Sim Facility Boom #10: Growth Meets Reality

The Growth Side: 20+ New Facilities

I’ll get to the closures and consolidation in a minute. But first, the growth numbers, because they’re still ridiculous.

Here’s what hit our tracking in a single sweep:

Texas is still the engine. League City (south of Houston) got a new facility. Prosper and Allen (north of Dallas) each got one. Fort Worth added another. Tyler got one. That’s five new Texas facilities in one sweep. Texas now has more tracked facilities than any other state, and the gap is widening. The DFW metroplex alone has more sim lounges than some entire states — and the market keeps demanding more.

Virginia is quietly building a network. Bristol got a facility. Lynchburg got one. Reston Station (the DC exurbs) got a major one — a high-end facility in a mixed-use development that screams “this is where the money is.” Virginia now has facilities stretching from the DC suburbs to the southwest corner of the state. It’s not the flashiest market, but the coverage density is impressive.

South Dakota enters the tracking. Sioux Falls got a facility. Brandon (just outside Sioux Falls) got one too. South Dakota is not a state you’d expect to see sim facility growth — but that’s exactly why it matters. The demand isn’t driven by climate or geography alone. It’s driven by golfers who want to play year-round, and that’s a nationwide phenomenon.

Michigan keeps building. Walker (near Grand Rapids) got a new facility. Holland already had three (we covered this in Update #9). Pipestone Golf is building a second facility in Stevensville. The Michigan market is proving that sim density works — more facilities create more demand rather than cannibalizing existing business.

The Rust Belt is catching up. Cincinnati got a 7,000-square-foot expansion (a massive facility getting bigger). Huntingburg, Indiana — population 6,000 — got a facility. Fayetteville, Arkansas got one. Parker, Colorado got one. These aren’t coastal markets. They’re middle-American cities where winter is real and the desire to keep swinging is stronger than the desire to shovel snow.

New Jersey got five more facilities. Yes, five. In one sweep. New Jersey has been the quietest micro-boom we’ve tracked — facilities popping up across the state in small towns and suburbs without any single dominant franchise brand. The NJ market is being built by independent operators, one facility at a time. We devoted an entire article to the NJ micro-boom a few updates ago, and it’s only accelerating.

That’s twenty-plus facilities in one sweep. Twenty-plus facilities in a single data collection cycle. The growth has not slowed down.

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The Consolidation Side: Closures, Market Share, and Franchise Pressure

Now for the other side of the coin.

Springfield, Illinois: Our First Confirmed Permanent Closure

In Update #4, we flagged a potential closure — a golf simulation facility with a bar and grill in Springfield that had gone silent. The State Journal-Register has now confirmed it’s permanently closed.

This matters because it’s our first data point on what sim facility failure looks like.

The Springfield facility had a bar and grill attached, which is actually a warning sign in retrospect. Restaurant-adjacent sim facilities have higher overhead, more operational complexity, and thin margins even when they’re busy. If the restaurant side fails, the sim side goes with it.

We don’t know the specific reasons for this closure. But the pattern is worth watching: standalone sim-only facilities seem to have better survival odds than sim+restaurant hybrids, because the cost structure is simpler and the revenue model is more predictable (pay-per-hour vs. food+beverage margins).

Tampa Bay: Market Share Battles

The Tampa Bay market is entering a new phase. The Business Journals reported that Tampa Bay’s indoor golf operators are working to lock in market share as bigger brands circle.

This is the first real “competitive dynamics” story we’ve tracked. Not a new facility opening. Not an existing facility expanding. But operators actively strategizing about how to defend their territory against larger competitors. The three-way indoor golf franchise war — Another Nine, Five Iron, and Back Nine racing for the same markets — is the source of that pressure.

What does this look like in practice?

• Pricing pressure — as more facilities open, per-session prices come down
• Loyalty programs — operators locking in regulars with memberships and packages
• Location moats — the best real estate gets taken first, leaving late entrants with secondary locations
• Brand recognition — franchise chains have marketing budgets and national awareness that independents don’t

The Tampa market isn’t failing. It’s maturing. There’s a difference.

Franchise Times: “Taking Their Shot”

The Franchise Times ran a feature on the sim franchise model — titled “Taking Their Shot” — that’s worth noting. When a business publication like Franchise Times covers a category, it means institutional investors are paying attention. Not just individual entrepreneurs, but private equity, franchise development funds, and multi-unit operators.

The franchise model (Back Nine, X-Golf, Five Iron, Golf VX, Another Nine) is becoming the primary vehicle for sim facility expansion. Five Iron’s latest move — a real-money tournament platform across all locations — shows how franchises are evolving beyond bay rentals into competitive entertainment destinations. Independent operators still exist — and many are thriving — but the franchise model brings standardized operations, national marketing, and easier access to capital. The Franchise Times coverage is a signal that the sim facility category has crossed from “trend” to “asset class.”

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Innovation Corner: New Facility Formats

Two unique format signals in this sweep deserve their own mention:

Berlin, Connecticut: 24/7 Sim Golf

Yahoo reported that a 24-hour indoor golf simulator facility is proposed for Berlin, Connecticut, with online reservations. This is our first dedicated 24-hour facility east of the Mississippi (previous 24-hour facilities were in California and Texas).

The 24-hour model is becoming a genuine subcategory. Self-serve, keycard access, no staff — the same model that made Another Nine successful is spreading to other operators. Berlin is a town of about 20,000 people, which means the 24-hour model works in small-to-mid-sized markets, not just major metros.

Grand Rapids: 7-Eleven + Indoor Golf

MLive reported that a 7-Eleven with a connected indoor golf range has been approved in the Grand Rapids area.

Let me repeat that: a 7-Eleven with a golf simulator.

This is the first convenience-store co-location we’ve ever tracked. A gas station/convenience store adding a golf simulator as an adjacent business. It’s the most unexpected format yet — and it proves that sims are spreading beyond traditional entertainment and sports models. If a 7-Eleven franchisee thinks the economics work, the category has genuinely crossed into mainstream infrastructure.

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Back Nine International Expansion

The Back Nine franchise continues its aggressive expansion. Back Nine is now expanding internationally, building on the partnership with Full Swing (covered in our separate article about the Full Swing-Back Nine deal).

Back Nine has been the most aggressive franchise in our tracking — multiple locations per update, rapid expansion across the South and Midwest, and now international growth. The combination of Back Nine’s operational playbook and Full Swing’s hardware ecosystem is probably the most powerful force in the franchise boom right now.

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What It All Means

Twenty-plus new facilities in one sweep. One permanent closure. Tampa operators fighting for market share. Franchise Times covering the model. A 24-hour facility in Connecticut. A 7-Eleven with a golf simulator in Michigan.

The story is no longer “the facility boom is growing fast.” That’s been true since Update #1. The story now is:

The boom has structure.

Some markets are saturated. Some operators are failing. Franchise brands are making strategic plays. New formats are emerging in unexpected places. The category is becoming a real industry with real market dynamics — competition, consolidation, innovation, and failure.

That’s what a maturing market looks like. It’s messier than the pure-growth phase. But it’s also more real. And it tells us the sim facility boom isn’t a flash in the pan — it’s a structural shift in how people access and experience golf.

I’ll keep tracking as long as the data keeps coming. Twenty-plus facilities in one sweep suggests it’s not slowing down anytime soon.

Missed an earlier update? The full series is at /blog, tagged “facility-boom.” We’ve tracked 70+ facilities across 10 updates in two weeks. Not bad for a trend that “nobody saw coming.”

Browse all facility boom updates → · Find a sim facility near you → · How TGL made home sims mainstream →