A great Thursday night social is one of the most powerful tools a racquet sports club has. But events alone aren't a racquet sports club marketing strategy. Here's what most clubs get wrong — and what the best ones do differently.

I went to RacquetX 2026 with a thesis. The floor confirmed it. Here's what five thousand people and three days taught me about the real problem in racquet sports right now.

Racquet sports participation is up. Membership isn't following. Here's why most facilities have a demand strategy problem — not a marketing problem.**

Scaling a challenger brand inside a commodity category isn’t about making more noise. It’s about protecting differentiation while expanding reach. Here’s how disciplined positioning and integrated execution drove +15% dollar growth on the most profitable product line in the portfolio — without sacrificing margin.

Most strategies don’t fail in the room where they’re created. They fail under execution pressure — when priorities collide, resources tighten, and accountability is tested.

Rebranding is never just a marketing exercise—especially when the organization has nearly a century of history and a membership base that cares deeply about how things have always been done. That was the situation at the Racquet Sports Professionals Association (RSPA) when we undertook a full enterprise rebrand from the USPTA to the RSPA—one of the most important transitions the organization had faced in decades.

There’s a moment every organization hits where the problem isn’t strategy — it’s infrastructure. That was the case at the Racquet Sports Professionals Association (RSPA) when I took a hard look at two foundational systems that touched nearly every member and prospect: the website and the Career Center. Both were critical. Both were underperforming. And neither had meaningful budget behind them.