The Building Boom (And The Form Nobody Reads)

I drive around my town and I see it everywhere now. Massive indoor sports complexes. Dance studios. Fitness centers. Speed and agility companies. Turf fields under one roof. New ones, all the time.

Turns out I'm not just imagining this. It's documented. Over 3,000 of these facilities have gone up across North America in the last decade, and by some reporting, more than $2.5 billion has been poured into building and upgrading them in just the last two years alone.

That giant complex your kid practices in? It's not just a rec center. It's an investment. And your family is the return.

Why These Places Make Money Year-Round

Indoor facilities don't have an offseason. No rained-out weekends, no winter shutdown. That means steady, predictable cash coming in every month, all year long. Investors like predictable. That's a big reason the money keeps flowing into this space.

None of that makes these places bad. Kids need somewhere to play, and a lot of these facilities genuinely serve their communities well. But it's worth remembering, next time you write a check for court time, field time, or studio time, that you're the customer this whole business model is counting on.

The Other Number

The building boom is only half the story. There's a second number, and you won't find it on a building. You'll find it on a tax form.

A lot of travel clubs are set up as nonprofits. That means, by law, their finances are public record. It's called a Form 990, and anyone can pull one up for free.

I started reading them, a lot of them, across different sports and different markets. And I kept finding a similar pattern: clubs bringing in millions of dollars a year, and sitting on sizable surpluses.

What Counts As Normal

To be clear, nonprofits are allowed to hold reserves. That's normal, and it's actually considered responsible management. From what I'm told, something like six months of operating expenses in reserve is a commonly cited benchmark for a healthy nonprofit.

Some clubs, though, are sitting on quite a bit more than that.

So it's a fair question to ask: what's the surplus for? A new field? A new gym? A turf field or a batting facility they're hoping to build? Any of those could be a perfectly good reason. Saving for something real isn't a red flag.

The Fee Question

Here's what actually gets me. Fees keep climbing every year, for a lot of families. Youth and travel sports costs are commonly reported as up around 46% in recent years.

So if a club is sitting on far more than a safe cushion requires, it's fair to ask: shouldn't fees be trending down, not up? A higher uniform cost this year, higher tournament fees, higher equipment fees, alongside a growing surplus, that combination doesn't automatically add up to something wrong. But it's a combination worth understanding.

Saving for something big, that's reasonable. Saving for something big and never explaining it to the families paying the bills, that's a different thing.

How To Check Your Own Club

This part is free, and it takes a few minutes.

1. Go to ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer (projects.propublica.org/nonprofits).
2. Search by your city or region, not just the club's nickname, legal names on file often differ from the name everyone actually uses.
3. Find your club and open its most recent Form 990.
4. Look at Part IX for total expenses, and Part X for "net assets without donor restrictions", that's the reserve number.
5. Divide reserve by total expenses to get a rough number of months covered.

Then, if you want, ask at the next parent meeting: "We're a nonprofit, where did the surplus go?" It's a fair question, not an accusation. How a club answers it tells you something either way.

Where I Stand

I don't work for any club. Nobody pays me, there are no sponsors and no ads on this site. I'm just a parent and a longtime coach who thinks families deserve to see what public records already show. Go look at your own club's numbers. That's all I'm asking.