THE centre manager of 5sports, at Caringbah, said visitors often joked he had been doing a "rain dance" whenever downpours caused the closure of Sutherland Shire's sporting fields.
But while closures increased the use of the artificially-grassed sports centre, Brad Grunsell said the wet weather was not part of its business plan.
"People come in and say, 'Brad, have you been doing your rain dance again?'," he said.
"But we do not have a business model around court hire.
"If we did that and there was a five-year drought we would go broke. Our core business is competitions, the football academy etc."
When sporting fields are closed due to wet weather clubs are forced to cancel training or move sessions to synthetic playing surfaces like those at 5sports, which is built on Endeavour Sports High School land.
When it opened, the $5 million public-private sports complex was hailed the first of its kind in Australia.
The centre, which began operations in 2011, was developed on an 1800-square-metre portion of the school's land by owners Anthony Bennett and John Curtis.
5sports received 20-year lease in return for meeting the cost of construction, management, continuing maintenance and upgrades of the full-sized football field and 10 multi-purpose courts, which are all covered in 5G artificial grass.
The smaller courts have a FIFA two-star rating while the full-sized field is a one-star rating — additional line markings are the only reason it wasn't given the extra star.
The centre is used for soccer, netball, touch football, hockey, league, union, gridiron, AFL and volleyball.
Mr Grunsell said sporting field closures like those last week always led to an increase in court and field bookings.
"Tonight [Thursday] we are full from 5pm to 10pm," he said.
"Every court and the main field will be full. We have rugby league teams coming down. I had the Cronulla Sharks team here yesterday."
He said the upcoming launch of the summer soccer five-a-side season was the centre's busiest time of year.
"We have 350 teams — every field will be full from 5pm to 10pm, from Monday to Thursday," he said.
"Another one of the main core areas of our business is the coaching program run by Kory Babington. It runs all year and we have 300 kids a week."
Mr Grunsell said it had been a "learning curve" to get some clubs to switch to an artificial grass surface but some teams now trained regularly at the centre, including the Sydney Olympic FC youth team and Balmain Tigers Soccer Club's state league team.
He said artificial grass had come a long way since "AstroTurf".
The padding underlay and surface meant fewer injuries and you were just as likely to suffer a grass burn from turf than artificial grass, he said.
RAIN WAS A SPOILER
Last week’s wet conditions led to the closure of Sutherland Shire’s sporting fields.
The rain could not have come at a worse time, with many sporting clubs involved in finals.
A Sutherland Shire Council spokeswoman said grounds were open for the August 16 sporting fixtures but closed the following day due to heavy rain.
‘‘Sunday soccer was cancelled due to the fields being closed from heavy rain on Saturday afternoon and evening; however, Sunday rugby league did proceed,’’ she said.
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