Field time is the resource every program in a club competes for, and facilities absorb a significant share of the budget. Put those two facts together and a question emerges that surprisingly few clubs can answer: what does one hour of field time actually cost? Clubs that know the number schedule with intent, price rentals with confidence, and negotiate leases from strength. Getting there takes one calculation and one habit.
The Calculation: Cost per Field Hour
Cost per field hour divides everything a facility truly costs by the hours it’s genuinely available. The numerator includes more than rent:
- Occupancy: rent or mortgage, property insurance, and applicable fees for each location.
- Operations: maintenance, field treatments, lighting and utilities, cleaning, and security.
- Capital reality: equipment replacement cycles, goals, nets, turf wear, spread over their useful life.
The denominator is available hours: total possible hours reduced by weather closures, maintenance windows, and daylight limits for unlit fields. Dividing one by the other produces the number that changes conversations. Say it lands at $38: this field costs the club $38 per hour whether anyone is on it or not.
Most of these inputs already exist in clubs that track financial results by location, the calculation reorganizes data the accounting system already holds.
Utilization: Where the Hours Actually Go
Cost per hour is half the picture. The other half is utilization: which programs use which fields, at which hours, and how many hours sit idle. Mapping a typical month usually produces two discoveries.
First, idle prime time. Weekday afternoons, weekend mornings, summer evenings, hours that carry full cost and generate nothing. Second, unbalanced consumption: one program absorbing most of the premium slots while paying the same internal “rate” as everyone else. Neither discovery demands drastic action, and both belong in leadership’s view when schedules, fees, and program plans get set.
Expansion: When the Data Says Go, and When It Counsels Patience
Every growing club eventually faces the facility question: rent more, build, or buy. Facility economics turn that decision from instinct into analysis. If existing fields run near genuine capacity at healthy cost per hour, expansion stands on solid ground. If utilization mapping shows idle hours that better scheduling could capture, the data buys time and saves capital.
Either answer is a win. The club that expands does so knowing its baseline; the club that waits redirects money toward programs. Both walk into lease or purchase negotiations holding numbers the other side of the table rarely expects a youth sports organization to have.
Keeping the Numbers Alive
Facility economics work as a living view, refreshed as costs and schedules change. Clubs with automatic data feeds connecting expenses and scheduling data keep the model current with little effort, and live dashboards with thresholds flag cost drift, a utility spike, a maintenance overrun, while there’s still time to respond.
At Lavoie CPA, we help youth soccer clubs build facility cost models from data they already capture, so leadership schedules and prices field time with real numbers behind every decision.