Should You Rent Your Sports Facility to Outside Coaches?

Why Outside Coaches Can Be Good for Your Facility

The basic opportunity is straightforward.

You’re already paying for the building.

Rent or mortgage payments continue whether a batting cage has an athlete in it or sits empty.

Utilities, insurance, maintenance, equipment, and other facility expenses continue too.

If an independent baseball instructor wants to rent a cage every Tuesday and Thursday from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., those hours could produce revenue from space that might otherwise generate nothing.

Facility rentals are often attractive because they’re relatively simple compared with running your own programming. Instead of finding athletes, marketing the program, hiring a coach, managing registration, and delivering the training, you’re primarily providing the space.

Current sports-facility operating guidance describes rentals as a foundational revenue stream and recommends recurring arrangements such as seasonal contracts and standing weekly reservations because they can create more predictable usage and revenue than relying entirely on one-off bookings.

That makes outside coaches particularly interesting when they can consistently use hours you’re struggling to fill yourself.

Start With the Hours You Actually Need to Fill

Before announcing that your facility is available to every trainer in town, look at your schedule.

Which hours are consistently empty?

Which are occasionally available?

Which are almost always full?

Treat those hours differently.

Suppose you have three batting cages.

From 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., they’re consistently being used by your own private lessons, camps, teams, and members.

At 11:00 a.m., they’re usually empty.

An outside coach asking for Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. could represent almost entirely incremental revenue.

That same coach asking for Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. creates a different decision.

Now you need to ask:

What else could I sell during that hour?

That’s why facility owners should think beyond simply filling the calendar.

One useful metric is revenue per usable hour for each space. Current facility-management guidance recommends evaluating how different revenue streams use limited facility capacity rather than looking only at total monthly revenue.

If your own small-group program can reliably generate $250 during an hour and an outside coach wants the same space for $75, giving away that hour may not make financial sense.

But if the space routinely generates $0 at that time, $75 looks very different.

Calculate What the Rental Hour Is Really Worth

Don’t choose a rental rate simply because another facility charges $50 an hour.

Your costs and demand may be completely different.

Consider:

• Size of the space
• Type of training area
• Equipment included
• Local demand
• Time of day
• Day of the week
• Staffing requirements
• Cleaning
• Utilities
• Maintenance
• Administrative costs
• What you could otherwise earn from that space

You can also establish different rates depending on the situation.

For example:

Off-Peak Rate
Monday–Friday before 3:00 p.m.

Standard Rate
Evenings and weekends

Recurring Coach Rate
Reserved weekly block with a minimum commitment

Full-Facility Rate
Exclusive use of multiple training areas

The specific structure will depend on your business.

The important part is understanding the opportunity cost.

Industry guidance on sports-complex profitability similarly recommends looking at revenue generated by your physical space rather than assuming every rental is equally valuable.

Recurring Rentals Can Be More Valuable Than One-Off Rentals

Imagine two coaches.

Coach A books one hour this Saturday.

Coach B wants two hours every Wednesday for the next 12 weeks.

Even if both pay the same hourly rate, Coach B gives you something additional: predictability.

You know that space is generating revenue every Wednesday.

You can plan your schedule around it.

You spend less time trying to resell those same hours every week.

That’s why it can make sense to encourage recurring commitments.

You might offer outside coaches:

• Weekly recurring rentals
• Monthly rental packages
• Seasonal blocks
• Multi-hour packages
• Off-peak rental plans

This doesn’t necessarily mean heavily discounting your rates.

The benefit can simply be guaranteed access to a consistent time slot.

For a coach, that’s valuable too. They can tell athletes:

“I train here every Tuesday and Thursday.”

Instead of searching for space every week, they have a dependable location for their business.

Decide Who Owns the Client Relationship

This is one of the most important distinctions to make.

There are two very different arrangements.

Your facility’s coach

The athlete registers with your business. You set the training price. You collect the payment. The coach delivers the service as part of your operation.

Outside coach renting your facility

The coach operates their own training business. They bring their clients, establish their services and pricing, and rent space from you.

Those shouldn’t accidentally become the same arrangement.

A recent sports-facility operations guide highlights this distinction when discussing independent coaches: a true renter generally operates their own business, sets their own prices, bills their own clients, and rents the facility space.

Worker classification and business arrangements can carry legal and tax implications, so facility owners should get qualified professional advice for their specific situation rather than assuming calling someone an “independent coach” or “renter” automatically determines the relationship.

Operationally, though, you should know exactly which model you’re offering.

Think About Whether the Coach Competes With Your Programs

Here’s another question that can easily get overlooked.

Suppose you run your own baseball pitching program.

An independent pitching instructor wants to rent a lane from you every Tuesday evening.

The rental income sounds good.

But that coach may also be selling directly to the same athletes you’re trying to enroll in your program.

That doesn’t automatically make the arrangement bad. Some facilities intentionally build communities of independent instructors.

But you should decide what you’re comfortable with.

Consider:

• Does the coach offer something you already sell?
• Are they bringing their own existing athletes?
• Can they market to your customers?
• Can they approach athletes training elsewhere in your facility?
• Can they advertise inside the building?
• Can they use your facility’s name in their marketing?
• Can they sell memberships or packages from your location?
• What happens if one of your existing clients wants to train with them?

Those questions are much easier to answer before the first rental.

Your rental agreement and facility policies should make the boundaries clear.

Make Sure the Coach Fits Your Facility

Revenue shouldn’t be the only consideration.

The coach is operating inside your building.

Parents and athletes may not understand every business relationship behind the scenes. They simply see someone coaching at your facility.

That means the experience can still reflect on your brand.

Before agreeing to recurring rentals, consider the coach’s:

• Coaching experience
• Reputation
• Communication
• Professionalism
• Training style
• Treatment of athletes
• Equipment needs
• Typical group size
• Age groups
• Certifications or credentials relevant to your policies

You may also want to establish facility-wide expectations around athlete behavior, cleanliness, equipment use, music, language, parking, supervision, and interactions with other customers.

You don’t need to manage the coach’s business for them.

But you do need to protect the environment you’re creating inside yours.

Put the Rental Rules in Writing

A handshake agreement may feel easy when you know the coach personally.

A written facility-use agreement gives both sides a clearer understanding of the arrangement.

Risk-management guidance specifically for sports facilities recommends executing a rental or facility-use agreement with user groups. Important provisions can include the parties involved, rental terms, payment, responsibilities, insurance requirements, releases, indemnification, and dispute resolution.

Your agreement may also need to address practical issues such as:

• Rental dates and times
• Areas the coach can use
• Equipment included
• Maximum participants
• Payment deadlines
• Cancellation policies
• Setup and cleanup
• Damage to equipment or property
• Storage
• Facility access
• Guest policies
• Marketing and signage
• Emergency procedures
• Athlete waivers
• Insurance requirements
• Renewal and termination

The appropriate agreement and insurance requirements depend on your facility, activities, location, and insurer, so have your attorney and insurance professional review your setup.

Don’t Overlook Insurance and Liability

Sports involve inherent risk, and bringing third-party businesses into your facility adds another layer to consider.

Sports-facility risk-management guidance recommends requiring rental groups to provide proof of appropriate liability insurance and, depending on the arrangement, naming the facility as an additional insured.

For example, a 2024 Safehold Special Risk advisory for ice rinks and sports facilities recommends facility-use agreements for renter groups and discusses commercial general liability insurance and participant waivers as part of the risk-management process.

That doesn’t mean copying an insurance requirement from another facility’s website.

Talk with your insurance provider about exactly what your policy covers when independent coaches or organizations use your space. Then work with legal counsel on your rental agreement, waivers, indemnification provisions, and other requirements.

Create a Clear Scheduling Process

Once you have multiple outside coaches, scheduling can quickly become messy.

A coach texts:

“Is Court 2 open Thursday at 6?”

Another coach messages one of your employees.

Someone writes a recurring rental on a paper calendar.

Meanwhile, your own program needs the same space.

You want one source of truth for facility availability.

Your scheduling process should make it clear:

1. Which spaces can be rented.
2. When they’re available.
3. Who can reserve them.
4. How far in advance bookings can be made.
5. How recurring reservations are handled.
6. When payment is due.
7. What happens when someone cancels.

Older sports-facility operations guidance has also warned that allowing instructors to manage facility scheduling independently can cause operators to lose visibility into facility utilization and customer activity.

As rental volume grows, centralized scheduling becomes increasingly important.

Upper Hand’s facility and resource management tools are designed to help sports businesses manage schedules and facility resources alongside registration, payments, and other business operations.

So, Should You Rent to Outside Coaches?

For many sports facilities, outside coaches can be a useful part of the revenue mix.

They can help you monetize unused space, create predictable recurring rental revenue, introduce new athletes to your facility, and build relationships with coaches in your local sports community.

But rentals work best when they’re intentional.

Start with the hours you’re struggling to monetize. Understand what those hours are worth. Set clear rates and policies. Decide how outside coaches interact with your customers and programs. Put agreements and appropriate risk protections in place. Then track the numbers.

Your goal isn’t simply to make your facility look full.

It’s to make better use of the space you’re already paying for—and ensure every rental makes sense for the business behind it.