,000 to $25,000 monthly lease when you factor in utilities, staffing, insurance, and debt service. The revenue per square foot simply wasn't high enough, and no amount of hustle changes that math once the model is set.
The second most common reason is location. A strong training program in a saturated market, or in a market without the demographic base to support recurring youth sports spending, will underperform the same program placed correctly. I have seen coaches with real athletes, real credentials, and a real training program open a facility in a market that simply couldn't support it at the scale they built to. The customers were there, but the competition was already meeting the demand and there wasn't room for another player at that price point. A feasibility study exists to answer that question before it becomes an expensive lesson.
The third is financing structure. Getting the money is not the same as getting the right money. Coaches who borrow at the wrong terms, through the wrong vehicle, from the wrong lender, or without a repayment structure that fits their revenue ramp end up with a facility that's generating revenue and still falling behind on debt service every month. The deal structure matters as much as the deal size, and a coach who doesn't have access to lenders who actually understand sports facility underwriting is likely to end up with terms that don't fit the business model. None of those failure modes are inevitable. Every one of them is avoidable with the right information and the right infrastructure behind the execution.
What the Numbers Look Like When the Model Is Right
A sport-specific training complex generating $400,000 in annual gross revenue at a 30% net operating margin produces $120,000 in annual net income. Over five years that's $600,000 in cumulative net operating income on an initial out-of-pocket investment of $30,000 to $50,000. The facility asset carries real value from day one, anchored at minimum by the total project cost and compounding as the business builds a client base, an operating track record, and the kind of community presence that gives the business defensible market position.
At a standard 4x NOI valuation multiple, a facility producing $120,000 in annual net income carries an implied business value of $480,000 independently of what the physical assets are worth. That's the frame institutional investors use when they're evaluating these assets, and it's the frame that puts the return on a coach's $30,000 to $50,000 in its proper context.
Across the portfolio of facilities we've guided through our program, combined projected stabilized asset value sits above $20,000,000. That number is built on coaches at every build tier who made the decision to stop renting space and start building equity, and who executed the process correctly with the right support behind them.
Why the Path You Take Produces a Different Number
I want you to understand something about the gap between what independent operators typically produce and what our guided portfolio produces, because it's the part of this decision most coaches don't factor in when they're evaluating whether the investment is worth making.
The average independent sports facility operator takes 18 to 24 months to reach stabilized operations and generates between $110,000 and $140,000 in Year 1 gross revenue. Their build-out costs run 15% to 30% over budget. Their client retention rate at 12 months sits between 45% and 55%. Their net operating margin at the end of Year 2 lands between 2% and 8%.
Coaches who go through our program reach stabilized operations in 10 to 14 months. Year 1 gross revenue averages $180,000 to $220,000. Build-out cost overruns average 3% to 8%. Client retention at 12 months sits between 70% and 80%. Net operating margin at the end of Year 2 runs 10% to 15%. And our facilities consistently outperform their local market averages by a minimum of 21% in per-square-foot revenue.
Those two sets of numbers represent the same business, the same asset class, the same SBA financing structure, and the same local market dynamics. The difference between them isn't luck or location. It's whether the facility was built with the right programming architecture, the right pricing model, and the right pre-launch systems in place before the doors opened. Structure is replicable. That's the entire point.
Is It Worth It?
A sports facility is worth it when the model is right for the market you're entering, the financing fits the revenue you can realistically build, and the programming is designed to retain athletes rather than just fill space. When those things are true, a coach's family ends up with a real asset, a real income stream, and something that builds financial security in a way that years of private instruction income alone simply cannot replicate.
I want you to start by running your specific numbers through the Facility Builder Calculator at facilityfounders.com/facility-builder-calculator. Get a real cost baseline for your facility type before any other conversation happens. Then, when you're ready to evaluate whether your market supports the model and whether your financial profile qualifies you for the financing that makes these deals work, go to apply.facilityfounders.com and book a call with our team.
The coaches building real equity through facility ownership in 2026 are the ones who got accurate information early and made a decision based on it. That's the only thing separating them from coaches who are still renting space and wondering if the timing will ever feel right.
Not a guarantee. Actual results vary by market, operator, and business model.
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