Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers Market Size: $36.0 Billion #
The US fitness and recreational sports centers market generated $36.0 billion in receipts across 41,556 locations (Census Economic Census 2022; Census CBP 2023). It employs 708,273 people and pays $13.5 billion in wages a year.
Those 41,556 locations are run by 31,581 firms. The 9,975-location gap is the multi-site operators: the franchise systems and regional club chains that run more than one address. Put the other way, roughly three quarters of the firms in this market are single-location businesses.
This is a fragmented market with small catchments. A gym, a pool or a court facility serves a drive time rather than a region, so national scale buys brand recognition and purchasing power but not local pricing power. The practical consequence for an operator is that the competitive question is never "who leads nationally" but "how many comparable facilities sit inside my catchment".
Revenue per Location: $883,693 #
The average facility in this market took in $883,693, dividing 2022 Economic Census receipts by the Census location count for the same year.
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue per location | $883,693 | Census EC 2022 / CBP 2022 |
| Employees per location | 17.0 | Census CBP, 2023 |
| Revenue per employee | $55,453 | Census EC 2022 / CBP 2022 |
Read $883,693 as a population average, not a typical facility. Boutique studios heavily outnumber large venues in the location count, so a multi-court racquet club, an aquatic center or a 40,000 square foot full-service club sits well above it, and a single-room pilates or spin studio well below. The market does not have a typical facility; it has at least four size classes.
For comparison across the wider leisure sector, revenue per location runs from $592,157 in sports and recreation instruction to $27.9 million in theme parks. Fitness sits near the bottom of that ladder, which is why it attracts far more new entrants than any other recreation industry.
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Average Wage: $19,070 Across 708,273 Jobs #
Payroll per person employed in this market was $19,070 in 2023, calculated from $13.5 billion of Census CBP payroll across 708,273 employees.
That is not what a job pays. It is total payroll divided by total headcount, and this market runs on part-time labor: instructors teaching a handful of classes a week, lifeguards, and front-desk staff all count as one employee each in the Census figure, the same as a full-time general manager. The number is a useful measure of payroll intensity per head and a misleading one if read as a salary.
What it does tell an operator is that labor in this market is bought in fractions of a person. Staffing models here are built from shift coverage rather than headcount, which is the opposite of an industry like golf, where the average location carries 32.2 employees at $40,974 because greenkeeping is skilled and year round.
Eleven Facility Formats Compete in This Market #
If you are researching this market you are probably researching one format inside it. All of the following compete for the same federal industry code, the same lender risk class and the same benchmark peer group:
| Format | What drives the economics |
|---|---|
| Full-service health clubs and gyms | Membership dues, square footage, equipment refresh cycle |
| Boutique studios: pilates, spin, barre, CrossFit | Class packs, instructor cost per class, small footprint |
| Pickleball facilities | Court count, clear height, a building closer to a warehouse than a studio |
| Padel clubs | Same build profile as pickleball; almost no US operating history |
| Tennis clubs | Court count, indoor vs outdoor season, membership mix |
| Racquetball, squash and handball clubs | Court count; often a department inside a larger club |
| Swimming pools and aquatic centers | Water plant, lifeguard ratios, year-round utility load |
| Ice rinks | Refrigeration plant, ice time sold in blocks, utility load |
| Roller skating rinks | Session and party revenue, floor maintenance |
| Climbing and bouldering gyms | Wall height and route setting labor |
| Gymnastics and dance exercise facilities | Apparatus, coach cost, youth program calendar |
Census names most of these explicitly in its definition of the industry, which covers facilities "featuring exercise and other active physical fitness conditioning or recreational sports activities, such as swimming, skating, or racquet sports", with published examples including handball, racquetball and tennis club facilities, swimming and wave pools, and ice and roller skating rinks.
Two things follow for an operator or investor. No federal source publishes a count or a revenue figure for any single format. There is no pickleball facility count, no padel market size and no tennis club revenue figure from any government source, because Census does not break the industry down and the pieces cannot be recovered by subtraction. And every published average for this market, including the ones on this page, describes a mix dominated by fitness, because gyms and studios are the overwhelming majority of the 41,556 locations.
Who Is Entering: 2,033 New Facilities Financed Since 2024 #
This market attracts more new entrants than any other recreation industry in the country. The SBA approved 4,177 loans to businesses in it between FY2024 and the third quarter of FY2026, of which 2,033 were to facilities not yet open (SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA extracts, as of June 30, 2026).
To put that in proportion, those 2,033 startup loans are more than the other 25 recreation industries combined, which share 1,826 between them, and more than child day care (754), veterinary services (261) or landscaping (251). Capital is entering this market faster than it is entering any adjacent leisure category.
Of those approvals, 1,520 or 36 percent went to franchised locations. The leading brands by loan count are Hotworx, Anytime Fitness, Alloy Personal Training, The Little Gym, Bodybar Pilates, D1 Training, JETSET Pilates and Fit Body Boot Camp. None of the eight is a racquet, court or aquatic brand, so the franchise share of this market is a statement about boutique fitness and youth training rather than about the market as a whole. Court and aquatic facilities in the lending data are overwhelmingly independent.
On the FY2020-21 loan cohort, the most recent old enough to have been tested, 66 of 1,629 SBA 7(a) loans had been charged off, or 4.1 percent. That measures outcomes for SBA borrowers in this market and is not a business failure rate: it excludes operators who never borrowed, closures without a default, and loans still performing that may yet fail.
Adjacent Markets That Are Not in This One #
Four adjacent industries are frequently confused with this one, and the distinction matters because their economics are not comparable:
- 71391 golf courses and country clubs — 10,076 locations at $3,107,844 of revenue each. Land-intensive, 32.2 employees per site. See how many golf courses are in the US.
- 61162 sports and recreation instruction — teaching rather than operating a venue: martial arts schools, swim schools, gymnastics programs, coaching, riding academies, sports camps. 20,916 locations at $592,157 each, and the most fragmented industry in the leisure sector. If you teach rather than run a facility, this is your market.
- 71395 bowling centers — 3,154 locations at $1,240,916 each.
- 71399 all other amusement and recreation — miniature golf, shooting ranges, billiard parlors, riding stables, day camps, and recreational sports leagues that own no facility. Trampoline parks and escape rooms land here or in 71312 arcades.
A fuller comparison of all of these sits in our recreation and sports business benchmarks.
Sources and Method #
Location, employment and payroll figures are Census County Business Patterns for 2023, the most recent year published, pulled directly from the Census API on October 5, 2026. CBP covers establishments with paid employees and measures employment in the March 12 pay period, which understates seasonal operations such as outdoor pools and rinks.
Receipts and firm counts are the 2022 Economic Census, the only federal source for revenue at this level, published every five years. Revenue per location divides 2022 receipts by the 2022 location count so both halves share a vintage; pairing 2022 revenue with a 2023 count overstates the ratio.
Average wage is CBP payroll divided by CBP employment, a calculated figure credited to Census and never to BLS. Loan figures are the SBA's published 7(a) and 504 FOIA extracts, both dated June 30, 2026, aggregated by industry code and approval fiscal year; only aggregates are used.
Sole proprietors without employees are outside CBP by definition. Census Nonemployer Statistics would normally supply that half of the market, but it returns no published row for this industry for 2023, so there is no federal way to add independent trainers and single-operator studios to the 41,556 count. We have recorded that absence rather than estimating around it.
Market concentration measurement, revenue projections and multi-year trends sit in the industry report rather than on this page. See Report →.