What Happens When Your Club Shuts Down
It’s been a fortnight since the federal government hasn’t been funded, which is as good a time as any to reflect on what happens when unfortunately you find that your club cannot meet its financial requirements and needs to shut down—forever. The last major spate of club closures happened during the COVID pandemic, which was difficult for many clubs who relied on continuing dues and food and beverage income to stay afloat. You’ve been hit by assessment after assessment, and the club’s finances are the equivalent of being
What, then, should you expect if your club shuts down?
The Private Equity Takeover:
If you’re a Gold Standard Club, some young, slick, polyester-clad chap without a speck of natural fibre on his body will roll along and offer to “buy up” debt in exchange for taking over control of operations and revenue at the club: in other words, the closest thing to a hostile takeover.
There’s a firm, for instance, that promises members whose clubs have been taken over the ability to retain an advisory position, but the club will no longer be member-owned-and-managed, and will lose its gold standard status. Usually, the recapitalisation involves a private equity firm buying up the debt that a club has and acquiring the underlying assets—the clubhouse and facilities—and trying to streamline operations.
You’re probably going to get charged for your club sodas and iced teas and waters in such a scenario, and there’ll be no club president for you to chase down in pursuit of unsolicited and unrequited advice and comments.
While this is, in some ways, a tragic option, there’s little you can do. But, hey, at least your club will still be there, and you can still relive some of its glory days.
The Merger & Acquisition:
Two clubs in tough situations oftentimes find themselves merging into one.
The Elm City Club, for instance, in New Haven, CT, is the product of the now-defunct Quinnipiac Club and the similarly-defunct Graduate Club, enabling the club to continue long after the Quinnipiac Club’s clubhouse, replete with a bowling alley and squash courts, was sold in December 2019 amidst financial turmoil and a declining future outlook. The Elm City Club still soldiers on, with members of both clubs coming together, stronger as one.
The Fire Sale:
You may find your club, well, to be in dire straits, and the only way out is to sell: sell the underlying clubhouse and property and assets, hoping the club can make good to most of its creditors. Following a difficult period, the Princeton Club of New York, formerly on West 43rd St in Manhattan, NY, defaulted on its mortgage and the clubhouse was sold for a fraction of its value.
It is a tragic moment for everyone when a club is sold. You can never visit your familiar haunts again. Your favourite corridor will be refashioned for some other banal purpose, and you can never, ever, ever again walk through those doors with the same surety, safety, and confidence that you once did. I don’t know what would happen if my club shut down and sold: I would weep inconsolably, as if it were the most sublime tragedy to befall mankind.
Finding Another Home:
When your club shuts down, and it’s all over, you have a few options.
First, the club continues, but without a physical plant, and takes up residence elsewhere. This is the case with the Dartmouth Club of New York City, which is now in residence at the Yale Club of New York City. Similarly, the Princeton and Williams clubs, having lost clubhouses, are now in residence at the Penn Club and the Cornell Club of New York respectively.
Second, if your club closes for good and doesn’t reorganise without a physical plant, it might be time for you to find your way to another club. As my mother once said, a man without a club is a homeless man.
After all, a man without a club is a homeless man, as my mother once remarked. Over your years in clubland, you’ll get to know members across the various clubs in your region and beyond. Put feelers out, embrace the loss, grieve your club, and hopefully a membership committee commiserates in your misery and applies the initiation dues with a gentle hand.