How do you define success for your sports or recreation assets? Is it by the economic impact they’ve had on your city? Is success measured by the health and wellness of your citizens? Does your sports and recreation assets create new jobs or provide a sense of place for your community?
Whether you have a sports tourism venue that draws thousands of athletes and families to your city or a recreation center that serves your community through innovative programming, we know you’re counting on the facility to perform.
SFM’s Performance Optimization services are designed to produce the results you want and maximize the potential of your asset.
At Sports Facilities Management, our optimization process involves evaluating all aspects of facility operations and, based on our experience with thousands of venues and best practices, making sound recommendations. Our team of facility operators, marketing and branding experts, and business development analysts have in depth experience developing, managing, and turning around some of the nation’s most successful sports tourism and recreation center venues. They have a keen eye for spotting opportunities for enhancement, whether it’s brand messaging, programming, or human resources.
When providing insights and recommendations for optimization, the SFM team focuses on 11 areas that are essential to facility operations. These include:
SFM reviews the roles of each person within an organization to determine if they align with industry best practices for facility management. This includes determining if there’s a clear organizational structure, description of roles, and an understanding of role accountability in terms of physical and financial outcomes.
In this area, we review an organization’s process for training and retaining staff members, along with their methods for growing their skillsets. Based on observations, experience, and best practices, recommendations are made for procedural enhancements.
As part of this effort, we review all aspects of brand messaging and marketing strategy. This analysis is balanced against an analysis of the facility’s potential customer base and competitors. By understanding the needs of your customers and the competitive landscape, we are able to make recommendations on relevant messaging and the most effective vehicles for engaging your audience. We also review the effectiveness of the venue’s website in conveying brand messaging in a compelling way. This process includes a review of your marketing budget to evaluate if it’s allocated towards the correct tactics and if the amount of funding is sufficient. Additionally, SFM evaluates sponsorship sales efforts and makes recommendations on strategy and execution.
SFM examines the strategy and methods for managing tournament development, sports event programming, other event programming, lodging rebate programs, sponsorship sales, ticketing programs, and other methods for generating revenue.
Through a tour of the client’s facility, the SFM team analyzes the quality of all technology and processes used to host events and maintain day to day operations. A function of this evaluation is customer satisfaction, which is evaluated through customer reviews and online ratings.
SFM uses best practices from its roster of successfully managed assets to examine venue expense data and make recommendations for containing certain employee, capital expense, and supply costs while maintaining the highest level of service.
During this process, we examine historic financial data and interview staff members to assess the effectiveness of a facility’s financial tracking and reporting procedures. Financial data include annual historic financial performance, annual budgets, annual budget versus actuals, and a detailed breakdown of expenses.
SFM evaluates financial and operating software systems to assess its effectiveness in allowing staff to perform the primary functions of their positions. Some areas of evaluation include, ease of use for staff and end users and integration between financial reporting and operating software.
Historical maintenance and capital improvement expenditures are reviewed to gauge the investment currently being made to ensure all equipment is in working condition.
This is an evaluation of the physical structure of the facility. SFM determines if the sports venue is in optimal condition and serves the needs of users. They then make recommendations based on the result of this evaluation.
Current programming is examined to determine if it meets the needs of your audience. We also evaluate if your programming is being marketed effectively and, through our experience as facility operators, we can ensure that your programming best utilizes available space within your facility.
Sports Facilities Management assessed all aspects of Elizabethtown’s (KY) existing sports and recreation assets, particularly the E-Town Sports Park and made recommendations of best practices for driving economic impact through events, tournaments, and recreation programming.
Sports Facilities Management provided recommendations to the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation with the threefold purpose of serving the recreational needs of Brownsville residents, driving economic impact through sports tourism, and making parks operations financially sustainable.
Caitlyn is a dynamic human resources professional with experience leading human resource processes for a 1,400-member company. Caitlyn’s ability to guide a workforce of high performers is instrumental to her role as Human Resources Business Partner at Sports Facilities Companies.
At SFC, Caitlyn works one on one with SF Network venues and our home office as a dedicated resource for their recruitment requirements. She manages the applicant tracking system and trainings, ensuring successful candidate pools for each venue.
Caitlyn identifies training needs and creates/procures a professional development curriculum. She also monitors training programs to ensure that training objectives are accomplished. In addition, she ensures regulatory compliance with legal requirements pertinent to employee management are met.
Since joining SFC, Caitlyn has increased candidate engagement with our application process from 65 to over 80 percent.
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