Its annual report to the Dunedin City Council said the centre lost many events and numbers of people coming through the door dropped. The report covers the time of the hard lockdown and through to the middle of last year.
The centre hosted 20 events in that time but that was down on the 31 of the previous year.
It was set to host the Otago Sports Awards for the first time but the awards were canned and ended up being presented through the Otago Daily Times.
It hosted 27 regional sports tournaments, down on 37 the previous year. It was badly impacted when the lockdown was at Levels 4 and 3 but bounced back at Levels 2 and 1.
With the limitations on gathering when the whole country went back to Level 2 when the Auckland community outbreak occurred in August, the centre had to get creative about entrances and dividing the centre into different zones. Spectators were also banned for many of these events.
Centre manager Blair Crawford said team numbers dropped across the board but that had to be expected.
"Our winter leagues were stopped by Covid in April and restarted in late June. Competitions, although shorter, were extended through until September to offer a relevant competition.
"Generally, team numbers fell across the board, however there was real enthusiasm from players returning who appreciated the benefit of activity and team sport after lockdown," Crawford said.
There was a 33% drop in sport participants, down from 206,802 to 138,869, which could be attributed to the lockdown.
Some sports had a drop in numbers of teams.
Netball had 12 fewer team in adult leagues and 11 less teams in secondary school leagues. Many adult netball players were tertiary students. Many of them went home and did not return to Dunedin until the second semester and did not end up playing.
Futsal also lost 49 primary school teams, though there were still high numbers for the sport in both children and adult league. Basketball continued to be popular and had growth in both adult men’s and secondary school leagues.
The three largest sports for the centre were netball, basketball and futsal/football. Tennis maintained good numbers.
The centre maintained its staff throughout the lockdown period and it was helped by the wage subsidy. The centre made a surplus of $103,186, which was down on budget of $127,900 but ahead of last year’s surplus of $68,197.
The Edgar Centre received a wage subsidy of $185,386, which saved it from recording a hefty loss.
The centre employed 11 fulltime staff and 11 part time staff.
Revenue was $2.245million, down by $213,841 from last year. Overall, there had been a 24% drop in general sports income, which came about because of the lockdown.
The income from food and beverage took a big hit but the lockdown led to an initiative by food staff to open a restaurant on Friday and Saturday and it had been very well received.
