A D-BAT owner may have roughly $52,000 to $222,000 of estimated pre-tax residual earnings per full-year Facility across the three disclosed cage-count formats after deducting the BLS manager-wage benchmark. An active owner who performs the manager role may instead realize about $128,000 to $298,000 of estimated owner-operator benefit, but that higher figure includes the market value of the owner’s labor and is not passive business profit. Employer payroll taxes and benefits on the manager wage, financing principal, and personal income taxes are not deducted and would reduce cash available.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by D-BAT Academies, LLC. It combines 2025 Gross Revenue medians disclosed in the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with a separately identified government industry benchmark and explicit scenario assumptions. Actual results can differ materially because of location, Facility size, sales mix, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, maintenance, and execution.
Legal franchisor: D-BAT Academies, LLC. FDD issuance date: May 11, 2026. Item 19 status: official Gross Revenue disclosure, but no operating profit, EBITDA, net income, owner compensation, or cash-flow disclosure. Applicable format: U.S. baseball and softball training Facility with a retail pro shop, separated into 7–10, 11–14, and 15–25 batting-cage cohorts. Scenario benchmarks: IRS Statistics of Income data for the broad Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation sector and May 2025 BLS wage data for Entertainment and Recreation Managers in Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers. Date checked: July 14, 2026.
What does D-BAT Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially measures Gross Revenue by Facility cage count; it does not measure owner earnings. The reporting period is calendar year 2025, and the population is 168 franchised Facilities that operated for the full year. D-BAT had no company-owned Facilities in that period.
The 2026 D-BAT Franchise Disclosure Document defines Gross Revenue broadly as revenue from products, services, and Facility operations, plus business-interruption insurance proceeds, subject to stated exclusions. That top-line measure comes before payroll, rent, utilities, merchant processing, equipment maintenance, required advertising, software, interest, depreciation, and other operating costs. Calling it owner income would therefore be incorrect.
The strongest official same-brand evidence is the 2025 Gross Revenue distribution. The earnings ranges in this article begin with those official medians and then apply a separately disclosed margin proxy. D-BAT Academies, LLC did not report Facility-level profit or owner compensation in Item 19.
| Facility cohort | Facilities | Average / median Gross Revenue | Highest / lowest Gross Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7–10 batting cages | 49 | $680,914 / $628,765 | $1,309,400 / $156,232 |
| 11–14 batting cages | 76 | $1,001,503 / $996,864 | $1,993,189 / $333,992 |
| 15–25 batting cages | 43 | $1,176,065 / $1,127,564 | $2,217,176 / $302,096 |
The FDD also reports that 18 of 49 Facilities in the 7–10 cage cohort, 37 of 76 in the 11–14 cage cohort, and 20 of 43 in the 15–25 cage cohort met or surpassed their respective average Gross Revenue. Those percentages—36.73%, 48.68%, and 46.51%—help explain why the scenario engine uses medians rather than treating the averages as typical results.
Official source: 2026 D-BAT Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 33–35. The data were obtained from franchisees and point-of-sale software and were not independently audited or verified. Of the 43 Facilities in the 15–25 cage group, 41 had 15–20 cages and only two had 21–25 cages.
Official Item 19 medians by full-year franchised Facility cohort
Interpretation: Facility format is a major revenue driver, but the wide high-to-low ranges within every cohort show that cage count alone does not determine results.
Source: 2026 D-BAT Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 33–34. Values are Gross Revenue, not profit or owner earnings.
How was the annual owner-earnings range estimated?
The estimate multiplies each official Item 19 median by a broad government owner-benefit margin, then subtracts a current BLS manager-wage benchmark for the manager-run view. The result is scenario-based for one full-year Facility, not a forecast and not a statement of what a typical buyer will earn.
Manager-run residual = owner-operator benefit − $76,120 May 2025 BLS annual mean wage for Entertainment and Recreation Managers, Except Gambling, in NAICS 713940 Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers.
For this article, estimated pre-tax owner earnings means the modeled residual after normal operating deductions and, in the manager-run view, the manager wage benchmark, but before personal income taxes and financing principal payments. The IRS benchmark can already reflect reported business interest and depreciation, while discretionary capital expenditures are not separately modeled.
The revenue anchors are the three official cage-count medians rather than invented sales estimates. The margin anchor is approximately 23.4%, derived from IRS Statistics of Income receipts and net income for sole proprietorships in the broad Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation sector. Because the IRS measure is based on Schedule C net income, it generally includes the owner’s uncompensated labor rather than deducting an owner salary. The model therefore treats it as an owner-operator benefit proxy and reduces it by three percentage points for the Conservative scenario and increases it by three percentage points for the Upside scenario.
2025 median Gross Revenue for the 76 full-year Facilities with 11–14 cages.
Derived from 2022 IRS sole-proprietor data for Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation.
Base owner-operator benefit less the $76,120 BLS annual mean wage benchmark.
Franchised Facilities open throughout calendar year 2025 and included in Item 19.
| Scenario | Official revenue anchor | Scenario margin | Owner-operator benefit / manager-run residual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 7–10 cage median: $628,765 | 20.4% | $128,000 / $52,000 |
| Base | 11–14 cage median: $996,864 | 23.4% | $233,000 / $157,000 |
| Upside | 15–25 cage median: $1,127,564 | 26.4% | $298,000 / $222,000 |
Independent annual scenarios, rounded to the nearest $1,000
Interpretation: The $76,120 gap in each scenario is the May 2025 BLS annual mean wage benchmark for the General Manager function. It is not evidence that an absentee owner automatically earns the remaining amount.
Sources and method: 2026 D-BAT Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 33–35; IRS nonfarm sole proprietorship statistics; IRS Sole Proprietorship Returns, Tax Year 2022; May 2025 BLS industry-specific OEWS data. Scenario margins are editorial assumptions; the manager wage is an official BLS industry-and-occupation benchmark.
- Scenario labels are analytical, not probabilities. Conservative, Base, and Upside map to different official Facility cohorts and margin sensitivities; they are not FDD quartiles or promises.
- The 23.4% proxy is broad and older than the 2025 revenue period. It covers sole proprietorships across Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation, not D-BAT franchisees alone.
- Interest and depreciation are not normalized. Schedule C net income can reflect reported business interest and depreciation. The scenario does not reverse those deductions or separately model capital expenditures.
- Financing principal and personal income taxes are excluded. Those depend on purchase structure, loan terms, entity type, jurisdiction, deductions, and the owner’s circumstances.
How does owner involvement change D-BAT earnings?
Active operation can raise the owner’s total economic benefit because the owner may replace paid management, but the added amount compensates labor rather than increasing passive profit. This is a scenario interpretation of the 2026 FDD’s owner-role requirements for a U.S. franchised Facility: Item 15 requires an equity-holding Operating Principal to use best efforts supervising day-to-day operations, while the FDD also contemplates a trained General Manager and Assistant Manager.
The owner-operator scenarios assume the owner performs the General Manager function. The resulting amount combines residual business income with the value of work performed and is therefore labeled estimated owner-operator benefit. The manager-run scenarios subtract the May 2025 BLS annual mean wage of $76,120 for Entertainment and Recreation Managers, Except Gambling, in NAICS 713940 Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers. This is a wage benchmark, not a fully loaded employer cost; payroll taxes, benefits, incentives, and recruiting costs would reduce the residual further.
At the Base revenue and margin assumptions, a $60,000 annual manager wage leaves about $173,000, the official BLS mean-wage benchmark of $76,120 leaves about $157,000, and a $100,000 wage leaves about $133,000. Only the $76,120 figure is BLS-reported; none is a D-BAT wage disclosure, and employer payroll burden is additional.
Manager compensation should be localized. The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables, the May 2025 industry-specific OEWS data, and the BLS profile for Entertainment and Recreation Managers provide official starting points. A buyer should then add payroll taxes, benefits, incentives, and local recruiting conditions.
Which D-BAT fees can materially change owner earnings?
The recurring burden depends heavily on Membership Fee mix, merchant-processing volume, and whether the contingent Management Fee is triggered. These are official Item 6 obligations for the 2026 U.S. D-BAT Facility offer. The FDD does not list a conventional percentage royalty, but it does list advertising, local marketing, software, merchant services, and a potentially substantial Management Fee under specified conditions.
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Advertising and Promotion Fund
2.5% of Membership Fees, paid monthly. This is not 2.5% of total Gross Revenue unless Membership Fees equal total revenue.
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Local advertising or cooperative contribution
2.5% of Membership Fees, paid quarterly. The rate may be increased by majority vote.
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Software License Fee
$354 per month at the FDD date, equivalent to $4,248 over 12 months before any provider increase.
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Merchant services
2.5% to 4% depending on transaction type, with a stated allocation method for processing costs on Membership Fees.
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Contingent Management Fee
If specified default or Low Membership Fee Performance conditions apply, D-BAT Academies, LLC may impose either 40% of Membership Fees or up to 12% of Gross Revenue, subject to the conditions and recovery provisions in Item 6.
The scenario margin is an all-in broad industry net-income benchmark, so these D-BAT fees are not subtracted a second time in the published range. That avoids false precision and double charging. A buyer’s actual Facility model should instead replace the broad margin with a line-by-line profit and loss statement that explicitly includes the applicable advertising, software, merchant, supplier, staffing, occupancy, maintenance, insurance, and contingent fees.
Official fee source: 2026 D-BAT Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 6, pp. 5–9. The Item 7 initial investment is startup context and is not treated as an annual operating expense.
What is the largest uncertainty in the earnings range?
The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of a same-brand Facility profit statement showing labor, occupancy, direct costs, and recurring fees. For the 2025 full-year franchised Facility population, revenue is official and brand-specific, but the conversion from Gross Revenue to owner benefit is estimated and relies materially on a broad external margin proxy.
Item 19 includes every franchised Facility that was open for the full 2025 calendar year, regardless of transfers, but excludes two Facilities that closed during 2025. The data were not independently audited or verified. In Item 20, the system ended 2025 with 199 franchised Facilities, while the Item 19 cohort contains 168 full-year Facilities. Those populations answer different questions and should not be merged.
The ranges within each cage cohort are also wide. For example, 11–14 cage Facilities reported Gross Revenue from $333,992 to $1,993,189. That spread indicates that local demand, utilization, pricing, lessons and camps, membership mix, pro-shop activity, lease economics, staffing, and operating execution may matter as much as Facility format. D-BAT’s official revenue-stream overview and official Facility tour help define the operating model, but they do not replace an Item 19 profit disclosure.
| Evidence point | What it supports | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 Item 19 Gross Revenue | Same-brand, full-year franchised Facility sales by cage cohort | Operating profit, owner compensation, cash flow, or take-home pay |
| IRS sole-proprietor sector data | Broad owner-benefit margin reference for a related recreation sector | A D-BAT margin, franchised-unit cost structure, or manager-run result |
| $76,120 BLS manager-wage benchmark | Owner-role sensitivity and separation of labor value from residual income | A D-BAT-specific wage or a fully loaded employer cost |
| Item 20 outlet counts | System growth, transfers, closures, and population context | Profitability of new, closed, transferred, or developing Facilities |
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should obtain the Item 19 written substantiation and reconstruct Facility economics from actual franchisee profit-and-loss statements. Because the published earnings range is an independent estimate for 2025 full-year franchised Facility formats, the central task is to replace the broad margin proxy with evidence from comparable D-BAT Facilities in the same cage band, market type, maturity stage, and owner-role structure.
- Request written Item 19 substantiation. Confirm how Gross Revenue was collected, how transfers were handled, and why the two 2025 closures were excluded.
- Interview franchisees in the relevant cage cohort. Ask for annual sales, payroll, rent, utilities, repairs, merchant fees, required advertising, software, insurance, and normalized operating income.
- Separate owner labor from business profit. Record weekly owner hours, duties performed, General Manager compensation, Assistant Manager coverage, and any owner salary or draws.
- Reconcile Membership Fees to total Gross Revenue. The advertising percentages and contingent Management Fee use Membership Fees or Gross Revenue under specific definitions, so revenue mix matters.
- Review transferred and former franchisees. Item 20 identifies seven transfers in 2025 and provides current and former franchisee contacts; those interviews can reveal economics not visible in full-year averages.
- Model financing separately. Item 10 states that D-BAT does not offer or guarantee financing. Loan principal, interest, collateral requirements, and lender covenants can materially change cash available to the owner.
- Do not estimate personal taxes from the article range. Entity structure, state and local tax, deductions, depreciation elections, and the owner’s other income require individual tax advice.
What is the most defensible D-BAT owner-earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is approximately $52,000 to $222,000 of scenario-based pre-tax manager-run residual earnings per full-year Facility before employer payroll burden on the manager wage, or $128,000 to $298,000 of estimated owner-operator benefit when the owner performs the manager role. These are independent estimates anchored to official 2025 D-BAT Gross Revenue medians, not Item 19 profit figures.
The most important earnings driver is the combination of Facility revenue and labor structure. The largest uncertainty is the missing same-brand operating-expense and profit disclosure. Before making a decision, a buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, obtain comparable franchisee profit-and-loss statements, distinguish owner labor from residual business income, and test debt service separately.