TennisGear Experiences Growth

TennisGear Experiences Growth in 2019

TennisGear is a leisure facility management specialist owned and operated by Mark and Melissa Bloomfield. TennisGear Management (TGM) currently operate six tennis facilities across two states and they have achieved notoriety as Australia’s best tennis operators over the past decade.

Their path to recent growth has been different. TennisGear Director Mark Bloomfield explains that over the past two years, TennisGear has been approached and recruited by schools, councils and clubs to deliver their special brand of professional tennis centre management.

Over the past 18 months, the Playford City Council and Nudgee College actively recruited TennisGear to manage their tennis facilities. TennisGear was sought after for their proven ability to build tennis communities and their ability to deliver constant activity on the tennis courts.

TGM currently employs 55 staff, coaches over 2,000 students per week, manages over 250 fixture teams, and has a successful online retail presence. This growth has been carefully managed over the past 18 years by Mark Bloomfield and guaranteed to continue through the shared values of his management team and the strength of the TGM business model.

More information on the TennisGear management product can be found here: http://tennisgearmanagement.com.au/

TennisGear History and Timeline:

TGM was established in September 2000 when Mark and Melissa Bloomfield purchased the Everton Tennis Centre. It was a modest facility with four artificial grass courts and a pro-shop. Over time the business grew from being a family run operation to a business that employed several retail staff and coaches. The coaching program grew with the introduction of schools and the retail business grew with the addition of on online store.

In 2007 TGM tendered and was successful in winning the management rights for the Shaw Park Tennis Centre at Wooloowin with a 15 year operating agreement. This facility is a ten court complex owned by the Brisbane City Council, has a 75 bay car park, clubhouse, and is situated within the Shaw Sportz sporting precinct.

In 2009 TGM spent $300,000 extending the size of the clubhouse to include approximately 250sqm of additional retail space. Retailing has always been an important part of the TGM business and the additional space allowed Shaw Park Tennis Centre to establish the most comprehensive specialist tennis store in Queensland. The centre became a community hub on the north side of Brisbane for tennis players seeking specialist advice, equipment, shoes, apparel and racquet restringing.

The TennisGear brand was gaining wider acknowledgement in the community as a leader in tennis centre management.

In 2010 TGM was approached by the Queensland Community Lawn Tennis Association (QCLTA) to submit a proposal to operate their twelve court facility at Morningside. In

January 2011 TGM was appointed as the operator of the Morningside Tennis Centre under a 15 year license agreement with the QCLTA. The following 18 months saw extensive refurbishments to the facility including the construction of two additional courts, pro shop fit-outs, car parking, shade structure and covered decks. TGM has developed a strong relationship with the QCLTA and integrated their successful business model into the facility to achieve a massive growth in utilisation and membership.

In 2013 TGM tendered to the Brisbane City Council for the management rights for the newly constructed Roy Emerson Tennis Centre at Milton. This new facility consisted of six hard courts, cafe and pro-shop adjacent to a park. TGM was awarded the contract and commenced a 10 year agreement in November 2013 to operate the facility.

In 2017 TGM successfully tendered to operate the Playford City Tennis Centre in Adelaide. This $9m facility contains a state of the art club house, 16 hard courts and 6 hot shot courts. This tennis centre now hosts one of Australia’s largest professional tournaments attracting players like “Daniil Medvedev”, “James Duckworth” and other top professional players. Prizemoney for the Playford International currently sits at $160,000.

Early in 2018, St Pauls School in Bald Hills, Brisbane appointed TennisGear to operate it’s TAS tennis competition. The school is Prep to Year 12 and has a student body of 1700. They also have six premier tennis courts located on their beautiful college campus.

In December of 2018, TennisGear was approached by Nudgee College, one of Australia’s most prestigious Catholic Boys Colleges to operate the Nudgee Tennis Centre in Brisbane’s Northern suburbs. The TennisGear coaching staff began training and selecting teams to compete in the 2019 GPS season which saw over 120 players competing in school teams during the season.

TennisGear Record of Success:

Shaw Park Tennis Centre was awarded Queensland’s “Most Outstanding Club 2013”, and also the John Newcombe award for the Australian “Club of the Year 2013” across all tennis centres in Australia.

This was followed in the next year with the Morningside Tennis Centre being awarded Queensland’s “Most Outstanding Club 2014”, then also the John Newcombe award for the Australian “Club of the Year 2014”.

In 2016 the Roy Emerson Tennis Centre was named as a finalist in Tennis Queensland’s “Most Outstanding Club 2016” award.

In 2018, during its second year of operation, the Playford Tennis Centre was a finalist in the Tennis South Australia awards night for “Most Outstanding Club”, and Winner of the Tennis SA “Tournament of the Year” Award

TGM is humbled in receiving these awards; however these achievements represent an accumulation of success over a number of years, across a variety of measures, from a large number of people.

While the TGM business model has been publicly recognised by the wider tennis community as best in class, their future success is not determined by the awards they receive, it is determined by satisfying the needs of their customers and by connecting and developing their players and staff.

Current venues operated by TennisGear: