Business Management

Big Squeeze: Mid-Priced, Midsized Clubs Must Increase Price, Service
The Squeeze, which we wrote about a year ago, is growing tighter. If you operate mid-priced, midsized clubs, as we do — that means with fees of somewhere between ...

Northwestern Experiments with Dutch Auction Ticket Pricing
In Holland, the price of flowers starts high and drops the longer it takes to sell them. It's been that way for more than a century. But not until this year did that sales approach inspire Northwestern University economists and, in turn, athletics administrators, who believe their suburban Chicago institution is the first in this country to use a Dutch auction to price and sell game tickets. ...

The Trouble with Selling Health Club Memberships to Seniors
The Boomers are coming! The American population is aging, and most have never been members of a health club! This represents a huge opportunity for your business!

Sports MBA Scott Minto Discusses Olympic Bids and Sponsorship
Americans are among 10,500 athletes representing 205 Olympic committees at this summer’s Games in London. But the United States has been conspicuously absent in other recent Olympic competitions — those that determine where future Games will be held.

Sponsor-Supported Video Boards Make Impact at High School Level
For Mike Gosz and Jaime Sherwood, being a high school athletic director requires a lot more versatility than it did even a few years ago.

Athletics Development Success Hinges on Broadening the Donor Base
A season potentially worth millions of dollars turned on a dime. Arizona State University’s football team had just scored a touchdown to take a five-point lead on UCLA, then recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff.

Despite Discomfort, We're Intrigued By Enhancement Fees
To charge a fee, or not to charge a fee, that is the question. Enhancement fees — one-time annual charges collected from every member of a health club ...

For Every Problem, There’s an Obvious Solution
As an exercise intended to help improve our health club business, we regularly ask ourselves this question: "What would a consultant say?"

Rob & Barry: How to Sell to Us
Our rant back in May, describing our frustration with what has become a daily deluge of phone calls from salespeople, caused some consternation among readers of the AB Newswire.

Healthier Concessions Menus Present New Booster Club Challenges
Fans attending high school football games this fall in Portland, Maine, were in for a surprise — especially the ones craving a tray of warm nachos and a cold Mountain Dew.

Report Paints Unappetizing Concessions Picture
Report paints unappetizing concessions picture.

Packaging Food With Tickets Works for Teams, Concessionaires
Packaging food with tickets has yielded agreeable sales strategies for teams and concessionaires alike.

Social Media Complicating Efforts to Oversee Student-Athlete Behavior
John Williams now realizes how close Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, Va., came to being sued for violating a student-athlete's First Amendment rights. ...

Should Coaches' Contracts Incentivize Academic Success?
Whether stipulated with the best of intentions or as mere window dressing, incentives in coaches’ contracts tied to academic performance could potentially get a school in big trouble with the U.S. Department of Education.

Abuse Victim Katherine Starr Launches Safe4Athletes
She still holds Wisconsin swimming records for 13- and 14-year-old girls 30 years after setting them, but Katherine Starr has surrendered much in her life — innocence, Olympic dreams, even the name she was born with.

Retro Fitness CEO Eric Casaburi Talks Undercover Boss
Retro Fitness, a franchise offering a state-of-the-art workout experience in a checkerboard-and-hair-band atmosphere, has thrived despite an economic recession to the tune of 90-plus clubs, more than 300,000 members and more than 1,200 employees. Concerned the company he founded in 2004 ...

Athletic Departments Apply Disney Principles to Game Day
A young boy attending an Arizona State University football game last fall slipped and skinned his knee. Nothing unusual about that, except for what happened next.

Colleges Seek Third-Party Help in AD Searches
It has been dubbed the "Wonder Blunder." A botched concert promotion, in which the budget-weary University of Hawaii paid a $200,000 deposit for an on-campus Stevie Wonder concert that never happened

YouTube Updates Make it Easier for Facilities to Take Advantage of Video
Just as the architecture of athletic, fitness and recreation centers has evolved over the years

Fitness Facilities Control User Data with Remote Asset Management
We’re living in the era of the “quantified self,” the idea that everything we do can be tracked using technology, recorded, integrated, analyzed and applied to our daily lives.

Software Helps Facilities Enhance Relationships with End-Users
Whether you run a health club, a recreation center or a martial arts studio, you do what you do well and with an entrepreneurial esprit unrivaled in most other professions.