Indoor sports facilities a growing market for Dayton youth athletic training

Indoor sports facilities are an emerging market in the Dayton area, as demand for offseason training space and new ideas for facilities are fueling change in a post-COVID athletic world.

Several local businesses and organizations are building, improving or expanding facilities for youth sports, including Flyght Academy in Trotwood, Xenia-based Athletes in Action, Bales Arena in Beavercreek, and other smaller facilities.

Youth sports has grown into a massive industry worldwide, valued at $37.5 billion in 2022, and expected to hit nearly $70 billion by 2030, according to Chicago-based firm Markets N Research. According to Project Play, which tracks youth sports participation nationwide, the average participating family pays $883 annually in one child’s primary sport, with some costs much lower, but others notably higher than that $883.

Youth soccer is also a local tourism driver. In Greene County, five youth soccer tournaments, hosted by both the Beavercreek Soccer Association and Xenia-based Athletes in Action, draw teams from all over the Midwest, and each generate over a million dollars in economic impact annually, according to the Greene County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

A big example in Greene County

Athletes in Action is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar expansion to its Xenia campus, building the Wooden Family Fieldhouse. The first phase of the fieldhouse is an $18.6 million, 65,000-square-foot center with four basketball courts, a challenge course, a sports performance and fitness area, and administrative offices. The second phase will be a $5 million, 93,000-square-foot indoor turf field bubble for soccer matches, football games, and other sports training.

The total cost of the project has gone up 20% since the organization began raising money for it seven years ago, primarily for change orders, rather than supply chain issues, said chief of staff Greg Sargent.

“Athletes in Action was founded in 1966, and over the years we have always dreamed of building an indoor facility, especially since we moved to our Xenia campus in 2001,” Sargent said.

The Christian nonprofit’s outdoor facilities currently serve as training venues and home fields for Legacy Christian Academy in Xenia, as well as teams from Wilberforce University, Central State University, Cedarville University, Clark State College, and the Xenia Scouts baseball team. Select-level youth teams have played soccer and baseball games at the complex in recent years.

The Wooden Family Fieldhouse is expected to be a training facility for other local teams, though the details are yet to be determined, Sargent said. The Fieldhouse will bring approximately 300,000 visitors to the Sports Complex each year, and construction is planned to wrap up in March.

“Adding an indoor facility will broaden our reach and impact, not only in the local area and the state of Ohio, but even globally, as we offer athletes opportunities to develop their athletic skills, along with ministry training for those who desire it,” Sargent said.

Soccer demand for turf space

The Ohio Galaxies youth soccer club’s teams primarily practice outside, said President Nancy Shields, but older teams play and practice at SportsPleX in Fairborn for indoor training, and younger teams practice at a variety of locations.

“There are not a lot of options for large indoor turf facilities, which creates a demand,” she said. “The cost of large indoor turf rental can be very expensive, which can impact the demand especially as a warmer climate makes outdoor turf fields accessible.”

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Among young athletes, soccer is one of the hottest indoor markets in Dayton, said Tony Miller of Dayton Functional Fitness.

“Soccer is just huge in Dayton and growing exponentially,” he said.

Miller and his wife Hollie launched Dayton Functional Fitness inside Centerville CrossFit last year, and this summer officially opened the fitness training portion of Dayton Functional Fitness at their new location in Beavercreek. The pair plan to renovate the facility to add indoor soccer fields late this fall, in time for the winter futsal and small-sided soccer season.

“We’re definitely in dire need of indoor space, especially for soccer,” Miller said. “A lot of people prefer the turf experience, and we just don’t have enough of it in this area.”

Kids competing year-round

The increased popularity of offseason training is one of the reasons driving the market. Young athletes are under a lot of pressure — from coaches, parents, peers and themselves — to perform well on the field or the court, which means honing their skills in the offseason, said Greg Beemer, director of Dayton Classics Baseball.

Additionally, the Ohio High School Athletic Association relaxed restrictions on offseason training during COVID, which may have played a part in the popularity of offseason training, Beemer said.

“The demands that (athletes) are being asked to adhere to — in the weight room, and skill development in the offseason — has significantly increased over the last several years,” he said. “I think you’re seeing more and more single-sport athletes, and as you see more single-sport athletes, the viability and demand for offseason training increases dramatically, because a lot of those kids in previous years wouldn’t have been candidates for offseason training, because they would have been playing basketball or football.”

More facilities also means more options for kids to participate in sports closer to home.

Ashley Eldridge coaches her daughter’s basketball team, the Beavercreek Stars, which practices at Bales Arena on Research Park Drive, but also drives her son to Moraine for indoor baseball practice.

“You don’t have to travel to Columbus and Cincinnati, because that’s kind of what we have to do for baseball. We’re all over the place to play different competition, but with Bales being so close, that competition comes to us,” she said.

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Bales also provides facilities to other indoor sports, including Air City Chix volleyball, and even Winter Guard and Winter Percussion, which at the college level sometimes squeeze in practices between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., after the basketball teams have gone home.

The Bales nonprofit is in the process of renovating part of the facility to fix some of the building’s older features, and make it more multi-sport friendly, with plans to put in indoor turf for soccer players, said Program Director Cara Farrell.

Tina Jasinowski, founder and “Head Chick” of Air City Chix volleyball, said prior to signing on with Bales, she had been looking for other facility options for her teams to practice and play for 12 years, looking at everything from new construction to old retail spaces in declining shopping malls.

“The problem for us for volleyball is we have some indoor requirements that are specific, and so it’s very hard to find that adequate space,” Jasinowski said. “Basketball, soccer, maybe even tennis a little bit — although they seem to have some similar requirements as us, don’t need the high ceilings that we need.”

It’s a business model that’s not for the faint of heart, said Miller of Dayton Functional Fitness, but the benefits of improving the lives of children through sports make the investment worth it.

“We’re going to be paid in a different form of currency,” he said. “That’s the main reason why we got into this, to spend the last couple of decades of our working lives focusing on building a community, giving back to a community, and trying to make change in a different way.”