Save Our Courts

2022 Update: All of the specific facilities mentioned in the article below still have all of their courts.
Very few emails appear to have been sent, and likely had nothing to do with the end results.

The LA Fitness locations in Florida have filled their racquetball courts with equipment (first day post COVID-19 reopening).

When asked when the courts will reopen for racquetball:

at one south Florida facility, the manager was quoted as “it may be permanent”.
at another north Florida facility, the front desk was quoted as “per CDC guidelines, only when they are advised, which could be NEVER..”.

If you are an LA Fitness member, in Florida or elsewhere, please consider joining this email campaign.

Step 1) Start a new email to Contact {AT} fitnessintl.com

2) CC the National Sports Director, Michael Schneider
Michael.Schneider {AT} fitnessintl.com

3) BCC me. LAFcampaign {AT} jt-rb.com

4) Subject line: LA Fitness Racquetball Courts Reopening (Member ID #########)

5) Email body: Copy in the example email below, and then customize or personalize it so that it expresses your concerns. Please keep the email positive, reinforcing that LAF makes more money from racquetball players that have “Courts” on their membership and pay to play in the leagues than they do from any other member that isn’t tying up a personal trainer for 1-on-1 training. We need to encourage the corporate office to provide new direction to these locations so that they remove the equipment from the courts and allow leagues to start up ASAP.

Hello –Club Manager Name Here–,

This is first a quick complaint followed secondarily by an offer of assistance from our community.

As a member of LA Fitness, I’m strongly concerned about the racquetball court usage after re-opening from Covid-19. The rules now in place seem arbitrary and unnecessary.

For example, why keep play to singles only in a 20×40 room when there are group fitness activities that put many more people into an area of roughly the same size? We signed injury waivers when we joined the club and know our sport has risks, such as catching a cold or flu from someone (we’d hope they’d stay home). We accept this. Perhaps an additional waiver instead of arbitrary rules?

We have been itching mightily to use the courts we pay our memberships exclusively for (e.g. most only play racquetball and don’t lift weights) so this is frustrating to us. If, as adults, we’d like to play doubles we should be able to do so.

As a group, we’re not just concerned about misuse of courts by placing other equipment in them but also that LA Fitness is missing out on an opportunity to grow the usage of the courts and therefore drive membership. This would be mutually beneficial.

Racquetball as a sport is making a big comeback and removal of courts will cost everyone – both Fitness International and its affiliated clubs as well as the players. We are 3.5 million strong! It’s a proven way to increase sports performance as a cross-trainer for other sports like basketball, baseball and football.

How can we, as players and all our player organizations, help Fitness International by leveraging our membership to increase usage of the racquetball courts beyond the leagues that are in place and the monthly court reservation cost?

Sincerely,

–Your name–

–Length of membership– (i.e. member since 2012)

–Number of times I reserve courts weekly–

–How often I play–

–Gym location–