This is Joe McMullin’s experience keeping his high school erg fleets up-to-date while better serving the team and the athletes. TLDR: He breaks down costs of keeping the fleet fresh, average costs to fix ergs, renting ergs and rates, and how to handle donated machines.

Your erg fleet is one of your best assets and should be cared for as such regardless of your team size: 20 ergs, 30, 40, 50, etc. As you well know, as a high school coach, ergs can be used nearly year round from the summer Million Meters, to teaching novices at the beginning of the school year, running erg tests in the fall, your primary mode of training in the winter, and your traveling warm up machine come spring and championship season. Athletes at serious programs know how important the Concept 2 machine is and having a steady flow of new machines every year shows your athletes how invested your are in their success. I’m going to start by breaking down how important the C2 is, and as mentioned above, go into the details of how you should never lose money on keeping your fleet up-to-date for an erg fleet of 30, which is the average size of most high school teams erg fleets.

As you well know, the Concept 2 erg is the standard in the rowing world. It’s used for teaching novices the basics of the stroke motion, it’s great for building endurance and strength, it’s the primary test tool, and it’s great for a warmup before launching for races (why are you sending your kids on a warm up run?). Concept 2 Model D recently set prices at $990; give or take shipping costs, at that price point, you should be purchasing at least 6 new ergs for your fleet ever year, for roughly $6K, and if you do that every year, you’ll have a viable fleet of ergs that isn’t over 5 years old. Why purchase new ergs every year? The athletes will understand how seriously you take their program. Yes, ergs can last years and years with good maintenance, but athletes understand when you invest in things they use daily, they will put forth better effort.

You should also be budgeting roughly $1K for new monitors ($160 each) and other miscellaneous parts like bungees, nuts, wheels, etc. for the occasional parts replacements.

That brings our total spend to $7K every year for your fleet. Now we need to make the team’s money back. The 6 oldest machines that have been taken care of with regular maintenance (oiled chains, cleaned slides, parts are tightened down, etc.) can be sold for at least $500 in your local community. Some folks will pay as much as $600-$700 for used machines, but we’ll stick to $500 as a baseline. The best buyers of your machines are the freshmen and sophomore parents who will get 2-3 good years out of them and then typically when their kid graduates and is done rowing, the parent donates that erg back to the team, which could lead to the team having more and more ergs to sell than the capacity of the storage at the school or training site. So in year one you’ve sold $3K worth of your old ergs. We have $4K to go.

When the team breaks after the last championship for the summer, your whole fleet of ergs should be rented out to the athletes who don’t own ergs to complete the Million Meters. I’ve mentioned in one of my other blogs about how doing the million meters will absolutely change the fortunes of your team in the next year, with athletes doing approximately 10K meters every day. My starting number for renting ergs is $50 per month, so $150 total for June, July, and August. At that rate you’re hitting $4500 for your 30 ergs and you’re past breaking even on keeping your fleet up-to-date. Some programs make the mistake of giving their ergs out for free. I believe it’s imperative the ergs are rented at a rate so the athletes and parents understand the seriousness of taking them home over the summer and the machines don’t become drying racks or collect dust. If you’re at a more affluent program, the machines can be rented out for as much as $100 a month, and in that case you’ll be making $9K for summer rentals on 30 ergs.

As mentioned above, parents and athletes who graduate typically want to move on from their machine and the best place to donate it ends up being your team. With roughly less than an hour of maintenance per machine, it can be flipped and sold back out to your current team or the community at large.

So you’ve profited $500 in year 1 ($7500 in resales and rentals – $7000 in new machines and parts). In year 2 you could be seeing profits of roughly $3K, which will be enough to purchase C2 sliders ($400 per pair), which help mimic the motion on the water. I find it’s one of the best tools for teaching athletes cohesion and flow. In year 3 and 4, you could be seeing profits in the range of $4-8K, which is enough to start purchasing new oars for your top crew. Unfortunately used oars don’t typically sell well, so you’re better left chopping off the blade and giving as a gift to seniors.

To wrap up, your fleet of ergs should never be a money pit. If your machines are used wisely and are well maintained, you’ll have a great driver for fitness and speed on the water, and a way to support other efforts of the program.