24/7 Sim Boom: What 3,849 Venues Mean for Home Sims
Everyone assumes 24/7 sim facilities are going to kill the home sim market. That take is wrong — and it is missing the most important trend in indoor golf.
Every person who books a bay at 2 AM and discovers they love sim golf is a year away from building their own garage setup. Those 3,849 venues are not competition. They are the farm system feeding the home sim market. If you are building a home sim, you should be cheering for every new Back Nine that opens. The conventional wisdom has it backwards.
Your phone buzzes with a notification. It is 2:14 AM. A six-digit reservation code arrives in the app. You walk into a small retail space in a strip mall. The door is locked, but the code clicks it open. Inside, a single hallway leads to three private rooms. Yours is on the left. You walk in, set your clubs down, and the Trackman iO screen is already glowing. You have the place to yourself until 3 AM.
This is a Tuesday night in 2026. There are 3,849 locations across the United States where you can do this exact thing, growing by about 20 per month.
The 24/7 indoor golf facility is reshaping how people interact with simulators. This is a new business model, not just another product launch or software update. If you are building or considering a home sim, this trend matters. The conventional wisdom about what it means is wrong.
The Numbers Are Real: 3,849 Sim Venues
A report from GolfSim.co published July 13 tracked 3,849 live indoor golf venues across all 50 states and 838 markets. The median hourly rate is $40. The typical venue has 4 simulator bays. 82.7% have no franchise affiliation — they are independents run by local operators.
The franchise side is growing faster. The Back Nine Golf has 196 locations and opens about 20 per month. Franchise costs range from $276,000 to $603,500, and the average location does about $192,000 in annual revenue. Another Nine, based in Cincinnati, operates five locations with a proprietary operating system called A9OS that handles booking, access, and guest support without staff.
In the UK, TeeGo secured a seven-figure investment from Middleton Enterprises to expand from six sites to 20 nationwide. The company logged 6,000 rounds of golf in the past year — a 155% increase. In Scotland, Nexgen Golf is opening Lanarkshire’s first 24/7 indoor golf center at Maxim Park in Motherwell.
This is infrastructure being built, not a passing fad.
Why the 24/7 Sim Model Works
The 24/7 indoor golf facility solves a problem that has plagued indoor golf since the beginning: labor costs.
Traditional sim golf venues have high overhead — bartenders, servers, front desk, maintenance. Margins are tight. Most make their money on food and drink, not simulator time.
The 24/7 model flips this: no bar, no front desk, no staff. The operation is a room with a simulator, a door lock, and a server handling bookings. The tech stack is three things: a booking platform, a keyless entry system, and a Trackman iO.
The economics work because the marginal cost of an additional hour of sim time is zero. The simulator is already paid for. Every booking after the first 50 hours a month is essentially pure margin.
The 24/7 facility and the home sim serve different purposes. The 24/7 facility is for the golfer who wants to hit balls at 2 AM without thinking about setup, maintenance, or space. They pay $40, they swing, they leave. The home sim is for the golfer who wants to play every day, tweak their setup, practice without leaving the house, and hit enough balls that the math works in their favor.
The real effect of the 24/7 boom is validation. Venture capital firms and franchise operators are betting millions that sim golf is a real market with real demand. Every Back Nine that opens is evidence that the market is growing. More people are playing sim golf. More people are discovering they like it. Some of those people will eventually want their own setup.
The Players in the 24/7 Sim Space
The 24/7 space is fragmented, but a few brands are pulling ahead.
The Back Nine Golf is the clear leader by location count. 196 locations, 20 new per month, international expansion. They are the consistent, everywhere option — if not the most premium experience.
Another Nine is the tech-forward player. Their A9OS operating system handles booking, access, and customer support through AI. No membership required — just book, play, and leave. Five locations, but the tech stack is more sophisticated.
TeeGo is the UK’s answer to the trend. Six locations in London, expanding to 20. Membership-based with a focus on community and handicap improvement. Their members reduced handicaps by an average of nearly five shots in their first year.
24/7 Golf is the Michigan-based regional player. Five locations, all in Michigan. Simple model, clear pricing, door codes. They also offer pickleball at some locations.
Then there are the independents: TeeTime Indoor Golf in Glenview, Illinois. Condor Club in Normal, Illinois. Scratx in Miami’s Brickell Key. Clubhouse 24/7 with five locations in Nova Scotia. These are local operators running on the same tech stack with local flavor.
24/7 Sim Ripple Effects on Home Buyers
Five years ago, the average golfer had never been inside a simulator. Today, there are 3,849 venues where they can walk in, book a bay, and play. The infrastructure is being built at a scale that changes the conversation.
This has downstream effects. More sim users mean more demand for better software, better hardware, and better home sim products. Manufacturers, software companies, and investors are paying attention.
The median 24/7 facility has four bays — four Trackman iO units, four screens, four sets of clubs. That is a lot of hardware being deployed and a lot of data being generated about how people use simulators. This data feeds back into the home sim market. When Trackman learns that 70% of users only play the same five courses, that informs feature priorities. Home sim owners benefit — and if you’re planning a facility, our 24/7 golf simulator facility guide covers the operational model in depth.
The Bottom Line on 24/7 Sims vs Home Sims
The 24/7 golf simulator trend validates the home sim market. It is proof that the market is real, growing, and attracting serious money. It is creating a generation of sim golfers who will eventually want their own setups.
The 24/7 facility serves a different purpose than a home sim — it is the entry point for people who have not committed to their own setup yet. The golfer who books a bay at 2 AM and discovers sim golf is a year away from building a garage setup. And when he does, he will know exactly what he wants.
The trend is real. The numbers are real. And the opportunity — for the industry, for manufacturers, and for every home sim owner — is bigger than most people realize. This is the best thing that could happen to your garage build.