The Racquet Sports Industry Finally Has Real Compensation Data
Mike Knowles
4 min read
Mike Knowles is an ARA member. Contributed articles reflect the author's own views and research, not ARA positions. See our Editorial Standards.
For as long as I can remember, racquet sports professionals have negotiated compensation based on what the last person made, what the club thought was fair, or what a GM heard at a conference.
That just changed.
The American Racket Sports Association published the first independent compensation benchmark for racquet sports professionals, built entirely on verified IRS 990 filings. Not surveys. Not estimates. Sworn public disclosures from nonprofit clubs that are legally required to report what they pay.
I’m a member. I’ve seen the data. Here’s what I think matters most.
The Compensation Data Is Real, and Some of It Will Surprise You
The median Director of Racquets earns $251,667 in total compensation. The top individual in the dataset earned $588,630, at a private club in New York.
Those aren’t outliers driving a skewed average. The report covers 316 verified compensation records across 3,842 clubs in 47 states. This is a dataset, not a sample.
Where You Work Matters as Much as What You Do
Club revenue is the single strongest predictor of what a racquet director earns. Directors at clubs with $15M+ in annual revenue earn a 33% premium over those at mid-tier clubs. Same title. Meaningfully different paycheck.
Geography creates a swing of more than $70,000 in median compensation for the same role depending on region. If you’re benchmarking yourself against a national average without accounting for where you are, you’re working with incomplete information.
The Pickleball Data Point That Says Everything
There is exactly one verified pickleball director compensation record in the entire dataset.
One.
Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in the country. Clubs are adding courts, hiring staff, and building programs around it. And yet the compensation infrastructure, the title definitions, the pay ranges, the career pathways, hasn’t caught up. That gap matters for every club and every professional trying to make decisions about the sport right now.
Why This Report Matters Beyond the Numbers
Mature industries have compensation benchmarks. They use them to hire better, retain longer, and have cleaner conversations between professionals and employers. Racquet sports has been operating without one.
The ARA built this from public IRS data, which means it’s verifiable, repeatable, and independent. That’s the foundation you need before anything else is credible.
The full report, role benchmarks, regional breakdowns, state-level detail, and the top 15 highest-paying clubs in the country, is available to ARA members.
If you’re a director, GM, board member, or brand operating in this space and you’re not a member yet, this is a good reason to change that.
Join ARA and access the full report →
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mike@insidethelinesadvisory.com | 205.789.4006 | mikehknowles.com
Originally published in Inside The Lines by Mike Knowles. Republished with permission.
About the Author
Mike Knowles
Mike Knowles is the author of the newsletter Inside The Lines and founder of Inside The Lines Advisory. He serves as the U.S. Development Partner for the International Padel Cluster, the global industry organization for padel. Contact: mike@insidethelinesadvisory.com · mikehknowles.com.
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