Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Sports and Recreation Instruction Revenue Benchmark

Instruction in sports and recreational activities, from gymnastics and martial arts to swimming and golf coaching.

NAICS 611620, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Sports and Recreation Instruction Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every sports and recreation instruction business with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing one by the other gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment below.

≈$564,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

20,627

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $11.6 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $11.6 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 20,627 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $564,000 per employer establishment. A single-coach operation and a gymnastics center with a full facility are averaged together in that figure.

Scope: Sports and Recreation Instruction, NAICS 611620. Classified separately in group 6116: 611610 Fine Arts Schools; 611630 Language Schools; 611691 Exam Preparation and Tutoring, and 2 further codes. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed July 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group

Other Schools and Instruction, NAICS 6116, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

58.1%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 82.1 percent at 1 year, 74.8 percent at 2 years, 65.3 percent at 3 years, 62.1 percent at 4 years, 58.1 percent at 5 years. 4,786 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 53.3 to 58.1 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 82.1 percent of the starting count2 years: 74.8 percent of the starting count3 years: 65.3 percent of the starting count4 years: 62.1 percent of the starting count5 years: 58.1 percent of the starting count82.174.865.362.158.1Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years4,786 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 58 establishments aged five for every 100 that first reported paid employment in 2018. Census compares counts by age rather than following the same businesses, so read it as a broad continuation indicator for the industry group, not as a tracked survival rate.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 53.3 to 58.1 percent. This benchmark covers Other Schools and Instruction, NAICS 6116, as a whole, and this category accounts for 20,627 of the 58,784 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

MeasureValue
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈31%

Payroll share of receipts, Sports and Recreation Instruction, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 31.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll. Coaching hours are the product, so the ratio follows what instructors are paid against class fees.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes, payments to coaches engaged as contractors and owner compensation, which matters where coaching staff are often contracted.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

MeasureValue
Paid employees per employer establishment8.3
Employer establishments per firm1.05

Scale and ownership, Sports and Recreation Instruction, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 8.3 people, and the industry counted 1.1 employer establishments per firm.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Sports and Recreation Instruction: the risks behind a tidy average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

  • Does the business own or rent its facility? A gymnastics center with its own building and a swim school renting pool time have almost nothing in common financially, yet both sit in this average.
  • How many students does one coach supervise? Insurers and governing bodies often bind tighter than state rules, and a swim school's ratio is not a gymnastics club's. Whichever number binds decides how many places a session can sell, which caps revenue per coaching hour before pricing enters the picture.
  • What happens in the off season? Many activities have a natural season, and a business that cannot fill the rest of the year carries facility cost against no enrollment.
  • Is competitive team income significant? Teams, travel and competitions form a separate business inside many of these operations, with different costs and different parent commitments.
  • What insurance does the activity require? Physical instruction carries injury risk, and premiums vary enormously between swimming, gymnastics and contact sports.

Explore More on BusinessNES

Neighbouring benchmark pages built from the same verified data, plus BusinessNES guides on the same subject.

Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Sources and Methodology

Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.

The Census counts employer establishments, meaning a business with paid staff at a location. A coach working alone is not included.