It is a scheduling meeting like any other. The club has four fields across two locations. Three programs want the same weekday evening slots, and a local school has asked to rent a field on Saturday mornings.
The scheduler has answers about availability. The next question is worth a pause: what does one hour on that field cost the club?
Clubs that know the number schedule with intent, price rentals with confidence, and walk into lease conversations prepared. Getting there takes one calculation and one habit.
The Calculation: Cost per Field Hour
Cost per field hour divides everything a field truly costs by the hours it is genuinely available. The numerator of the fraction 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.
- Equipment and wear. Goals, nets, and turf wear, spread across their useful life.
The denominator of the fraction counts available hours: all possible hours, reduced by weather closures, maintenance windows, and daylight limits on unlit fields.
Most of these inputs already live in the books of clubs that keep costs organized by location. The calculation reorganizes data the accounting system holds today.
A Worked Example: One Field, Two Ways to Count
Imagine one field that costs the club $36,000 per year: $21,000 for occupancy, $12,000 for operations, and $3,000 for equipment and wear. In this example, the field has 1,200 available hours, and it is booked for 900 of them.
| One field (illustrative) | Calculation | Result |
| Cost per available hour | $36,000 ÷ 1,200 hours | $30 |
| Cost per hour actually used | $36,000 ÷ 900 hours | $40 |
| Cost carried by idle hours | 300 hours × $30 | $9,000 |
In this example, the field costs the club $30 for every available hour, whether anyone is on it or not. Counting only the hours in use, the same field costs $40. The $9,000 carried by idle hours is a measurable opportunity, because every idle hour that gets booked adds revenue or program value against a cost the club already carries.
Utilization: Where the Hours Go
Cost per hour is half the picture. The other half is utilization: which programs use which fields, at which times, and how many hours sit idle. Mapping a typical month usually produces two discoveries.
First, idle prime time. Weekday afternoons, weekend mornings, and summer evenings carry full cost and have room for more programming. Second, uneven use. One program may use most of the premium slots while paying the same internal rate as everyone else.
An internal hourly rate helps with both. When each program sees the field time it uses, valued at cost, program contribution views reflect the full picture, and scheduling choices become easy to explain.
Price Rentals and Partnerships From Data
External rentals to leagues, camps, schools, and community groups are where facility economics pay off quickest. With a true cost per hour, the pricing steps are straightforward: cover full cost, add a margin chosen on purpose, and price premium slots as the premium assets they are.
Suppose the club sets a 25% margin target. In this example, the $30 cost becomes a base rate of $37.50, rounded to $38. A school renting 120 Saturday-morning hours at that rate brings in $4,560. That covers the $3,600 cost of those hours and adds $960 toward club programs.
The same number brings discipline to partnerships. A shared-use agreement with a flat annual rate can be evaluated hour by hour. Rental requests arrive at irregular times, so a club can keep a short rate card and a clear approval path. Every request then receives a consistent answer without a leadership meeting.
Expansion: When the Data Says Go, and When It Says Wait
Every growing club eventually faces the facility question: rent more, build, or buy. Facility economics turns that decision into analysis. If existing fields run near genuine capacity at a healthy cost per hour, expansion stands on solid ground. If utilization mapping shows idle hours that better scheduling could fill, the data buys time and keeps capital available for programs.
Either answer is a win. The club that expands does so knowing its baseline, and the club that waits redirects money to players. Both enter lease or purchase negotiations with numbers in hand.
Keep the Numbers Current
Facility economics works as a living view. Clubs with automatic data feeds connecting expenses and scheduling data keep the model current with little effort. Live dashboards with thresholds can flag cost changes, such as a utility increase or a maintenance overrun, while there is still time to respond. Budget vs. actual reporting then shows how field costs track against plan.
Start This Week
- List every field and its yearly costs in three groups: occupancy, operations, and equipment and wear.
- Estimate available hours after weather, maintenance, and daylight.
- Divide, and write the number next to each field on the schedule.
- Mark idle prime-time hours on the calendar and note which program could use them.
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.