Sport Otago chief executive John Brimble, in a written submission on the council's 2019-20 annual plan, said the organisation was struggling to cope with fixed revenues and mounting costs.
The organisation had three service level agreements (SLAs) with the DCC, covering the provision of core services and the Getting Dunedin Active and Active Transport initiatives in the city.
Together, they were worth $85,000 a year to the organisation, but had not been adjusted for inflation over the five years they had been in place, he said.
The organisation also received no direct operational grant from the DCC, despite receiving such payments from other councils across Otago for programmes it ran in their districts.
At the same time, the sum Sport Otago paid to the DCC for the lease of its Sargood Centre headquarters now stood at $95,000, following a lease review in 2016.
"As a not-for-profit charitable trust, this represents a significant expense. While we have accommodated this cost for the past six years, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain this level of expense."
It asked the council to consider providing "a measure of relief" to reduce the cost of its Sargood Centre lease by 60%.
That would allow the organisation to continue its existing service delivery, and would be in line with rents charged for similar organisations in other regions, he said.
The submission was among those to be considered by city councillors during public hearings on May 6-8, followed by deliberations from May 27-31.
