Many shopping centre owners remain cautious about sports infrastructure, often perceiving it as a non-core area requiring significant investment, complex engineering solutions and increased security requirements. This is compounded by higher energy consumption, more complex maintenance and a lack of professional operators who can maintain such facilities. It is not surprising that sports in shopping malls are often considered a project with uncertain or slow financial returns.
This approach is understandable if you evaluate the sports space only through short-term profitability indicators. But in the longer term, the picture looks different. Sports creates a constant rhythm of life in a shopping mall: people come to train twice or three times a week, bring their children, use other services, and stay for coffee or shopping. This traffic is stable, predictable and of high quality - it is an active, socially engaged audience with an above-average income.
Having operated in the SEC format for six years, we have become convinced that the sports component is not an "add-on" to entertainment, but a separate mechanism that strengthens the entire facility. It maintains community loyalty, creates a unique identity for the centre and ensures consistent attendance even during periods of lower business activity. At a time when classic retail models need to be updated, sport is becoming an element of sustainability and, for many, a competitive advantage.
Practical benefits of the sports component
The benefits of sports infrastructure become apparent as soon as you look at it not as an expense, but as an element of the shopping mall ecosystem. First of all, it is the stability of attendance. Clients of sports clubs come regularly, twice or thrice a week, regardless of the season or holiday periods. This predictability forms the basic traffic that other tenants can rely on.
These visitors use not only sports services. After training, they go to a coffee shop, do some shopping, visit salons or pharmacies. For the shopping centre, this creates a "chain activity" effect - when one type of tenant stimulates sales in other tenants.
Family audiences are of particular value. For many families, sports clubs are becoming a common way of leisure. Parents bring their children to swimming, tennis or boxing, while they spend this time in a restaurant or doing their own thing in the mall. This way, the sports component increases the average length of visitors' stay and makes the centre more family-friendly.
Another effect is event-based. Competitions, tournaments and sports festivals attract an additional audience and create a positive information wave. Such events not only increase the flow of people, but also form the community's association of the centre with activity, development and a healthy lifestyle.
The social aspect is equally important. Sport is a natural platform for loyalty programmes, such as discounts for veterans, students, pensioners or people with physical disabilities. This builds trust and demonstrates that businesses see sports as a social function, not just a source of income.
Also, investments in infrastructure for professional athletes are investments in the image of Ukraine and the opportunity for athletes to train in modern European-level conditions. In our case, the SEC has become an example of how a financial "burden" can be turned into a feature that qualitatively distinguishes the centre from other shopping malls in Lviv. Today it attracts like-minded people - people who care about their health, longevity and the future of their children.
Finally, sports infrastructure acts as an anchor that creates long-term stability. Although the rental rate of such facilities may be lower, they attract related tenants - those operating in the healthy food, beauty, wellness or eco-energy segments. As a result, the centre gets a clear thematic vector and a consistent value proposition for its visitors.
Social dimension and conclusions
For us, sports infrastructure is not just a functional block or rental space. It is part of the centre's philosophy, which combines economic logic with social benefit. At a time when Ukrainian society is facing serious challenges, sport helps to restore energy, discipline and a sense of normalcy. Shopping and entertainment centres that provide space for such activities become not only a place of consumption, but also a community support environment.
Investing in the sports component is an investment not only in attendance but also in reputation. It is a signal that the business is ready to think bigger: not just count the flow of people, but create conditions for development - physical, social and cultural. That is why in our work we see sport as a long-term investment in the quality of the environment, in the health of cities and in trust in business as an institution.
Sport does not replace the commercial part of a shopping mall, but harmoniously complements it. It strikes a balance between economic efficiency and social responsibility, which is what both city residents and investors are looking for today.
The experience of the SEC shows that the sports component can be a strategic resource rather than a costly element. It generates stable traffic, builds community trust, creates partnerships and enhances the reputational value of the business. For us, sports was not an experiment, but a logical extension of the idea of a modern shopping mall - open, socially engaged and focused on human development.
