The heating of potable hot water (PWH) in sports halls often presents significant inefficiencies, particularly due to high heat losses. These losses are exacerbated by the widespread use of hot water storage tanks, which must maintain high temperatures for hygiene reasons. Additionally, the low number of full-load hours complicates the integration of regenerative heat sources, such as bivalent systems for preheating. We monitored the heating of potable water in more than 40 sports halls with high temporal resolution over a representative 4-week period. Based on the gathered data, several heating supply options were evaluated to enhance efficiency. The first option is centralized instantaneous water heating (IWH), which allows for more flexible buffer storage and facilitates the integration of renewable heat sources in the preheating stage. The second option is decentralized IWH, which places water heaters closer to the demand points, such as showers, allowing for a more efficient and demand-based control of circulation. The third option involves electric decentralized IWH, which eliminates storage and distribution losses entirely. Design guidelines for these systems are presented. The analysis is supported by dynamic simulations in TRNSYS of an exemplary system. Our results indicate that with the integration of a solar thermal system and a smart operating strategy, energy costs could be reduced by up to 78%. These findings contribute valuable insights for improving the energy efficiency and sustainability of PWH systems in sports halls.