Our method
How we verify
A directory is only worth as much as the worst number in it. So every published fact here carries a named source and the date someone checked it, and both are visible on the page rather than buried.
- On every factA named source
- Beside it, not buriedA checked date
- Where nobody has checkedA blank, not a guess
Where a fact may come from
Who we trust, in order
We start at the top of this list and stop at the first source that answers the question. If the parks department has said it, we do not need to ask anyone else.
- Municipal parks department. The operator of most public courts, publishing about its own facilities.
- City or state public records. The same city or state, publishing its own records in a form we can read and re-check quickly.
- YMCA and recreation centres. Operator-published, reliable on hours and fees.
- Clubs and leagues. Local players know the courts; good on lights and nets, weaker on official counts.
- The venue’s own site. Authoritative on fees, but marketing copy inflates court counts.
- Anything else. Noted as a weak source, and marked so we know to keep looking for a better one.
The lines we hold
What we refuse to do
- We never print a zero for something we do not know
“No lights” and “we have not checked the lights” are different claims, and one of them is a lie.
- We never cite another directory as a source
A competitor repeating a number does not make it true.
- An owner claiming a listing does not make it verified
A claim tells us who someone is; it is not evidence about the courts. Claimed venues get no ranking or placement advantage either.
- We do not publish a city page from fewer than three verified venues
Thin pages are how the big directories ended up with tens of thousands of pages and almost no readers.
In plain terms
What this site actually is
A small directory that would rather be right than big. Every venue on it is real and every fact carries the name of the organisation that published it and the date we read it. The operators are city and county parks departments, and they differ by city, and each page names its own.
What you will notice most is how much is blank. Surface, fees and opening hours are missing far more often than not, because most operators do not publish them. Those show as “Not stated”. We would rather show a hole than fill it, and where two of an operator’s own records disagree we publish the disagreement rather than quietly picking one.
Unverified listings
Since 2026-09-15, the site also shows unconfirmed listings brought in from public listing data — marked Unverified everywhere they appear, on the card and on the page, and never counted in any “verified” number anywhere on the site. They have not been through the checks above, and we ask search engines not to show their pages. If you run one of these courts, claiming it is the fastest way to get it checked and, where the facts hold up, moved into the verified list.
Before a page goes live
The six checks
Every page passes all six checks or it does not go live.
- Enough real courts
Three or more verified venues before a city gets a page.
- Works on any device
Every word, link and listing shows up even on the simplest phone or browser, with nothing to enable.
- Search engines see it right
Every page tells search engines plainly what it lists, and never invents star ratings.
- Says something real
A sensible length, with at least three sentences that could only be about that city.
- Numbers that agree
Every number on a page is read from the same place, so the title can never disagree with the table.
- A source and a date
A link to the source and the date we checked it, on every fact.
See it on a page
Every venue page shows its own sources
Open any venue in the directory and the source and checked date sit beside each fact. If one is wrong, the report form reaches a real inbox, and a correction is published the same way everything else is: with its source showing.