There are plenty of under used municipal and school pools across the country that could be bought or managed by an outside organization, just for the promise of occasional public access. USMS is not loaded with money, but has lots of knowledge and experienced people who could pull off a stunt like this. One club in Indiana has done just this thing by taking over a county pool that was in peril of closing because it could not afford to operate it. As far as I know, the agreement is still in force and the USMS club is still paying for operations by its own management and programming.
San Diego has three public pools but cannot afford to keep them all open at once, so they have one or two open and close the other one (or two) on a rotating basis. Not a good way to keep programs filled.
Parents
Former Member
I'll just add that even in the event that a school district, city or county were to grant a not for profit organization something like a $1/year lease, it's no guarantee that you won't lose money on the endeavor.
I was involved as a board member on a swim team where we took over a 2 year old, 8 lane indoor pool, and even with not having to pay for the rent of the facility, we lost money routinely and often relied upon the generosity of our head coach and her family. This took place over 10 years ago now so my memory of details isn't super sharp, but things like utility bills, insurance, employees and maintenance can be truly cumbersome. To be fair, our swim team was relatively small (~120 kids) and there was no masters team to speak of. A few meets were hosted, one of them a masters meet that I ran, but none were large enough to generate significant revenue...if any. A larger pool in a more swimming heavy area might have a slightly different result, but for us it resulted in a lot of red ink.
Paul and Laura Smith would probably have some valuable insight into this subject.
I'll just add that even in the event that a school district, city or county were to grant a not for profit organization something like a $1/year lease, it's no guarantee that you won't lose money on the endeavor.
I was involved as a board member on a swim team where we took over a 2 year old, 8 lane indoor pool, and even with not having to pay for the rent of the facility, we lost money routinely and often relied upon the generosity of our head coach and her family. This took place over 10 years ago now so my memory of details isn't super sharp, but things like utility bills, insurance, employees and maintenance can be truly cumbersome. To be fair, our swim team was relatively small (~120 kids) and there was no masters team to speak of. A few meets were hosted, one of them a masters meet that I ran, but none were large enough to generate significant revenue...if any. A larger pool in a more swimming heavy area might have a slightly different result, but for us it resulted in a lot of red ink.
Paul and Laura Smith would probably have some valuable insight into this subject.
