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In last month’s edition of this article series, we highlighted a handful of operators bringing the first-ever padel courts and clubs to states like Hawaii and Iowa.

This month we’re back to cover even more exciting new U.S. padel club openings to look forward to in the near future, though — with a few notable exceptions — this time largely in existing padel strongholds like California and Florida.

Among the six new padel clubs bringing a total of 32 new padel courts to four states across the country are:

New Orleans Padel Club (New Orleans, LA)

As I pointed out in a recent article, for the past few years there’s only been a single place to play padel in the Bayou State of Louisiana (namely at the Drew-Brees-owned Pickle ‘N Pins in Metairie, LA) — but that’s all about to change…

This is thanks to French racquet-sports enthusiast and entrepreneur Kevin Chaouat, who will soon be officially opening four terracotta-colored outdoor courts (along with four outdoor pickleball courts) in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans just off the legendary Uptown thoroughfare known as Tchoupitoulas Street (and here you thought knowing how to properly pronounce “padel” was confusing!).

In addition to padel and pickleball courts, the New Orleans Padel Club will offer a variety of other amenities including a pro shop, lounge and event spaces, and lush gardens — all designed as “a place to spend time, not just book time” with signature Big Easy touches like vintage chandeliers, weathered clay pottery, and plenty of reclaimed wood.

This is one club I’m truly looking forward to playing at on my next visit to NOLA in early December — although friends who’ve already played there have told me I might not want to wait that long to experience it in person.

Estimated Opening Date: Early November

Quail Creek Country Club (Naples, FL)

While not accessible to the general public, the southwest corner of Florida is finally home to padel thanks to Quail Creek Country Club, which just brought three outdoor courts to North Naples to complement their existing tennis and pickleball offerings (and is yet another example of a growing trend we’re seeing in the U.S. padel world).

A courtside-grand-opening event for members, friends, and guests the weekend after next will feature a ribbon-cutting ceremony, an exhibition match with local pros, a live DJ, and themed food and drinks.

Quail Creek general manager Chris Evans also notes, “We couldn’t have accomplished this without the vision and leadership of our director of court sports, Jose Pastrello; he has been a champion of the sport, the project, our club, and of Naples.”

Grand Opening Date: November 5th

Boca Paddle by CityPickle (Boca Raton, FL)

On the opposite side of south Florida, a mammoth racquet-sports club with a reported $20 million price tag known as Boca Paddle by CityPickle will soon be bringing six total padel courts (two fully outdoor and four covered outdoor) to the Boca Raton area along with 19 pickleball courts and a slew of other premium amenities.

This is the first foray out of the New York City area for CityPickle — which currently operates clubs in Central Park, Long Island City, and Times Square — as well as the first time any of their clubs have included padel courts along with their pickleball and hospitality offerings.

For another week only, the club is making it possible for players to take advantage of pre-sale pricing ahead of its official opening next month.

Grand Opening Date: November 18

Casa Padel Social Club (Los Angeles, CA)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, a concept known as Casa Padel Social Club will soon be bringing eight more outdoor padel courts to the Los Angeles area — specifically to the west side of L.A. at the intersection of South Barrington Ave. and Santa Monica Blvd.

All told, the club will cover 40,000 sq. ft. and feature a sauna and cold plunge, restaurant and bar, and co-working spaces in addition to padel. Casa Padel will also offer both membership-based and drop-in court booking options once open.

Estimated Opening Date: Mid-November

Proximo Padel — Goose Island (Chicago, IL)

Less than a year after opening their first Proximo Padel location in the Windy City’s Logan Square neighborhood (which I had the pleasure of playing at on a tour of Chicagoland clubs back in February), brothers Alex and Victor Vainberg just announced plans to open their second location on Chicago’s storied, 160-acre Goose Island.

As you can see in this walk-through tour on Instagram, this new location will feature seven super-panoramic indoor courts from Italy, men’s and women’s locker rooms and showers, numerous warm-up and work-out areas, a pro shop, and a sprawling, pergola-covered social lounge.

The opening will also make Proximo the first operator in the Chicago area (or the entire state of Illinois, for that matter) with two or more locations and also make them eligible for the next edition of our “Emerging Empires of U.S. Padel” article series.

Estimated Opening Date: December

Padel N9NE (San Marcos, CA)

Yet another operator preparing to open its second location before the end of the year is Padel N9NE, which recently announced the opening of its second club and four outdoor courts at North City in San Marcos, CA — just about 20-30 minutes inland from upscale SoCal beach enclaves like Oceanside, Carlsbad, and Encinitas.

According to Padel N9NE founder Aaron Hasnain (who we profiled back in June), the club’s San Marcos outpost will also, “feature a state-of-the-art club house with a pro shop, lockers, showers, and plenty of places to eat and drink after your match.”

So, if you live anywhere in the area, you might want to keep an eye on Padel N9NE’s Instagram account for opening updates.

Estimated Opening Date: Q4 2026

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Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just recently published. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

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As we first covered back in April and frequent Padel Nation contributor Scott Matulis explored last month for the IAAPF’s Facility Magazine, when it comes to padel, Utah is most definitely having a moment.

In fact, the greater Salt Lake City area is now home to over 30 padel courts — both indoors and outdoors — at clubs including…

• SLC Padel Club…

• The Hive Padel Club…

• Padel Park…

• Conquer Padel Club…

• Padel Den, and…

• Utah City Racquet Club

… which, as we recently pointed out, is actually more courts than the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Oregon, and Louisiana have combined.

(Oh, and — as you can see below — Park City is now also home to one of the most stunning private courts I’ve ever set foot on, as well.)

A Rising Tide…

With this much competition popping up almost overnight, you might assume that these six padel clubs would be battling hard against one another to attract players and fill their courts, but as I found on a trip there last month, it’s really quite the opposite.

In general, operators had nothing but the best things to say about one another and were actively thinking through ways they could collaborate and grow the padel ecosystem in the Beehive State together.

Case in point, starting tomorrow Utah’s original padel club, SLC Padel Club, and Lehi, UT-based Conquer Padel Club will combine forces to co-host the Utah Open — which will be the first-ever USA Padel tournament to be split across not just different venues under the same banner but entirely different padel clubs altogether.

Heading into the weekend, co-hosts Pedro Bautista (of SLC Padel) and Enrique Gracia (of Conquer) tell me they expect to have just shy of 90 players participating in this officially sanctioned 250-level event.

However, they’re also quick to point out that once you factor in the players’ friends and families, other spectators and fans from around the community, and the four to five vendors they’ve attracted for the event, the total number of people they could see coming through the doors of their respective clubs each day could balloon to well over 150.

1 + 1 = 3

Of the decision to co-host an event like this, Pedro tells me:

I’ve been talking with Enrique since before I opened [my] club. For more than a year now, [we’ve] been talking two to three times a week [on] the phone, sharing ideas. So, we have a pretty good relationship on that end.

My wife goes to play over there. His kids, himself, [they] come play over here. So, we have really, really [been] working on that relationship between the clubs and between ourselves. It’s been a pretty good experience, so it just made sense to do it between the two of us [at] clubs that already have established communities.Beyond the strong working relationship the two clubs have, Pedro also says there were two other main factors that made him and Enrique decide to co-host the event.

First off, the two clubs are located about a 45-minute drive apart, and their owners are both well aware that many of those who play at their clubs regularly actually live somewhere in between the two. Given this, they felt they could cast a much wider net — and thus attract a lot more players — by splitting the tournament across their clubs.

Furthermore, Pedro points out the fact that, because the Utah Open is a 250-level USA Padel event, all participants are required to be official members of USA Padel — which carries a $50 annual fee in addition to the Utah Open’s own $65 entry fee.

He further explains:

For somebody who has never played a tournament of this size, $115 could be a little challenging — and, you know, kind of hard to justify. So, we decided that we [could help] justify it by saying, ‘Hey, this is a bigger tournament and we're collaborating between two clubs.’ And on top of that, if we can each get our own community, we can ensure that we can pull more people — which worked. Both of the days are full.

A New Way Forward?

When I finally ask Pedro what he hopes will ultimately come out of this unique, co-hosted event, both for padel in the U.S. in general and Utah more specifically, he says:

Honestly, the main thing I hope is that more people play padel. There [are] people that [only] started playing a year ago and [because of] this tournament are now [USA Padel members] just so they can play in this tournament. So, I think it's gonna grow the database that we have for all the players.

The people that [don’t] get a chance to compete [this time] are probably going to see it next time and be like, ‘Okay, this time I will hop on.’ And it's just going to get bigger because now everybody has [already paid for] the $50 membership and they're not going to have that barrier, so they can just pay the entry for the tournament and that's it.

And then the collaboration in between clubs is what [will hopefully] keep players going to other clubs and trying them out. At the end of the day, I still want the people that come to my club often to go and play at other places and support padel in general.

I would hope the same for players that are playing at other clubs, and the best way to do that is to show that if the owners are collaborating, why can't we, right? So, I really hope [this tournament] will have a lot of positive benefits.

In what I’ve come to think of as signature Pedro Bautista fashion, he closes out our conversation by adding, “I hope that’s not too long [of an answer], but I’m really passionate about this one!”

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just recently published. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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These days it seems a new padel club opens practically every other day in places like California, Florida, and Texas. Yet there are numerous other states around the country that have had one — and only one — padel club to speak of for some time now.

Which is why, while they might not get the same big headlines as these other newcomers, I wanted to take a moment to highlight the handful of padel club operators around the country who’ve brought the sport to their respective states and continue to be the one and only game in “town” — for now, anyway…

Among them:

Missouri

Almost three years ago now, I had the chance to chat with longtime friend and squash legend Mike Puertas about bringing what was, at the time, the largest indoor padel and pickleball club in the world to the greater St. Louis, MO area.

Nearly three years later, Padel + Pickle — which Puertas co-founded along with two other squash-world legends and features six padel courts and eight pickleball courts along with a huge bar and social area — is still the only place to play padel in the Show-Me State (despite some AI-powered sites suggesting there are several other clubs have opened around the area).

And not only is Padel + Pickle the home club of fellow padel scribbler and friend Aris Sevastianos of the El Remate newsletter, but they also just hosted a USPA 500-level “St. Louis Slam” tournament this past weekend.

Of course, you might be wondering if there isn’t anywhere to play padel in Kansas City, Missouri, too? Which brings us to the next state on the list…

Kansas

Yes, the Kansas City area has been home to a two-court, outdoor club known as La Casa del Padel for some time now, but technically it’s located in Overland Park, Kansas — making it the first (and still currently only) club in the Jayhawk State.

Another notable thing about La Casa del Padel — which I explored in an article back in April 2024 — is that it’s one of numerous padel clubs around the U.S. that is owned by current and/or former professional athletes (in this case, current and former pro soccer players including Andreu Fontas, Daniel Salloi, Johnny Russell, Graham Zusi, Roger Espinoza and Uri Rosell).

Speaking of clubs launched by former professional athletes…

Michigan

Michigan’s ZMash Padel is yet another example of both a padel club owned by former pro athletes (namely, a group of retired NHL players and Stanley Cup champions) and a pioneering club that continues to be the only place to play padel in its respective state.

(Though I have heard recent rumors of both a second ZMash location and other clubs in the works in the Wolverine State.)

For now though, the original ZMash Padel location and its eight pristine indoor courts in Sterling Heights, MI (north of Detroit) continues to be the one and only place to play padel in Michigan.

Louisiana

Still another example of a club founded by former superstar athletes is Pickle N’ Pins in Metairie, LA (just west of New Orleans) — which, as I discussed in a July 2024 article, is backed by former NFL quarterback and Super Bowl champion, Drew Brees, and features two indoor padel courts.

While I personally know of at least one other padel project currently taking shape in Louisiana (which I’m personally very excited about given that I used to be a resident of the Bayou state and still get back there often), for now the Brees-backed Pickle N’ Pins is the only place to play padel between Houston and (soon) Jacksonville.

For more insights on other states with only one padel club (including Arkansas, New Mexico, and Oregon) and the pioneers that brought the sport there, please be sure to stay tuned for Part Two — or, better yet, just make use of the “subscribe-now” button below.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just recently published. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the ninth installment of our “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series from regular guest contributor Scott Matulis, a leading West Coast padel writer whose work you can find in numerous racquet-sports publications, including his own padel Substack.

If you follow U.S. padel, you’ve no doubt seen the recent announcements about the launch of the American Collegiate Padel League (ACPL).

The league was the idea of two smart guys, Matthew Jenkins, who just graduated from college and is already making moves and Antonio Goes, the Brazilian-born padel entrepreneur responsible for player community Padelpalooza and padel software company Courtr.

The two founded the ACPL in 2025 and held its first event in February 2026, bringing students from seven universities. The 2026 season (which has expanded to 45+ college teams and 200+ collegiate players) runs this fall across four regions with the national finals slated for March 2027.

The huge recent news is that both Wilson and padel GOAT Fernando Belasteguin are now on board as sponsor and lead ambassador/advisor, respectively. The tour has been rebranded the Wilson ACPL by Bela, which is sweet.

I recently had a chance to talk to both Jenkins and Goes for this first-ever two-person edition of our “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series, and perhaps not surprisingly, the first thing I wanted to know was how two guys starting a college league got Bela to sign on.

How did you get Bela to hook up with you guys? I’ve seen coverage of the relationship, but nothing on how it came about — so, how did that happen?

Goes:

It all started at the Miami Premier Padel P1. Marta Cros — who, by the way, just joined our board of directors — introduced me to Bela during the event.

And I kid you not, it was maybe 30 seconds of conversation. I barely finished explaining what we were building and he was like, ‘I want to do this.’ He just got it, right away.

But at that point it was just a conversation, right? It really came together when Wilson entered the picture and we saw the opportunity to bring it all under one roof — the brand, the ambassador, the league. That’s when it became real.

And from there it took months to align everything — the different teams, the companies, the contracts. It was not simple at all. But knowing from day one that Bela believed in the mission made the whole process worth it.

Wow, that’s top notch. So what exactly is he going to do specifically? Is he going to be showing up at colleges?

Goes:

He’s going to be a really important pillar of the mission. His goal is to help develop this sport in the same way that we want to do.

He’s really interested in traveling here, meeting those kids, and not only supporting them with a platform or a program to help them play better and with coaches and better professionalism in padel in general, but also helping develop the performance mindset of those kids and enable them to have the same life-changing opportunities he had.

How did each of you discover padel and eventually decide, “Oh man, this is something I want to do full-time?”

Goes:

For me, it started with a person, actually. I have this good friend, Edu Diverio. He’s Brazilian. He’s been playing padel for his entire life. He comes from the south of the country, unlike me, in São Paulo. I had never heard about padel until moving to Miami and meeting him.

He was always chatting about padel, padel, padel. I was like, ‘What is that?’ And he convinced me to go and play. So I took my first class and I could never leave the court again. That was like four years ago at Reserve Seaplane.

And then, a couple of years later, I moved to New York, and we only had Padel Haus Williamsburg. It was starting. They didn’t have a community. I didn’t have any friends because I recently moved to the city.

So I started playing and I met as many people as I could, and then I started identifying those gaps: ‘Hey, we need people to play together. All these people here, they want to make friends.’

New York is very transitional. People come here, stay for a while, make their career and leave. So people here are always willing to meet new people, make new friends. That’s when Padelpalooza started. And that’s how I got into padel.

But the more I played, the more I kept seeing gaps — clubs had no real way to manage their communities, players had no easy way to connect with each other, tournaments were managed manually —everything was scattered.

So I built Courtr, a software platform for racquet sports. Then came PadelPalz to get little kids into the sport, and then Matthew and the Collegiate League. By that point I’d quit my tech career to focus on padel 100%.

Matthew, what about you? How did you start with padel, and when did you decide that you were obsessed with it?

Jenkins:

I’m based in Philly right now, which is obviously an incredible spot for racquet sports – tons of history, awesome players, great country clubs. I grew up playing tennis, and when I got to Drexel, which has a huge squash culture, I picked up squash too. Basically, if you have any athletic background at Drexel, you play squash all winter when it’s too cold for outdoor sports.

And about two years ago, when I was a junior, a few of my tennis and squash buddies were like, ‘Hey, there’s this new sport called padel out at PADELphia in Bala Cynwyd. Let’s go check it out.’

So a group of us went out on a freezing Wednesday night in the middle of winter, and that two-hour session literally changed everything. I don’t think any of us have played a single game of recreational tennis or squash since that night. It’s been 100% padel. And once your main crew shifts to a new sport, that’s it, you’re locked in.

Over the last two years, Philly went from one public club to eight. It’s just taken the area by storm. But early on, my friends and I noticed we couldn’t find anyone our age playing. So we started this group called 4030 to get college kids into it.

We’d reach out to teams at schools like Penn, Drexel, Villanova, bribe them with free Saturday morning breakfast, and run pop-ups and mini tournaments to get them on the court for the first time.

Eight months into that, I met Antonio in NYC and we were off to the races building something much bigger to capture the collegiate padel opportunity.

On top of that, I’m part of a group called POP Padel. We basically run a mini incubator for padel courts by taking old, underutilized tennis courts at existing athletic facilities and paying to install padel courts there. We just built three courts in South Jersey, we’ve got three more going up in West Chester, PA, and another one down in Ventnor, NJ, with several other projects in the pipeline.

So yeah, I’m playing across all those courts right now — trying to get out there at least three times a week because, honestly, with everything we’re building, Antonio and I actually need to be prepared for when we’re challenged on court!

How do you fund POP Padel? Is it just individual investors?

Jenkins:

We’ve built a really solid network of racquet-sport guys — some are directors of racquet sports at country clubs, some own facilities themselves, and a few high-net-worth individuals, mainly based in the Philadelphia area.

It’s all on a deal-by-deal basis, but honestly, raising money for this has been remarkably easy. People just get it. They have huge conviction in padel, even if they haven’t played much themselves, just based on everything they’re seeing and hearing about how fast the sport is growing.

So whenever we go to our group with a new project, they’re just like, ‘Yep, let’s do it. Sign us up.’ We can literally raise enough capital to build a couple of courts in about a week, which makes this whole process insanely exciting.

Antonio, you’ve got so much stuff going on. Are you able to play at all these days?

Goes:

I try my best. I always joke that back in my tech days, I used to play more padel than I do now that I work with padel. But I try to be at least once a week on the courts. When I can, a little bit more. But I’m not going to lie, I miss it.

What are you guys going to have to do to make this collegiate padel league successful? What are your marching orders to follow to get it off the ground and popular?

Jenkins:

From my perspective as someone who just graduated, the most important piece is having the end customer — the student — directly involved in the process.

The moment a student feels like they don’t have skin in the game or the freedom to give us honest feedback — like, ‘Hey, I didn’t like how this tournament ran,’ or ‘I don’t agree with this rule’ — that’s when you lose them.

A lot of these kids who started padel clubs on campus — and we’re at 45 schools now, which is way more than we expected for year one — are treating these clubs like their very first business. It’s essentially a startup for them. They’re handling sales, recruiting new members, negotiating court time with local facilities, ordering merch, and picking the competitive roster. Because of that, they’re deeply invested in everything happening in the college padel space.

So with something as big as ACPL, having as many touch points with these kids as possible is crucial. I’m talking to students all day long — getting their input on decisions and seeing if they have connections in markets we haven’t tapped into yet.

I’m sure Antonio can build on that, but at the end of the day, it’s about never losing sight of who your customer is. For us, that’s the students, so keeping them fully involved every step of the way is everything.

What’s the club side of it? What’s your pitch to the host clubs?

Jenkins:

On the club side, we’ve seen nothing but open arms from owners and managers.

Because when you think about how padel grows long term — not just over five years, but 50 or 70 years — you need multiple generations of players who want to compete, take it seriously, and make it their main hobby or sport.

Club owners get that. And the most logical next step for them is tapping into college students. College schedules are super flexible, so they can play at times other members aren’t, and they’re just a fun crowd to have around the facility.

Plus, college kids are insanely active on social media, which is a huge bonus for these clubs. If you bring in your average 40- or 50-year-old member, they’re probably not posting on Instagram or TikTok every time they play. But an 18- or 20-year-old will post every time they’re at the club, which in turn is just UGC for the club to use. That’s a massive marketing lever these clubs are starting to recognize.

So yeah, the reception from club owners across the board has been incredible, and it’s been awesome working with all of them.

Goes:

I’m going to add that, on top of everything that Matt said, one thing that helps us a lot is the mission.

And by the mission, ACPL is the product of ACPA, which is the American Collegiate Padel Association. So we are a nonprofit. And the league is one of the products that we have to make sure those kids have a goal, they have a competition, they have fun, they have something to aim towards.

But the whole mission and this whole work that we do on a daily basis is part of the association mission to grow the sport, to help those students create those clubs in their universities, to get awareness, and most of all, in the future, to be able to provide scholarships to students as we create the pipeline, right?

And why I say that this was the most important thing is that since we are a nonprofit, we don’t have any cash interests or personal interests or any conflicts of interest that can mess up the mission.

It’s different when you create a private league or a private company, where you have a cap table and financial returns you have to deliver.

We are doing this because someone had to do it. Someone had to think about the growth of the sport in a way that "‘This must be done,’ and not ‘How much will I earn from that?’

For more on the ACPL and their 200+ student athletes competing on 45+ college clubs at 16 official host venues across 15 cities and counting, please be sure to visit their website and/or follow them on Instagram.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just recently published. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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Here’s something that might surprise you…

Given that Miami-based padel addicts and entrepreneurs Scott London and Jon Rifkind are about to launch one of the most ambitious padel pro-am events to take place on U.S. soil thus far (known as the GLDN PNT Pro-Am Travel Series), you might assume that when we’ve talked recently I’d be asking them questions about, well, you know… padel.

Yet most of my recent questions to them have instead largely centered around the Wu Tang Clan and the early days of U.S. hip-hop.

That’s because they were both deeply involved with the legendary music outfit — Jon as an executive and partner at Loud Records, which was one of the first-ever labels to sign hip-hop acts like the Wu Tang Clan, Big Pun, Dead Prez, and the Three Six Mafia, and Scott as the president and chief visionary behind the urban street wear brand Wu-Wear in the early 2000s.

Point being, when it comes to cultural movements, these guys don’t follow them, they lead them — and it’s no different with padel…

“Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Padel in Tennis Clothes”

That’s just one of many memorable tag lines from Scott’s most recent venture, GLDN PNT, a 100%-padel-focused, performance-driven retail and lifestyle brand (and Padel Nation preferred partner) that challenges us all to “make the next moment count” whether on court or just in day-to-day life.

And after bringing the iconic U.K. sporting brand Reebok into the padel world via a surprise collaboration earlier this year, Scott has now teamed with his longtime friend and fellow padel addict Jon to launch a series of elevated padel events around the country that will pair everyday players with touring pros over the course of a weekend built around padel, hospitality, and culture.

Given that the duo is based in Miami, perhaps it’s no surprise that the first stop of the series will be in South Beach this December 11 - 13 with The Ritz-Carlton South Beach and the Mondrian South Beach serving as the official (although completely optional) host hotels.

Three Days, Two Tournaments, One Goal

The weekend will officially kick-off with a welcome dinner at the legendary waterfront Italian eatery Casadonna, where the pro-am draws will be revealed and the amateur half of each team will discover which pro they’ve been paired with.

Speaking of which, the pro side of the draw is scheduled to include local legends of the sport like Luis Guzman… Geronimo Espin… Alon Faiman… Juani Fernandez… and Miguel Briega, with the pro-am matches taking place the morning of Saturday, December 12 at Sunset Padel in Miami Beach.

Sunday morning will then see the same 12 amateurs competing in a winner-take-all round robin at nearby Padel X in downtown Miami, with a trophy presentation, group photo, and farewell toast to close out the festivities immediately following play.

Of this first-of-its-kind event Jon and Scott tell me:

The idea behind the series is simple: to escape the winter for a weekend in Miami Beach — either solo or with friends — for a few days of good padel, great people, and warm weather.

It’s designed around what everyone loves about a great golf getaway weekend, but built for padel.

For more info on the GLDN PNT Pro-Am Travel Series and how you can claim your spot in the inaugural edition this December in Miami before they sell out, please be sure to visit their website, follow them on Instagram, and check out the video above.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book just recently dropped. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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Last month, I chose to highlight a handful of leading U.S. padel club operators that are putting as much time, money, and effort into actually opening clubs around the U.S. as they are talking about doing so (among them: Padel Haus, Bay Padel, Ballers, and PATL).

This month, I’m back to highlight four more operators that are running a total of 13 clubs across five states (namely CA, CO, FL, NY, and TX) with 67 courts — several of which are actively working to open even more clubs and courts both inside and outside the U.S. in the near future.

In no particular order, these include…

Reserve Padel

Current Locations: 5

Miami, FL:

• Design District (3 Outdoor Courts)

• Seaplane (6 Outdoor Courts)

• SoLé Mia (7 Indoor and 5 Outdoor Courts)

New York City, NY:

• Hudson Yards (3 Outdoor Courts)

• Upper East Side (2 Covered Outdoor Courts)

Total Number of Courts: 26 (17 Outdoor, 7 Indoor, 2 Covered)

Planned Future Locations: TBD

What to Know: Save for perhaps Kith Ivy, no other padel club operator in the U.S. — or anywhere in the world for that matter — epitomizes the luxury-side of the sport quite like Reserve Padel does.

With ultra-high-end clubs in both Miami and New York City that cater equally to the IYKYK, see-and-be-seen crowd, influencers and celebrities, and legitimate legends of the sport, Reserve sets the standard for what a U.S. padel club can and should — or perhaps shouldn’t — be.

Regardless of your take on whether Reserve’s indulgent, opulent brand of padel is good for the sport, it’s hard to argue that it’s not fun to look at and borders on art. And based on recent Instagram activity, it appears that perhaps Reserve is planning on painting its next padel masterpiece abroad.

Padel39

Current Locations: 2

North Austin, TX (6 Outdoor Courts)

East Austin, TX (7 Outdoor and 4 Covered Outdoor Courts + 1 Singles Court)

Total Number of Courts: 18 (13 Outdoor, 4 Covered Outdoor + 1 Singles)

Planned Future Locations: 2

North Dallas, TX (7 Outdoor and 3 Indoor Courts)

South Austin, TX (Total Court Count TBD)

What to Know: As we covered in a recent profile, Padel39 founder Will Boyce has quickly progressed from a French collegiate tennis player to an MBA to one of the leading figures in all of U.S. padel thanks to a string of intently hospitality focused padel clubs he and his team are bringing to life in Texas.

After opening their original six-court North Austin outpost in 2024, Boyce and team recently unveiled their sprawling 12-court flagship location in East Austin. Another ATX location, this time in South Austin, is also in the works, though at this time details are relatively few and far between.

Meanwhile, Padel39 also recently acquired the former Dallas Padel Club and is in the process of refurbishing and expanding it into a 10-court club with both indoor and outdoor offerings.

BRISAS Padel & Wellness Club

Current Locations: 3

Aspen, CO (1 Outdoor Court @ Aspen Meadows Racquet Club)

East Hampton, NY (6 Outdoor Courts)

Long Island City, NY (3 Indoor Courts @ CityView Racquet Club)

Total Number of Courts: 10 (7 Seasonal Outdoor, 3 Indoor)

Planned Future Locations: Habour Island, Bahamas (@ The Dunmore)

What to Know: Here’s a Kalshi bet for you… if Wes Anderson works padel into his next film, it’ll undoubtedly be shot on location at one of Brisas’ three current “homes” around the U.S. (with Aspen being my personal frontrunner given that it also features backgammon tables and a pétanque court — yes, pétanque). Oh, and then there’s this.

While it’s no doubt hard to peddle padel in places like Aspen and the Hamptons without some air of exclusivity (and the pricing that goes along with it), Brisas seems to approach the sport with a laid-back, polaroid-chic vibe that is welcoming to players of all backgrounds as well as “cats, dogs, and even your pet lizard” (at least according to their website).

In addition to their three current locations, the duo behind Brisas also has stated plans to bring their signature vibe and courts to the Bahamas, namely at The Dunmore resort on Harbour Island, after hosting a co-branded padel and wellness event with them at their East Hampton location this fall.

Park Padel

Current Locations: 3

San Francisco, CA (3 Outdoor Courts @ The Embarcadero)

South San Francisco, CA (6 Indoor Courts)

West Sacramento, CA (4 Outdoor Courts)

Total Number of Courts: 13 (7 Outdoor, 6 Indoor)

Planned Future Locations: TBD

What to Know: One of the very first articles I ever wrote about padel, nearly three years ago now, featured Park Padel’s original (and stunning) Embarcadero location, which is pictured above.

At the time, the installation was branded as a two-court “pop-up” but nearly three years later a third court has been added and a rabid padel-playing community has formed around the iconic club.

Meanwhile, two more clubs — one indoor in South San Fran and one outdoor in West Sacramento — have brought a total of 10 more Park Padel branded courts to Northern California. And given the ultra-entrepreneurial background of the three founders, my guess is that more locations are on the horizon.

Got other emerging U.S. padel empires you’d like to see featured in the next installment of this series? Let us know in the comments below!

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If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book just recently dropped. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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Dear Padel Nation,

After getting to experience the ins and outs of the Southern California padel scene firsthand in August and even catch a Pro Padel League (PPL) event live in Los Angeles (pictures here), I spent much of this past month exploring the padel explosion taking place across the Rocky Mountains, specifically in Colorado and Utah.

In fact, over the course of just the past few weeks, I was lucky enough to:

• Play at one of Padel Haus’s two newest locations in Denver — a stunning and expertly run facility in the heart of the Mile High City that seriously raises the bar for padel clubs across the U.S., let alone the Rockies (and even features a seldom-seen singles court)…

• Witness the rapidly growing and internationally diverse community at Arenna Denver Padel and get on court with their incredibly affable co-founder Luis Rance, who has obviously hit the ground running given that Arenna has already sold out a 96-person league just weeks after officially opening their doors…

• Return to Olympus Padel in my hometown of Colorado Springs for the third time — where new GM, Sam Harrison, is helping push back against the ever-growing perception that padel is only for the 1% here in the U.S….

• Visit, tour, and play at The Hive Padel Club just days after their grand opening in Salt Lake City — which is a club that effortlessly blends understated luxury (with chilled towels provided courtside), elevated sensibility (the carefully curated space could easily double as a modern-art gallery), and open-arms hospitality (thanks, Hollye and team!), and…

• Even get a few sets in on the most stunning court I’ve ever set foot on anywhere in the world (in Park City, UT — pictured above)…

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, I wasn’t able to make it to SLC Padel Club (which just recently celebrated its first anniversary) and finally meet up with their founder Pedro Bautista, who is intently focused on building culture and community at Utah’s first-ever padel club.

With pickleball now starting to face it’s very own “too big to fail” moment in the U.S., the ongoing, behind-the-scenes efforts of U.S. padel pioneers like Pedro may be more important than ever to the future of the sport here in the States. So, I look forward to speaking more with him for future Padel Nation articles soon.

In other news, among many other highlights, September also saw:

• The women of Team USA bring home a silver medal at the FIP Senior World Cup in Buenos Aires, which was the best-ever finish for a U.S. National Team…

• The PPL host its third event of the 2026 season — this time in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, after hosting the previous two in New York and Los Angeles — en route to a final showdown in Miami this December, and…

• The American Collegiate Padel League drop some very big — and shall we say legendary — partnership news that should help propel collegeiate padel in the U.S. to all new highs…

… plus everything discussed in last month’s articles, which you can catch up on below.

As always, thanks for reading — and play up!

ae

««« How to Pronounce “Padel” in the U.S. »»»

Now that padel is reportedly the fastest growing sport in the U.S. (on a %-basis anyhow), you’d think we could come to some sort of consensus on how to actually pronounce the sport — and, no, I’m sorry, but it’s really not up for interpretation or debate, even if you do think “puh-DEL” simply sounds cooler.

But, as I chronicled in an in-depth feature article last month, the real issue may well actually be all the confusion about where there confusion even comes from.

««« The Great U.S. Padel Club Expansion »»»

September brought word (from Misitrano Consulting) that the U.S. is now home to over 1,100 padel courts. And while most people are squarely focused on growing that court count via brand-new clubs around the country, there is a lesser-talked-about — yet still very powerful — growth lever to consider (which we did in an entire feature on last month). Namely, club expansions.

(Special thanks to Padel Boston founder Chase Woodsum and NorthPoint Padel co-founder Jon Omer for their time and insights!).

««« Padel Finally Arrives in HI and IA »»»

Speaking of new padel clubs popping up around the U.S., September also brought word that Hawaii and Iowa will soon be joining the padel map, thanks to new clubs and concepts coming to the island of Oahu and the Hawkeye State capital of Des Moines.

Oh, and, as you can read more about right here, there are also exciting new padel projects coming to Connecticut, Florida, and New Jersey soon, too.

««« The (Slowly) Emerging Empires of U.S. Padel »»»

Over the past few years, a whole lot of padel clubs have talked about opening a whole lot of padel clubs, yet few have actually been able to put their money where their mouths are thus far.

Which is why last month I chose to highlight a small handful of operators who are putting as much time and effort (not to mention, money) into opening their doors as they are into big, overhyped PR campaigns.

««« The Unlikely Patroness of U.S. Padel »»»

Few people are as actively involved in helping to power the growth of padel in the U.S. as Carolyn Hamlet — yet she hardly ever sets foot on court herself.

So, I recently asked her to walk me through exactly how — and why — she ended up deciding to champion the sport via her start-up, ōku Conscious Energy®. Here’s what she told me.

««« How They Became Obsessed With Padel »»»

In our ongoing “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series, regular Padel Nation guest contributor Scott Matulis picked the brains of Padel39 founder Will Boyce and 6LoveSports founder Andi Neugarten-Maio to learn exactly what got them so into the sport.

… and that’s a wrap — until next month, at least!

If you enjoyed this monthly U.S. padel round-up, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book is out now. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can always support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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According to a new report from Misitrano Consulting, the U.S. is now home to over 1,100 padel courts, which represents a fairly monstrous year-over-year growth rate of 62%.

Yet, as impressive as that is, we’d still need to see a growth rate roughly double that for each of the next few years to get anywhere the oft-cited, much-hyped “30,000 courts in the U.S. by 2030” predictions that so many people love to throw around — and frankly, I just don’t see that happening.

Don’t get me wrong… it’s not because I don’t think interest in — and awareness of — the sport isn’t exploding right now. Because it most definitely is.

In fact, while recently watching the U.S. Open tennis a few weeks back, I even saw a commercial that (very briefly) featured someone playing padel rather than pickleball. Talk about a huge (yet subtle) step in the right direction!

However, as I also recently witnessed firsthand at a good friend’s new padel club and larger, multi-club operators are learning the hard way, it’s a whole lot easier to talk about opening a bunch of new padel courts than it is to actually make it happen — in the U.S. anyway.

Of course, this is largely due to the umpteen — and often unforeseen — obstacles that a majority of U.S. club owners run into, which include (but certainly aren’t limited to) permitting and zoning issues, court shipping, construction, and installation delays, and an endless amount of bureaucratic red tape.

Call me cynical but I don’t really foresee any of these challenges dissipating, let alone disappearing, in the next few years — which is why I wanted to take a moment to highlight another powerful (albeit far more subtle and far less publicized) driver of U.S. padel court growth: club expansions.

Yet Another Road to Growth…

While it may admittedly be more exciting to talk about all the brand-new padel clubs popping up all over the U.S., including in places like Utah and my home state of South Carolina, a small and growing number of clubs around the U.S. are also adding to our ever-growing court count by simply expanding their existing footprints.

Two of the most notable early examples of this — both of which I wrote about for my former U.S. padel publication The Padel State — were Charlotte Padel Club (which expanded from its original three outdoor courts to six covered outdoor courts) and Ultra Padel Club (which grew from just a few courts to one of the largest facilities in the entire world).

More recently SLC Padel Club (where I’m actually playing tomorrow) chose to add a featured “Centre Court” to their original three courts, which is designed exclusively for private corporate events, team-building experiences, and VIP gatherings.

Meanwhile…

• Padel Haus went on to add three stunning rooftop courts to their original four indoor courts at their first-ever location in the Willamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn…

• Earlier this year, Nicol NJ also added two outdoor courts to their original two indoor courts in Fort Monmouth, NJ…

• Just this past week, Bay Padel added four new outdoor padel courts (along with seven new pickleball courts) to its original two indoor courts at their Dogpatch location in San Francisco…

• A recently opened two-court club in Charleston, SC, known as The Point Racket & Social Club (which I mentioned a moment ago) already has plans to add an additional three courts as a phase-two expansion down the road, and…

• Soon-to-open, multi-sport club Three Rackets in Broomfield, CO (which I recently toured) is also already exploring adding a few additional outdoor courts to their five indoor courts.

… Even Where You Might Least Expect It

Of course, it’s great to see more courts being added to clubs anywhere in the U.S., but I find it particularly encouraging that we’re not only seeing this happen in the heart of major metropolises like New York and San Francisco, but also in slightly more off-the-beaten-path locations like suburban Boston and Indianapolis.

Of their recent expansion from three to six indoor courts in Dedham, MA, Padel Boston founder Chase Woodsum tells me:

Finding a good location in this area that is priced reasonably and with high enough ceilings is one of the toughest things to do when opening a padel club. I got lucky when I stumbled upon our first location and despite casually continuing to look across the Boston area I have not found another location that checked all three of these boxes.

There was no plan to expand at this location when we opened with three courts, but when the warehouse attached to ours became available I checked out the dimensions and it just happened to be an almost perfect fit for three more padel courts and at the right time where we were getting in the groove with the original three courts and were starting to feel capped.

It felt like fate. Our club had the demand — being full most evenings and peak times during the weekends — to support three more courts and allow our community to grow and bring in new players.

I also recently had a chance to chat with Jon Omer, the co-founder of Indiana’s first-ever padel club, NorthPoint Padel, who explained:

Our expansion to four courts has been driven by the positive reception we've seen with the first two courts that opened in January of this year. To date, we have seen over 500 players come in to play, with the majority being those with international roots now living in the Indianapolis region, and having some prior exposure to the sport.

But now Americans are also gradually learning about the sport and appreciating what makes it unique from other racquet sports. The audiences are blending well and the community of players our open plays and events are fostering has been fun to watch develop.

The Path of Least Resistance?

It’s becoming clearer by the day that opening and running a successful padel club in the U.S. is no easy task. But I think / hope we may start to see more and more clubs that are able to get up and running looking to grow via expansion in addition to just adding new locations.

After all, expanding an existing club generally has the benefit of:

• Reduced infrastructure and site acquisition costs given that new courts can share the same common locker-room, pro-shop, and lounge facilities and that (hopefully) an entirely new and costly lease will not be necessary…

• Faster zoning and permitting approvals given that the majority of the heavy lifting on this front should have already been done to get the initial courts open…

• Streamlined staffing costs and economies of scale given that adding a fixed number of new courts to an existing facility should only require a fraction of the labor and other expenses required for a brand-new facility with the same number of courts…

• Built-in demand given that it’s highly unlikely a club will choose to expand unless it’s clear they feel “the juice is worth the squeeze” so to speak, and…

• Greater programming potential given that more courts mean more opportunities for lessons, camps, clinics, tournaments, and even full-blown padel academies.

Given all of this — not to mention the difficulty of finding suitable indoor locations in the U.S. — don’t be surprised if the next big news you hear about more padel courts opening in your area isn’t at a new facility but instead at the one you’ve already been playing at all along.

Know of other U.S. padel clubs that have recently expanded or have plans to in the near future? Please drop me a line or let us know in the comments below.

Leave a comment

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Share

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the eighth installment of our “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas a few years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant and his own padel Substack.

Andi Neugarten-Maio doesn’t do anything half-speed.

She has run more than 100 marathons, competed in triathlons and Ironman events, played high-level tennis, and built an athletic-apparel company. When she discovered padel, she dove in headfirst.

Today, the founder of Miami-based 6LoveSports plays or trains almost every day, structures vacations around padel, and says she needs her “padel fix” every morning.

(Oh, and she just won a silver medal at the FIP Senior World Cup in Buenos Aires — which was the best-ever finish for a U.S. National Team).

So, I recently interviewed her to learn more about how she became obsessed with padel. This is what she told me…

Why don’t you give me a little background on yourself, and then we’ll move into how you discovered padel.

Okay, so I’m 60 years old. I’ve had a partial knee replacement. I’m a Type A personality. I’m all-in with everything I do. I compete at the highest level. I push myself every single day. I train three times a day.

I was a tennis player growing up. I started playing tennis from the age of four in South Africa. South Africa could not compete internationally. There were sanctions; we were locked out of the world for many, many years.

I stopped playing tennis in high school. When I was 16, I put my racquets down. I became a runner. I have run over 100 marathons. I couldn’t break three hours. I’m a 3:11. That was my best marathon.

I then became a triathlete. I’ve done three, four Ironman events, about 50 half Ironmans, and my whole life has been about fitness and health. I’m not a health freak by any means, but I’m very active.

I love an early workout. I have always been an early riser. I’m a 5 a.m. girl. I used to be up at 4:45 a.m. every single day and in the pool at 5 a.m. In the freezing-cold San Diego winters, standing at the side of the pool, freezing cold. Couldn’t wait to jump into the water, which was warmer than the air. And then home to get my kids ready for school by 6:15 a.m.

So, the 5 a.m. days for me are great. I wake up and I work, and I’m usually on the padel court by 7 a.m. here. Only because the courts don’t open earlier.

You’re scaring me a little bit. 5 a.m. activities for me are extremely limited. Tell me how you discovered padel?

So, I moved from South Africa to San Diego and started playing tennis again very, very regularly, almost daily. When I do something, I do it all in: lessons, training, and I played the senior, I guess, the senior amateur tour, right? I was playing all the tournaments. All that stuff. And then I got bored. I moved to Miami, and I was just kind of over tennis. It just wasn’t doing it for me.

I live in Miami Beach, and I saw these courts down the street. The oldest padel club in Miami is called Real Padel. And there’s a big yellow tennis ball. I used to drive by and I’d see these cages and think, ‘What is this? It’s a racket, it’s a tennis ball. You know, I’m gonna be really good at this.’

And I kept trying to set up a lesson, but I couldn’t get hold of the coaches. I couldn’t get hold of the club. I just couldn’t find my way onto the court. And I was a little intimidated. I was a lot intimidated, actually.

Then about two years ago, we went on a trip to Barcelona, and we stayed in a gorgeous hotel up in the hills in the Costa Brava somewhere. And they had three padel courts. So I checked in, and I said to them, ‘I’d like a lesson, please.’ We got a coach, and on two of the mornings, I learned a little bit about how to play padel, playing off the back wall, and all that kind of stuff.

So I came back to Miami, and I thought, okay, this is pretty cool. I’m now gonna set up a lesson ‘cause now I feel confident enough to actually walk onto the court. I managed to get a lesson at Real Padel and met a coach who kind of became a mentor to me at the very beginning, Mariano Gombi.

He’s been around and about, and he’s landing in different places, but he kind of started saying to me, ‘Well, you know, you could be really good. Like, you’re gonna develop very fast, and there’s this whole U.S. national team. And the world championships are coming up, and you should apply for the U.S. National Team.’

I was like, ‘Me?? I just started playing. Maybe I could make the team. I don’t think there’s so many people playing.’ Anyway, I applied for the team. I was a little late, but I did go with the U.S. National Team to Alicante two years ago. I was not on the official team, but I was with the team as part of the team, and I played in the pairs. They could enter some extra teams into the pairs event. So I did.

Then I realized that there’s a big community of women here, and they’re really good. If I want to play, and I want to compete, I’m gonna have to step up my game. So, I started planning matches, started getting lessons, and the more I played, the more I wanted. The more my level went up, half a point or a point. I started intermediate, then I was high intermediate, then I was advanced.

How long did that take? If you’re a good tennis player, padel is pretty easy to pick up, isn’t it?

No. It’s easy to get from intermediate up to low advanced. To become a real advanced player takes a long time. It’s experience and strategy, and it’s completely different from tennis. So, I’ve been in the same group now, in the same place, for a year, developing my game and definitely improving. But to get to that next level, where I’m able to compete at a high level in D1, is not easy.

I was really good at tennis, but tennis is a game you can master. You can hit the ball and, yes, you’ll make stupid mistakes, but you walk off the court and you’ve generally played well. You’ve hit that ball well. On the days where I think I’m playing the best padel of my life, I’m losing horribly. Or nothing’s working. The ball’s just not going over the net. It’s not going into the court.

So, for me, the challenge has been learning something new and excelling in a new sport. Having tennis skills, hand-eye coordination, is a benefit, right? You know how to hit a ball. But being able to do that on the padel court is completely different. To learn how to do a bandeja, how to do a vibora, they’re all new things.

What do you have to work on to get you from where you are to where you want to be?

Strategy, footwork, mainly strategy. And learning how to not hit as hard. The rebounds off the back walls. Put the ball where the other player is not. So it’s all that stuff. Like hitting softer than the person hitting to you. I can use the glass. I’m great at defense, but it’s those hard balls where your reflex is to just block it or hit it. That’s when you have to let it go. And it’s gonna slow down. So it’s getting that message to my brain every time.

And if you watch a real padel player, the reflex of hitting the ball before it hits the wall is not there. Their reflex is to let the ball go. So breaking that pattern has been one of the hardest things.

And I take lessons with a lot of coaches. I get something different from each one of them. Some of them hate the fact that I go to other coaches, but some people say things in a certain way that I just get, or one coach will tell me something, and the next coach, a few days later, says the same thing in a different way, and I hear it.

My desire to improve is probably a little insane. I want to understand every part of this game. The walls, positioning, defense, decision-making, when to attack, when to slow things down. I want to master it. I don’t just want to be good for my age. I want to find out how good I can possibly become.

I play against 20-year-olds and I want to compete with them. I don’t walk onto the court thinking, ‘Well, they’re 20 and I’m not.’ I walk onto the court trying to figure out how I’m going to beat them. I want to play at the highest level I possibly can. I know there are physical realities to getting older, but I’m fascinated by how much you can compensate with technique, anticipation, positioning, and a better understanding of the game.

And that’s probably one of the reasons I’m so obsessed with padel. You never master it. Every time I think I’ve figured something out, I realize there’s another level. And I want to get to that next level.

I’ve spoken with several women who have started women’s padel communities. I have not met anyone who has started a men’s padel community, though. Why do you think that is?

Because women love other women. They love groups with other women. They love to make friends. They love to hang out with their friends. They love to play padel with their friends.

I realized that what padel was giving me personally was something I wanted other women to experience. That’s really where 6LoveSports came from. It wasn’t a business plan where I sat down and said, ‘Padel is growing. I should build something around it.’ It happened organically.

I saw what this sport was doing for me and for the women around me. The friendships. The confidence. The competitiveness. The community. The excitement of having something that belongs to you. And I wanted to create more opportunities for women to experience that.

What started with getting women onto courts has grown into leagues, tournaments, travel, international events, and this extraordinary community. Now, I have the biggest padel community in the country.

I have 6LoveSports for starters here in Miami with over 350 ladies every week playing league. My league started, and it’s successful because we show up, we’re not going to book club. We’re spending an evening with our friends. We’re playing padel.

We don’t have to arrange the match ourselves. It’s arranged for us at the right level. League starts at 7 pm and they leave at 10:30 pm. And they’re drinking wine. We always do a big charcuterie board, and they’re hanging out for the evening.

So I’ve created the space where they can go, and then they meet other women who play at their level.

Padel has a way of taking over people’s lives, and it sounds like it’s taken over yours. Is that fair to say?

This sport is like nothing I have ever encountered. When I discovered padel, I didn’t just start playing. I became completely obsessed with it.

My whole life, I’m looking to see where my husband is, because he really has no idea how much padel I play. My whole life revolves around my padel matches, my padel schedule, my lessons, which pro I’m going to.

I’ve developed an incredible new circle of friends through padel. And they’re not necessarily people I would ever have met otherwise. Padel crosses ages, countries, languages and backgrounds.

I’ve met professional players. I’ve trained with incredible coaches. I’ve traveled to compete. I’ve developed friendships and relationships with people from all over the world. You can arrive somewhere knowing nobody, step onto a padel court, and suddenly you have something in common. Padel has opened doors to experiences I never expected to have.

I’ve traveled because of it. I’ve competed internationally because of it. I’ve met people I would never otherwise have crossed paths with, from professional players and coaches to people who simply share this crazy passion for the game.

That’s the part I never anticipated when I first picked up a racket. I thought I’d found a sport. I actually found an entirely new world.

I mean, my obsession with padel changed my vacations. My husband is not a racket-sports person at all, but he started playing. I took him to the Rafa Nadal Academy this summer, and he absolutely loved it, and he actually learned to play really nicely. So now he insists that every vacation we do includes some padel.

Our vacations work around that. I have to get my padel fix every day. And as long as I do in the morning, I’m happy for the rest of the day. If I haven’t played padel, I’ll call a friend, we’ll go and drill. It doesn’t have to be a match.

You don’t have to stop discovering new versions of yourself because you’ve reached a certain age. You don’t have to stop being competitive. You don’t have to stop being ambitious. And you definitely don’t have to stop becoming obsessed with something new. I certainly haven’t.

Padel makes me feel youthful, challenged, competitive, and excited about what’s next. And tomorrow morning, I’ll probably wake up thinking about what time I can get on a padel court. You know, it’s just become a lifestyle, and it’s become something that I need every day.

To learn more about Neugarten-Maio’s latest women’s padel venture, the Athena Padel Cup, be sure to follow along on their Instagram page.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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One of my favorite regular pieces to put together each month for Padel Nation is this one — where my friend and fellow padel scribbler, Aris Sevastianos (of the El Remate newsletter) and I call out a handful of notable new U.S. padel clubs that will be opening in the not-too-distant future.

This month’s edition is especially exciting to me given that it contains details on the first-ever publicly accessible padel courts to land in both Hawaii (where I spent much of my own childhood) and Iowa, a state I’ve always admired both for its simple, bucolic beauty and the fact that, over the past century, many of the greatest authors and poets of our time have either honed or taught their skills (or both) at the legendary Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

So, in the spirt of showing rather than telling, here is this month’s list:

PUDL Padel (Des Moines, IA)

Back in January, I had the pleasure of helping to break the news that padel had finally arrived in the Hoosier State of Indiana — and now, nine months later, I’m back to let everyone know that, yes, padel has officially arrived in the Hawkeye State of Iowa, too.

This is thanks PUDL Padel, which will be tightly partnered with the founder’s wife’s physical therapy business, 21st Century Rehab, and will feature one indoor court and one outdoor court once they officially open their doors to the public in the coming weeks just southwest of downtown Des Moines.

As you can tell from their Instagram feed, the team behind PUDL Padel has a unique and somewhat irreverent approach to the sport that might be just what we need in the face of the growing perception that U.S. padel is built only for the ultra-wealthy Manhattan finance bros and Miami Beach influencers that can afford it.

Oh, and PUDL Padel will also feature a gym, sauna, cold plunge, and cafe with a curated collection of locally made coffee mugs to boot.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026 (Currently Soft Open)

Arena Wynwood (Miami, FL)

While the legendary Wynwood Padel Club was one of the very first to open in the U.S. and continues to be one of its longest operating, a new multi-sport concept known as Arena Wynwood will soon be bringing five more padel courts (two outdoor and three semi-covered indoor) to one of Miami’s hippest, most dynamic, and fastest growing neighborhoods.

In addition to padel, Arena Wynwood will feature three soccer fields, three “party rooms,” a laser-tag arena, and 30+ arcade games, as well as a sports bar with cinema screen, craft drinks, and Latin cuisine.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026 (Currently Soft Open)

The Club NJ (Marlboro, NJ)

The Club NJ is set to open its second multi-sport padel club in Marlboro, NJ, later this year — bringing the total number of places you can play padel in the Garden State to over a half dozen.

As you can see in the YouTube walk-through video above, once open The Club NJ Marlboro will feature two indoor padel courts along with nine indoor pickleball courts, three golf-simulator bays, a gym, a recovery lounge and much, much more.

Estimated Opening Date: November 2026

Padel Hawaii (Oahu, HI)

Yes, the new fastest-growing sport in the U.S. (sorry, pickleball) will soon finally be arriving in the island paradise that is our 50th state.

This is thanks to a group of athletes turned padel addicts known as Padel Hawaii, who are currently in the process of bringing two Portico Sport courts to the middle of the Pacific from Spain and are actively searching for a good home for them somewhere on the island of Oahu (with an exact location to be revealed soon via Instagram).

As the founding team behind Padel Hawaii recently told me in a text exchange:

We aren’t simply bringing courts to Hawaiʻi — we’re building the foundation for a true padel community. Padel is social, active, challenging, and incredibly fun. It brings people together in a way that feels naturally aligned with Hawaiʻi.

Oʻahu is only the beginning. With its strong racquet-sports culture, year-round playing weather, and communities built around connection and active living, Hawaiʻi is a natural home for padel — with exciting potential for the sport to grow across resorts, athletic clubs, schools, community spaces, and other destinations throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

Estimated Opening Date: Winter 2026

Padel Connect CT (Bristol, CT)

Just shy of three decades ago, central Connecticut lost its beloved NHL franchise, the Hartford Whalers — which, based on the retiring of the team’s epic, throwback logo alone, I’d say was rather devastating (to me, at least, as a bonafide old-school hockey nerd).

Now, just shy of three decades later, the greater Hartford area will soon be getting its first dedicated, publicly accessible padel club when husband-and-wife team Jag and Yaemish Rughoo open the doors to Padel Connect CT early next year.

In addition to seven indoor padel courts (including four standard courts, one singles court, and two kids’ courts) Padel Connect CT will feature a warm-up and fitness area with gym equipment and reformer Pilates machines, giving members another way to move, train, and connect.

At the heart of the club will be The Connect Bar & Lounge, featuring a repurposed shipping container with a viewing platform and DJ booth, creating a unique social hub where guests can grab a coffee, drink or healthy snack, work remotely, watch the action, or simply relax after a game — all with the ultimate goal of giving members and guests alike the chance to: “Play. Connect. Belong.”

Estimated Opening Date: Early 2027

Got other upcoming U.S. padel club openings that you’d like to see featured in future rounds-ups? Drop us a line or chime in in the comments below.

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If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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The first person I met at last month’s Pro Padel League (PPL) event in Los Angeles was Ben Blair, who ended up putting together an amazing photo essay of the weekend for our Padel Nation readers. The second was Carolyn Hamlet.

Given her upbeat, ultra-positive persona, I wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that she was the founder of ōku, an upstart brand of functional energy gummies that are “designed to work with your body rather than against it, without the jitters, spike or crash” of other more mainstream alternatives — which is a philosophy she dubs “Conscious Energy®.”

However, given the fact that she was sponsoring an entire PPL team (namely the Las Vegas Smash), I was rather surprised to learn that she is relatively brand new to the sport and doesn’t play regularly despite being a four year starter and the captain of her college tennis team at Brandeis University her senior year.

When I ask her about this, she explains:

Building a startup can consume 14 hours a day seven days a week, leaving very little time for anything else.

I have spent hours and hours watching padel at PPL events and other tournaments, so sadly, I am currently much more of a professional spectator than a player. I only wish all those spectating hours translated into playing ability.

I have been on the court a handful of times, and when I do play, it is at Padel N9NE in San Diego. My first clinic was humbling. As a former college tennis player, I could not imagine that I could be quite so bad at a racquet sport.

The second clinic was better, although I had a memorable encounter with the glass while attempting a shot I had watched several times but had absolutely no business trying. The resulting pain lasted for about a week.

The Unlikely Path to Being an Unlikely Patroness

So, how does a…

• Computer science major…

• Turned Wall Street financial analyst at Merrill Lynch…

• Turned MBA in finance and entrepreneurial studies…

• Turned president of MP3.com International (which was the first music platform on the internet, pre-dating the likes of Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music)…

• Turned founder of two registered investment advisory firms and one mortgage brokerage firm…

… get into the niche world of functional gummies, let alone U.S. padel?

In Carolyn’s own words:

Had you told me several years ago that this was what I would be doing, I probably would have laughed because I had never worked in consumer packaged goods.

That said, I have repeatedly found myself in situations with nearly vertical learning curves, often helping to carve out new territory. Apparently, that is an environment I enjoy.

The opportunity that eventually led to ōku came through my mortgage brokerage firm. I met an entrepreneur named Scott who approached me about helping him launch an energy shot with CBD. This was during COVID.

I told him candidly that I was not sure how helpful I could be: I had neither experience nor a network in consumer packaged goods, and raising capital was especially difficult when it was not possible to meet with people in person.

Nevertheless, I agreed to help and we successfully raised our first funds.

Having first stumbled onto Haribo gummy candies on a trip to Germany during college (long before they were available in the U.S.) and instantly falling in love with them, Carolyn also wanted to explore the idea of an energy gummy all these years later.

She recalls:

I saw significantly more white space in an innovative, functional gummy snack than in trying to compete with 5-hour Energy at the shelf, where a small emerging brand could never match the spending power of an established incumbent.

The gummy was a product I could speak about authentically every day because I had effectively been the consumer for years—the right product simply had not been available to me.

Powering U.S. Padel One Pouch at a Time

Carolyn most definitely can — and will — tell you all about the benefits of adding ōku gummies to your daily routine and the advantages they have over all the mainstream energy drinks you see lining the shelves of your local bodega.

Chief among them are the fact that, “ōku hits the trifecta of taste × function × convenience” combined with her belief that, “Mornings have coffee. Afternoons have ōku.”

(Oh, and in case you were curious the name ōku is rooted in Japanese is roughly translated as “restoring the essence within.”)

But given that my focus is padel, I steer the conversation back to how she got involved in the sport to begin with. To which she tells me:

My introduction to padel was wonderfully serendipitous.

Several years ago, I shared an early version of ōku with a woman in San Diego who runs a publicly traded women’s-health company. Unbeknownst to me, she passed it along to one of her board members, who was also an investor and principal in Padel N9NE, a beautiful facility that opened in San Diego in May 2025.

That investor later asked to be connected with me because she thought ōku would be an ideal sponsor for the upcoming FIP tournament being held at Padel N9NE the first weekend in November 2025.

I had heard of padel but had never actually seen it played. I agreed to meet her at Padel N9NE and was so impressed by the facility and immediately intrigued by the sport.

In addition to sponsoring that tournament (which was only the second of its kind to be played on U.S. soil at that point), Carolyn also, “gave pouches to the players so they could try ōku and determine whether it fit into their playing and training routines.”

One player who immediately took to what Carolyn had to offer was U.S. Women’s No. 1 Brittany Dubins.

As Carolyn proudly recalls:

Brittany loved the product. A few months later, I met with her and her father in Miami, and we structured ōku’s first sponsorship with a top professional padel player.

She incorporates ōku into her training and playing routine and serves as our lead ambassador. Brittany will tell you it has helped her win many third set matches…and not that there is a direct correlation, but she has gone from 99^th in the world to 76^th since incorporating ōku into her routine! Just saying…

From there, Carolyn took ōku to this past year’s RacquetX in Fort Lauderdale, where she distributed over 2,000 pouches, before eventually deciding to begin sponsoring the Las Vegas Smash for their 2026 PPL campaign. Of this decision she says:

[After RacquetX], I felt very much at home in the U.S. padel community and became even more committed to playing a meaningful role as more players began incorporating ōku into their training and match routines.

Forward Progress

When I ask Carolyn what she thinks success can — and will — look like both for ōku and U.S. padel she starts by telling me that she already plans to have a presence at both the upcoming U.S. Open in New York City and the PPL Finals and to help support both the American Collegiate Padel League (of which, I’m actually an advisory board member) and the College Padel League.

She also tells me you can now find ōku in padel clubs around the U.S. including Padel N9NE and Taktika (in San Diego), Padel Up and Pura Padel (in Los Angeles), Park Padel (in San Francisco), Urban Padel (in Florida), Wakit Rakit (in Florida and Texas) and the Charlotte Padel Club, among others.

She then goes on to add:

For ōku, success would mean evolving from an emerging product into a trusted, category-defining Conscious Energy® brand.

By approximately 2030, I would like ōku to have meaningful national distribution across retail, food service, Amazon and specialty fitness, supported by strong repeat purchasing, healthy margins and the team and operating structure required to scale responsibly.

But, of course, I inevitably shift the conversation back to padel yet again, so she ultimately ends our conversation by telling me:

My ambition is for ōku to become synonymous with padel in the United States. I want putting a pouch in your racquet bag — and reaching for it before playing or between sets — to become as natural a part of the routine as packing your racquet.

As for U.S. padel, I would not measure success solely by big predictions about the largest number of courts or players. If it can reach a much broader population without losing the warmth, social connection, and community that make it so special, I would consider that tremendous success.

ōku and U.S. padel are two early stories developing alongside one another. I feel incredibly fortunate that we have been welcomed so warmly and have the opportunity to grow together.

To learn more about ōku Conscious Energy® gummies, including where you can purchase them, please be sure to visit their website and/or follow them on Instagram.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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When I first starting writing about padel back in the fall of 2023, it seemed like practically every club founder I talked to told me they had concrete plans to open three, five, or even ten clubs within the next few years.

For instance, one group claimed they were imminently opening a club in Tampa in early 2024, which would be followed closely by future openings in Los Angeles and West Palm Beach later that same year.

So, of course, I published an article about it — which, understandably, drew a lot of attention, especially given that they also stated they’d be opening a total of a dozen luxury facilities with 100+ courts around the U.S. by 2028.

Yet none of those three clubs ever materialized, and they have yet to officially open their first facility anywhere in the U.S. (though it does sound like they may finally be getting close).

Meanwhile, another operator announced big plans to open three padel clubs in the greater Washington D.C. area within a year or so (again, none of which ever came to be) — and yet another claimed they’d be launching five clubs around the Phoenix metro area in quick succession (only one of which ever actually ever happened, though they’ve opened another facility in an adjacent state and are now working on a third in Florida).

Then there’s the unique case of the early-adopter U.S. padel operator who, in September 2023, revealed stunning plans to, “open 200 publicly accessible padel courts on the West Coast within the next two years.”

Fast forward three years and, to my knowledge, they’ve only managed to open a total of four at most — and based on the lack of updates on either their site or Instagram, it’s unclear whether those courts are even still operational.

What’s My Point?

It’s certainly not to bash any of these operators, clubs, or brands, but more to highlight the fact that I think a lot of people were sold a complete fairy tale about how quick and effortless it would be to build a U.S.-padel-club empire and strike it rich in the process…

And, more importantly, to point out that while it’s easy to pay some marketing mouthpiece big bucks to hype up the dozens of clubs and courts you’ll soon be opening, it’s a hell of a lot harder to actually get them open.

Which is why I wanted to take a moment to highlight the small handful of U.S. padel club brands and operators that have managed to build U.S. padel club empires (or are starting to), albeit probably slower than many might have hoped or anticipated — after all, as we’re seeing firsthand, it’s obviously no easy feat!

So, this will be the first installment in a multi-part series, and the operators featured are (mostly) in no particular order, though I will say it’d be hard to lead off a list like this with anyone other than:

Padel Haus

Current Locations: 6

Atlanta, GA
Brooklyn, NY (Dumbo, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg)
Denver, CO
Nashville, TN

Total Number of Courts: 35 (25 Indoor, 6 Covered, 3 Outdoor, 1 Indoor Singles)

Planned Future Locations: Dallas, TX

What to Know: If there’s any one operator synonymous with U.S. padel, it’s got to be Brooklyn-based Padel Haus, with its pitch-perfect. signature logo, countless major U.S. media appearances, and six sleek, wellness-focused clubs around the country (including in Denver, which I had the pleasure of playing at just last week).

Given founder Santiago Gomez’s extensive background in both high-finance and high-end hospitality, it’s little wonder that Padel Haus is setting the bar for what a luxury U.S. padel club experience can — and should — look like, or that they regularly play host to some of the world’s hottest celebrities and highest-ranked padel professionals, as well as notable U.S. padel events like the 2026 U.S. Open Padel Championships, which will take place at their Greenpoint location in Brooklyn this October 2nd - 4th.

Bay Padel

Current Locations: 4

San Francisco, CA (Dogpatch and Treasure Island)
San Jose, CA
Sunnyvale, CA

Total Number of Courts: 22 (12 Indoor, 10 Outdoor)

Planned Future Locations: Marina del Rey, CA (Los Angeles)

What to Know: Unlike Padel Haus, Bay Padel has chosen to embrace both padel and pickleball at some of its various locations across Northern California — and their strategy obviously seems to be working.

In fact, their Dogpatch location in San Francisco is in the process of adding 11 new outdoor courts (seven pickle and four padel) to its existing the two indoor padel courts it currently offers. What’s more, they also recently opened San Jose’s first-ever padel club (with six outdoor courts) and have plans to add to the ongoing L.A. padel boom by opening a nine court club (seven padel, two pickle) in Marina del Rey soon.

Ballers

Current Locations: 2

Boston, MA
Philadelphia, PA

Planned Future Locations: Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL

Total Number of Courts: 6 (3 Indoor, 3 Seasonal Outdoor)

What to Know: Ballers is taking the whole multi-sport concept to an entirely different level at both its Boston and Philadelphia locations by offering everything from golf simulators to squash courts to soccer fields to seasonal ice-skating rinks, along with pickleball and padel, of course.

Between its all-star roster of investors (which include the likes of tennis legends Andre Agassi, Kim Clijsters, and Sloane Stevens along with former NFL and current NBA stars), its ultra-hip, Banksy-esque aesthetic, and the background of its founders (who helped develop Equinox Hotels and the Fitler Club), it’s little wonder Ballers’ luxury "urban country club" social-sports concept is drawing so much big-time attention.

It’s also little wonder that there is so much excitement around planned future openings in downtown Los Angeles and also potentially Chicago (at the former Board of Trade Building in The Loop).

PATL

Current Locations: 2

Atlanta, GA
Louisville, KY

Total Number of Courts: 7 (All Outdoors)

Planned Future Locations: Mount Pleasant, SC (Charleston), Kirkland, WA (Seattle)

What to Know: College tennis teammates and friends turned padel entrepreneurs, Andrew Herring and Kevin Ye, brought the first padel courts to the greater Atlanta area with their original PATL location (at the sprawling ITA tennis complex), before turning around and bringing the first — and still only — courts to the entire state of Kentucky via PATL Louisville (at Goodbounce Pickleball Yard in Waterfront Park).

Now, they’ll soon be adding to South Carolina’s ongoing padel boom with a new facility in Mount Pleasant, SC (just across the river from Charleston) that will include six indoor padel courts along with two singles squash courts and two hardball-doubles squash courts(!).

Oh, and as if that weren’t enough to get excited about, they also just announced plans to bring a new four court indoor facility to Kirkland, WA, which will help the Pacific Northwest finally start to catch up to the rest of the country padel-wise.

Got other emerging U.S. padel empires you’d like to see featured in the next installment of this series? Let us know in the comments below!

Leave a comment

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the seventh installment of a new “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series we’re rolling out from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas a few years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant and his own padel Substack.

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Will Boyce is another one of those super-smart, young guys who is driving the growth of padel in the U.S. After a collegiate tennis career, an MBA, and a stint in the finance world, Will discovered padel and realized that there was a great business opportunity for padel in the United States.

He founded Padel39 in 2024 in Austin, TX. Just two years later, it has expanded to two Austin clubs, with a third planned for South Austin. This past January, Boyce also bought an existing club in Dallas (formerly known as the Dallas Padel Club), and is transforming it into a Padel39-branded club offering much, much more than padel.

I sat down with Will, asked him how he became obsessed with padel, and how he sees the opportunity for Padel39 in Texas and the U.S. as a whole. Here’s what he told me…

I know you’re French, you’re a former college tennis player, and you’ve got an MBA, but how did you become a padel person?

For me it’s a bit unique, because I became a padel player and a padel business owner at the same time.

As you said, I played a bit of college tennis back in the day, and all my friends in France were starting to pivot to padel. All the good tennis players were starting to get better, but also all of the non-tennis players. Everybody.

When I saw that, the total addressable market just seemed so big for padel. There were so many people getting excited about the sport, and there was nothing in the U.S.

I got excited about the business. I had played padel only a few times with my friends back home because I was already living in the U.S. In New York there was nothing. It was right before Padel Haus opened.

I was playing a little bit in Europe. I saw that it could be a great business. I started wanting to play more in the U.S.

Where did you start playing in the U.S.? What club?

I went to Miami the first time just because I was curious about the clubs there. The first time I played in the U.S. was at Wynwood and Ultra.

I had probably played about 10 times before that in France. I went down there because I wanted to check out what the clubs were like in the U.S.

Then I went to Padel Haus once it opened in New York. I fell in love with the game, and that kind of made me say, ‘Okay, I think this game is amazing. It’s going to be super fun to see it grow in the U.S., and I think there’s a really good business opportunity as well.’

Tell me about the very first time you ever played padel. What was your first impression?

I thought it was fun instantly and I was excited about the learning opportunity. And I was intrigued by the whole tactical aspect. I felt great about the contact point and the workout and the fact that the points were longer. The contact point was amazing.

In pickleball, the contact just feels dead, and in tennis, you have to train a lot — and if you don’t train anymore and you’re not hitting the sweet spot all the time, it’s frustrating.

In padel, it’s the opposite. The contact feels really pure, and the points are longer, so it’s more fun.

I also almost felt like I had a headache to some degree because you need to use your brain a lot more in padel, especially when you’re new to it.

You’re thinking, ‘How does this angle work? If this guy is left-handed, why does it go in this direction versus if he’s right-handed? Do I go side wall first or back wall first? Do I try to do something else?’

There are just so many more tools.

For me, the hardest part coming from tennis was the overheads and the people from other countries making fun of me in languages I don’t understand. How about for you?

Defense. Letting the ball go and using the walls.

Every tennis player tries to take everything on the volley instead of slowing the game down as much as possible.

I think slowing the game down is probably the hardest part.

In your opinion, where is the U.S. padel market right now? Is it just at the beginning? How many padel clubs can it support — or is it really just city by city?

I think I have a bit of a controversial opinion there.

Right this minute, I’d say we’re still somewhat at the beginning, but we’re also starting to feel some skepticism from operators about its viability.

For the last two years, all we heard was, ‘Padel is going to take the U.S. by storm. We’re going to see 30,000 courts by 2030,’ or whatever the number was, and everybody is going to be crushing it.

I think it’s simply not the case.

Most operators in the U.S. struggle when you talk to them. Only a few — ourselves and others in that category — are lucky enough to have a good business, more because we diversify our revenue streams and try to provide an experience that goes beyond padel, whether that’s sports, social and so forth.

The people who are solely focused on the sport itself and are purely transactional — come play because you love padel and then leave — are struggling. That’s because the sport has had slower adoption than we thought.

It’s supply and demand. I think there’s a high barrier to entry in the U.S., whether it’s regulatory or capital constraints. That makes it difficult to build.

I’m still extremely bullish on the fact that the sport will take off. But I think it’s always going to be a balancing act between growing supply in order to create demand. We’re struggling to get more and more sustainable supply out there.

I’m bullish on the sport on its own, and I think it’s going to go extremely well, but I think it’s still going to take time for the education piece.

I’ve interviewed quite a few club owners and everybody talks about community and building community. Is that what keeps people coming back, beyond simply how much fun the sport is?

If the question is how important community is for padel, it’s the number-one answer in almost any survey we run, and even in Playtomic reports.

Why do people play padel? The number-one answer is social.

You have four people on a court that’s 20 by 10 meters. It’s quite small. You get more interaction. You get to talk more than on a tennis court. There are all of those factors that make the sport much more social than others, and that’s the essence of what drives people to it.

If you’re able to build community, create the right spaces and program around that, community becomes a key factor.

And in the U.S., I think Americans want to belong to something, whether it’s a country club at older ages or a social club for millennials and Gen Z. There’s always a desire to belong somewhere.

The operators who focus on the community aspect and can create those spaces should succeed.

Is that why you decided to build Padel39 the way you did?

We always built Padel39 around padel, social, and wellness. Those were the three pillars, and they still are today.

Where we have started to focus more is really on the social side and building a space that will retain people for longer than just an hour and a half.

In order to do that, you usually have to focus on hospitality and food and beverage, and that’s where we went in that direction. We wanted community.

It’s also a business decision. If you’re able to bring hospitality into it, the economics can be quite different.

I see two levers. There’s a purely strategic P&L decision, but there’s also a real marketing opportunity.

In this sport, we’re doing the hardest thing right now, which is the awareness and education stage in the customer journey.

If you’re able to build a good hospitality program that sits on top of your padel business, you can leverage that as an awareness and marketing tool to bring new people to padel.

For us, it was a combination of those two things.

Everybody I talk to says the challenge is attracting new padel players because nobody knows about the sport.

It seems to me that the people in the U.S. who know about padel are wealthy people who’ve traveled to France, Portugal, or somewhere abroad and discovered it there or else Hispanic people who already know the sport. Is that fair?

You’re spot on with the early adopters.

There’s definitely a Hispanic demographic, although maybe the caveat is that it’s people within that demographic who have the disposable income to afford it.

The early adopters are more or less the ones you described: cosmopolitan people, Europeans who already have awareness of it, and South Americans as well. So there’s a strong Hispanic demographic in that sense.

Then you definitely have the wealthiest segment. It has become part of the VIP scene in the U.S. It’s that networking sport and so forth.

There’s definitely a trend factor to it within VIP circles. Those two categories are early adopters.

I’m guessing that you’re a soccer fan as well. How long do you think it will take before the U.S. dominates padel the way we dominate soccer?

I enjoy watching soccer. Especially the French national team and PSG. Those are probably my two favorite teams. As for your question, I think it’s still going to take a while for the U.S. to dominate soccer, and I think padel will take even longer.

I’m probably not the right person to ask this. I don’t think I have that macro experience or knowledge about the life cycle of sports within a country.

But my uneducated opinion would be that it all starts with bringing in great professionals and having great infrastructure that allows you to create the right training culture and bring in the right experts who can develop athletes from the youngest ages to the highest level.

It’s a matter of infrastructure, culture, and coaching quality.

Then you need to have a sport that’s popular enough and has good incentives for the average American to choose it instead of tennis or American football and so forth.

Americans have focused their best athletes on football, basketball — the big four sports. They haven’t had their best athletes in soccer because it’s not as popular.

It requires a structural shift plus expertise in general. You’re talking about 50 years for all of that to happen. I don’t see it anytime soon.

To learn more about Padel39 and its current locations in East and North Austin or future locations in South Austin and Dallas, please be sure to visit their website or follow them on Instagram.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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I first wrote about the controversy surrounding how to properly pronounce “padel” in the U.S. clear back in December 2023 for my former site, The Padel State.

At the time, we had just a small fraction of the courts, clubs, and players that we do now. Yet despite all the growth we’ve seen since then — both infrastructure- and awareness-wise — the debate (unfortunately and frustratingly) continues to linger on.

However, I’m hoping that may soon start to change thanks to some higher-profile figures in the U.S. padel world coming out and attempting to set the record straight recently. This includes Michael Dorfman, the CEO of the Pro Padel League (PPL), who waded into the topic a few weeks back on CNBC:

Keep in mind, Dorfman isn’t the only CEO in the U.S. padel world who has come out and pronounced the sport properly on a CNBC segment about the sport, either (and no, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s not “puh-DEL”).

In fact, Wayne Boich, who is the founder and CEO of Reserve Padel, has now appeared on CNBC multiple times (often alongside superstar athletes turned padel addicts like Derek Jeter and Jimmy Butler) and pronounced it as it should be, which is “paddle.”

Given that the guy owns a half dozen of the highest profile padel clubs in the U.S., runs a series of ultra-luxe professional padel tournaments around the globe, and regularly plays with some of the best players in the world from Argentina and Spain, you’d think if anyone would know how it’s pronounced it’d probably be him, right?

Even so, there are still plenty of U.S. players and even club operators, for that matter, for whom “puh-DEL” is a hill they are willing to die on.

Untangling This Seemingly Never-Ending Knot

The first argument you’ll usually hear the “puh-DEL” camp roll out (if they even have one) is the fact that “paddle” actually refers to platform tennis — which some people call “paddle tennis” and is a similar enclosed-court racquet sport played largely in the winter in small (often very wealthy) enclaves of the U.S. in the Northeast and Midwest.

Therefore, in their minds, padel should obviously be pronounced “puh-DEL” to account for this.

The only problem with this argument is that, while it’s true that many people do colloquially refer to that sport as “paddle” (and will no doubt continue to do until the end of time), it has officially been known as platform tennis since clear back in 1950 when the American Paddle Tennis Association unanimously voted to change its name to the American Platform Tennis Association — ironically enough to help distinguish it from other racquet sports that were often also called paddle tennis.

To that point, there is another niche (albeit very fun) U.S. racquet sport — which is played almost exclusively in warm-weather spots like Venice Beach, California — that has also been commonly called “paddle tennis” over the years. However, yet again, this sport was officially rebranded as POP Tennis back in 2015, as you can see in the image below from their website.

In other words, as I also pointed out in my recently published padel book, for over a decade now there hasn’t been any racquet sport here in the U.S. whose official name is “paddle” or “paddle tennis” — despite many people and/or players of platform tennis and POP tennis continuing to refer to them as such.

So, there really shouldn’t be any need to mispronounce padel in order to differentiate it from these other sports.

Confusion Over Where the Confusion Even Comes From

Of course, there’s also a second camp of “puh-DEL” diehards who insist that since “padel” derives from Spanish and is often written as “pádel” in Latin American countries, the proper pronunciation is obviously “puh-DEL.”

Many will even immediately go on to cite a native-Spanish-speaking player or pro they know who pronounces it this way to heighten their case.

While that’s all well and good — and I’ll admit that, yes, I know a few who do, too — the fact of the matter is that having the accent over the “a” rather than the “e” means the emphasis should be placed on the first syllable and not the second, like those in the “puh-DEL” camp pronounce it.

What’s more, “padel” wasn’t even officially recognized as the proper way to spell the sport until 1997 (nearly three decades after the sport’s invention) — with many Latin American countries, including the padel powerhouse of Argentina, spelling it the same way it’s actually pronounced up until that point (as you can see in the images below from a leading global padel publication at the time).

Oh, and here’s one more thing to consider… one of the very first courts built in the U.S. (which, sadly, was recently torn down) was in Chattanooga, TN, clear back in 1996, and if you look closely at the dedication plaque (pictured below) you’ll notice something interesting: it’s called the Katherine Jackson Johnston ‘25 Paddle Court.

Blame It On Marketing

Prior to getting involved in the padel world, I spent 15+ years working on the direct-response-marketing team for a financial-advice company where anytime anything went wrong, from a missed budget to an unhappy customer, the easiest solution seemingly was to just “blame it on marketing” (i.e., us).

However, when it comes to the U.S. padel world’s ongoing pronunciation problem, it really is the “fault” of the marketers — namely a group of enterprising individuals who began importing courts into the U.S. about a decade ago and decided to market the sport as “puh-DEL” so as to differentiate it from platform tennis or POP tennis, which as discussed earlier, some people still mistakenly refer to as “paddle.”

The only problem is that in their attempt to reduce confusion about what sport they were selling, they’ve inadvertently spawned a whole lot more confusion about the name of the sport we’re now all playing.

Just ask Mike May. He was one of the earliest pioneers playing and promoting the sport here in the U.S. clear back in the early 1990s, and went on to both serve as the President of the U.S. Padel Association for 21 years (!) and represent Team USA in 13 consecutive World Padel Championships (!!).

He’s been doing everything he can to help clear up the confusion, including recording the following video with Daniel Patti, the former President of the International Padel Federation…

… and chiming in on social media posts suggesting that “puh-DEL” is how it should properly be pronounced in the sport’s native tongue of Spanish with responses like:

Actually, everyone here in Spain, where I am right now with my Spanish wife, says it the correct way. They laugh at the American pronunciation. They don’t pronounce it that way either.

Who Needs Facts When You Have Opinions?

In my experience, the less time someone has been playing padel the more likely they are to not only call it “puh-DEL” but also vehemently argue their case.

And then there’s the final camp of folks who say that they simply don’t care how it’s supposed to be pronounced and are going to keep calling it “puh-DEL” because they think it sounds so much “cooler” or more exotic.

For the most part, my take on the whole thing has basically just been: who really cares how you pronounce it as long as you have fun playing it?

However, with The Sports Business Journal now declaring that padel is the fastest growing sport in the U.S., I do also think that perhaps it is time for us to all start rallying behind a single and proper pronunciation…

And to that end I’m happy to see everyone from Michael Dorfman to Mike May to the racquet brands like Play Henry and even the American Collegiate Padel League doing their part to help set things straight.

My hope is that if enough well-established figures within the sport continue to champion the proper pronunciation and enough newbies take a moment to educate themself about how the sport actually should be pronounced and why, we can eventually just fall in line with the other 99%+ of the padel playing world.

Then again, given that the U.S. is the kind of place where the “official” names of mammoth bodies of water can be changed practically overnight (after decades or even centuries of being called something else) based on the whim of a single former reality television star, perhaps it only makes sense that padel will forever be known as “puh-DEL” here in America.

I guess we’ll see…

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If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Share

Dear Padel Nation,

Practically all eyes in the U.S. padel world were focused squarely on Southern California this past month thanks to a flurry of events that took place there in August (several of which I was lucky enough to attend in person), including:

• The second leg of the 2026 Pro Padel League (PPL) season, which took over the famed Barker Hangar in Los Angeles from August 13th - 16th and brought more than 50 of the world’s top pro padel players to the area for four days of team-based competition…

• A “Youth Development Day” co-hosted by the Los Angeles Padel Club (LAPC) and the L.A. Beat of the PPL, which was held at LAPC on August 9th in the lead up to all the PPL festivities the following weekend…

• World-renowned, U.K.-based padel coach and founder of The Padel School, Sandy Farquharson, embarking on a SoCal teaching tour with stops at multiple clubs in L.A. and San Diego (including Padel N9NE where he did his best to try to fix my forehand service return)…

• RacquetX hosting one of its City Series stops at FairBanks Ranch Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego on August 18th, and…

• Padel Up (which just celebrated its two-year anniversary this month) not only hosting a PPL II competition in conjunction with the PPL’s second event, but also a USA Padel 250-level tournament August 22nd - 23rd and a grassroots, community-building tournament known as The Clash of the Clubs this past weekend (highlights here).

This month, I also had the pleasure of playing at one of the U.S.’s most unique and longest-standing padel clubs, now known as The Padel Courts, on famed Sunset Boulevard in East Hollywood — which will be the subject of an upcoming feature article as I think it’s one of the most fascinating venues in U.S. today.

Beyond that, some other very notable and newsworthy things happened across the U.S. padel world this month, like:

• Team USA qualifying for the 2026 World Cup — which is to be held in Doha, Qatar later this year — on both the men’s and women’s side of the ticket after two nail-bitting, winner-take-all matches at the North & Central American Qualifiers that were held just outside Toronto at the beginning of the month…

• The U.S. Junior National Team delivering its best-ever result at the American Junior Circuit III in Veracruz, Mexico…

• USA Padel announcing that the 2026 US Open Padel Championships will take place October 2nd - 4th at Padel Haus in Brooklyn, with a $40,000 Division 1 prize pool — which is the largest in the tournament’s history. (For a detailed primer on everything you need to know about U.S. padel tournaments and national teams, be sure to check out this recent piece from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis).

• Padel Haus further announcing that it has officially partnered with the New York Atlantics PPL franchise, and…

• PPL CEO Michael Dorfman weighing in on the never-ending debate about the (mis)pronunciation of “padel” in the U.S. on CNBC 🙌 🙌…

Finally, we published a handful of feature and guest articles exploring the brands, clubs, communities, and culture driving the U.S. padel revolution, which you can check out directly below.

As always, thanks for reading — and play up!

ae

««« 12 Perfect Photos from the PPL in L.A. »»»

If you weren’t able to make it to Santa Monica to catch the action live earlier this month, this photo-essay from Ben Blair might just be the next best thing. Enjoy!

««« Is Multi-Sport the Future of U.S. Padel? »»»

With a few cracks starting to show in the great American padel dream, some new data from our preferred partners at Playbypoint highlights a bright spot for U.S. racquet clubs that offer multiple sports in addition to padel. Here’s what you should know.

««« Six U.S. Padel Clubs to Keep an Eye On »»»

While these six U.S. padel clubs may not get quite as much attention as some bigger-name outfits opening across the country, they are (somewhat quietly) set to bring a lot more padel to states including NY, SC, TN, TX, WI, and MS (yes, Mississippi!) in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future.

Who knows, maybe you’ll even find yourself playing at one of these clubs someday soon (like I have been at the one pictured above).

««« More Tales of Padel Obsession »»»

For our ongoing “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series from regular guest author Scott Matulis, this month we highlighted two padel-obsessed people actively working to build and grow the sport here in the U.S.:

• Hollye Sheperd, who is founder of the recently opened Hive Padel Club in Salt Lake City, UT, and…

• Will Persson, the new Head of Communications and Community for the PPL.

These are their stories.

… and that’s a wrap — until next month at least!

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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Each of the past few months, I’ve teamed with my friend, fellow padel scribbler, and globetrotting nomad, Aris Sevastianos (of the El Remate newsletter), to publish a list of notable new U.S. padel clubs that will be opening in the not-too-distant future.

And while there are no shortage of exciting new big-name clubs to highlight month after month — including Conquer Padel’s planned expansion to Jacksonville, ACE Padel reportedly finally opening clubs in Coconut Grove, FL, and Denver, and M Padel bringing new clubs to metro areas including Boston, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and San Antonio — this month we wanted to focus on a few somewhat-less-talked-about (yet still very intriguing) padel club openings around the country.

These include:

The Point Racket & Social Club (Charleston, SC)

Clear back in January, I (Austin) published an article about the coming padel boom in my home state of South Carolina.

Since then, a total of eight new courts have gone up at a dedicated padel club outside Greenville and at three existing racquet clubs around the greater Charleston area (with as many as 15+ more courts, both indoor and outdoor, supposedly set to open in the Holy City in the coming months).

Meanwhile, in the coming days, The Point Racket & Social Club will officially bring the first-ever dedicated padel club to the Lowcountry at Trophy Lakes in Johns Island, SC — which is also home to a legendary water-ski lake and the Charleston Aqua Park, a local attraction that draws more than 30,000 visitors each summer.

(In fact, I played there for the first time just last night with some friends, and based on first impressions alone, I’m guessing we’ll all be back as often as we can going forward.)

Founder Nick Saltmarsh, a 20-plus-year hospitality GM, will open Phase One with two outdoor courts, a repurposed shipping container that will serve as a boutique pro shop, ample socializing spaces, and various membership options available from day one.

Phase Two, which is already actively being planned, will see the club grow into a five-court, membership-based social hub designed to foster community connection as much as intense competition.

Estimated Opening Date: September 2026 (with soft-opening already underway)

The Arena Club (Chattanooga, TN)

As discussed in a recent feature, Chattanooga, TN, was actually home to one of the very first padel courts in the entire U.S. (built clear back in 1996) — but, unfortunately, that notable piece of U.S. padel history was recently unceremoniously torn down with little to no warning to — or approval from — its original benefactors.

The good news, however, is that the Scenic City will soon be home to two brand new climate-controlled, indoor padel courts (along with 12 pickleball courts) at The Arena Club, a sprawling racquet, fitness, and social club in the Southside neighborhood of Chattanooga.

In addition to pickle and padel, The Arena Club will offer a rooftop pool and hot tub, golf simulators, luxury locker rooms, and extensive upscale food and beverage offerings.

An upcoming “Summer Mixer” — which is scheduled for September 10 — will give current and prospective members a chance to tour the space, explore membership opportunities, and enjoy food, drinks, and giveaways while connecting with other potential members and getting a preview of what’s ahead for The Arena Club.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026

Padel Society ATX (Austin, TX)

Austin is world famous for many things: barbecue, live music, and South by Southwest among them. And to that list you may soon be able to add padel, thanks in part to clubs like Padel Society ATX, which is getting ready to open six air-conditioned, indoor courts just a 12-minute drive from downtown.

In fact, Padel Society ATX bills itself as “Austin’s only air-conditioned padel club … with a bar worth hanging out at, world-class coaching, and a community that feels like home from day one.”

Although founding memberships are already sold out, it’s still possible to join the waitlist for regular memberships once the club opens.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026

Epic Padel (Milwaukee, WI)

While previously announced locations in Northern Virginia and Salt Lake City, UT, mysteriously never materialized, it appears that Epic Padel will soon be opening its first standalone padel club in Milwaukee, WI — at least according to an article published earlier this month by Fitt Insider.

Once open, Epic Padel Milwaukee — which will be the city’s second dedicated padel club along with Padel MKE — will feature eight indoor courts, warm-up areas, locker rooms and showers, social lounges, co-working spaces, and grab-and-go food and beverage options.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026

Cross Court Pickleball + Padel (Hawthorne, NY)

Thanks to Cross Court Pickleball deciding to add four indoor padel courts from Sportsfield Specialites to their second location (along with six pickleball courts), Westchester County will soon finally have its first-ever publicly accessible padel courts — which will no doubt make a few folks I know in that area very happy.

According to its website, this second location — known as Cross Court Pickleball + Padel — will also feature, “food and beverage offerings, retail, spectator areas, and more opportunities for competitive play, clinics, leagues, and social events.”

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026

Prado Conservatory (Jackson, MS)

This past Tuesday found me (Austin, again) in Gulfport, MS, enjoying gumbo, scarfing down shrimp po’boys, and celebrating a close family member’s 80th birthday.

So, you can imagine my surprise when that very same day Aris’s latest edition of El Remate broke the news (to me, at least) that Mississippi would soon be getting its first ever padel court(s) just a few hours up the road in the state’s capital city of Jackson.

Having spent a fair bit of time in Jackson over the past two decades, I’m both selfishly excited about having something to do other than consume gumbo and po’boys on future trips to Mississippi and somewhat skeptical about padel’s future there (though I think the sport could thrive just up the road in Oxford thanks to Ole Miss).

For now we know that at least one padel court is in the (recently approved) plans for a group known as PraCon Global Investment Group to transform a long-vacant former YMCA near downtown into a $60 million, nine-acre “live-work-play” development that will eventually house 160 apartments in a five story building.

And given that the development group has strong ties to the birth nation of padel (with offices in Mexico City), hopefully my skepticism will be entirely misplaced.

Estimated Opening Date: Unknown

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the sixth installment of a new “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series we’re rolling out from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

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I feel a kinship with Will Persson. We’re both racquet sports guys who spent a lot of time working in communications and tech. We’re both obsessed with padel.

Originally from the Northeast and now based in Miami, Will was nationally ranked in tennis, platform tennis, pickleball, and padel in 2023. (Meanwhile, I tore a muscle in my left calf after playing squash three times.)

He’s now the Head of Community and Communications for the Pro Padel League (PPL), which just held its second event of the 2026 season in Los Angeles the weekend before last.

I asked him how he became obsessed with padel and how he turned it into the next step in his career. Here’s what he told me…

How did you start playing padel — and when did you decide, “I’m making a career of this?”

I had already spent most of my life around racquet sports. I played college tennis, and afterward I kept competing in national tournaments across tennis, platform tennis, and pickleball, so I was probably predisposed to become obsessed with padel, too.

I started seeing the sport everywhere on Instagram, but there were still very few places to play in New York or New Jersey. My first real experience was on a pop-up court at a tennis tournament in the Hamptons, and I immediately wanted to play again.

A few months later, I entered a tournament and, despite barely having played, I ended up making the final, which probably accelerated the obsession. Not long afterward, I went to Miami for my bachelor party. We played on the first day, and then somehow ended up playing every day of the trip.

When I came back to New York, I never really stopped. I started writing about padel — first through a blog and then through longer research papers and playbooks —because I wanted to understand where the sport was heading and how the different parts of the industry fit together.

That work introduced me to players, founders, and people building padel communities across the country. In the summer of 2025, I started working part time with the National Padel League, supporting its first two seasons.

Then, a few months ago, I had the opportunity to join the PPL full-time and lead community and communications.

That was really the point where the two sides of my life came together: the professional craft I had built in communications and the sport I had become obsessed with.

What else can you tell me about padel at your bachelor party?

We played at Ultra on the first day, and somehow a quintessential Miami bachelor party turned into a padel trip. We ended up playing every day.

What really stuck with me was that everyone loved it. Some of my friends were serious tennis players, while others barely had a racquet-sports background, but they could all get on the same court and have fun together.

That was one of the first times I realized how uniquely social and accessible padel can be –- and how quickly it can bring people together.

What do you think makes padel so accessible, especially compared to tennis?

You can have fun playing padel almost immediately, and I think that’s pretty unique. Tennis has a much steeper learning curve — you can spend a long time just learning how to serve or sustain a rally.

With padel, the ball stays in play longer and you spend more time doing the part of racquet sports that people actually love: hitting the ball back and forth. That makes it easier for new players to feel involved in the game from the beginning.

For you, what was the hardest part of transitioning from tennis to padel?

The hardest adjustment was shortening my backswing, especially when defending off the glass. I understood where I was supposed to be and what shot I needed to play, but years of tennis had ingrained this bigger swing that simply doesn’t work when the glass is right behind you.

The other big adjustment was the overhead. Early on, you can hit a tennis-style overhead and think, ‘This is great – I’m really good at this.’ Then you start playing better padel players and you realize that unless you’re actually finishing the point, you may just be giving them a better ball back.

I had to get burned enough times to learn to slow the game down and stop trying to win every point by hitting the ball as hard as I could.

At what point did your interest in padel start turning into something professional?

I think it happened pretty gradually. I was spending more and more of my free time playing, writing about the sport, trying to understand where the industry was going and building relationships with people across it, and over time padel became much more than something I just did outside of work.

When the opportunity came to join PPL full time, it felt like a very natural next step. What made PPL especially exciting to me was that it was operating across so many different parts of the sport at once.

You have some of the best players in the world competing in major markets and really distinctive venues like the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles, but you also have national broadcasts on CNBC, PPL II creating another pathway for players, and activations with clubs and communities to introduce more people to the sport.

That combination really appealed to me because it felt like an opportunity to be involved in not just the professional product, but in helping connect a lot of the different pieces that are driving padel’s growth.

Where do you play now — and how often do you play?

I’m playing about three times a week now. I live in Miami, but I travel a lot, so I end up playing at different clubs and with a pretty wide mix of people wherever I am.

I also play a lot of USA Padel tournaments, which has been a great way to meet other people who are serious about the sport and keep pushing my own level. A lot of the people I play with now are people I’ve met through those tournaments, but I also have a big network of players from tennis, platform tennis, and pickleball who have gotten into padel over the past few years for a lot of the same reasons I did.

That crossover has been one of the coolest parts for me. Padel has brought together people from all of these different racquet-sports communities who otherwise might not have ended up playing together.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

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Since I’ve started writing about padel, Scott Colebourne has been one of the most gracious, helpful and cool-to-talk-to people I’ve met. He’s knowledgeable, connected, has a sweet accent and introduced me to Angel Espadas.

I caught up with Scott as he was driving to Toronto for the FIP World Cup North and Central America qualifier and asked him to lay out how the domestic padel tournament circuit works and to explain the USA National Team setup.

Here’s what he told me…

How exactly does the Nox USA Padel Circuit by Psycho Bunny work?

There are two aspects to our domestic circuit. First, we have the USA Padel Circuit which includes more than 250 tournaments around the country. These are 100-, 250-, 500-, 750-, 1000-, 2000- and 2500-level tournaments. The number reflects the number of points that the winning players receive. We also have the US Open Padel Championships, our flagship event, and our end-of-year championship as well.

Typically every tournament has Division 1 through 4 or 5 for men and Division 1 through 3 or 4 for women. You can find your level, enter a tournament, see how you compete against your peers, and earn a national ranking. These tournaments do not have age groups. They are created by divisions based on level.

Our tournaments feature a mix of amateur, semi-professional, and professional players. The US Open Padel Championships has a prize pool of $40,000 that is split across Division 1 men’s and women’s.

The 750-, 1000-, and 2000-level tournaments have varying degrees of prize money and some of the 500s do also. A 2000-level tournament has a minimum prize pool of $25,000. A 1000 has a minimum prize pool of $10,000 and a 750-level has a minimum prize pool of $7,500. We anticipate these numbers will continue to go up as higher-level players enter our tournaments and clubs invest more in the tournaments they host.

At USA Padel we are extremely lucky that we have many amazing clubs that choose to be Premier Members of the Association. This means that they have contributed financially through their membership and that gives them the right to host USA Padel circuit tournaments.

Those clubs that are hosting high-level tournaments are experienced operators delivering amazing events, creating a great on-court and off-court experience for the players. The clubs are financially responsible for all aspects of the tournament and the majority of them have made the tournaments feasible through entry fees, sponsorship, and increased food and beverage sales over the course of the event.

To sign up to play in a 100 level tournament, players are required to have a USA Padel registered player account, which is free. If you’d like to play in a 250-level or higher, it does require an adult membership, which costs $50 per year, or a junior membership. All the tournaments are listed at www.padelusa.org/calendar where players can find all the relevant information and links to register.

The USA Padel Competition Committee assigns tournaments based on an annual application period that allows all clubs the ability to host tournaments of varying levels. Clubs that do not submit applications during this time period can add small-level tournaments throughout the year. However we are committed to publishing our main tournament schedule well in advance to allow players and clubs to plan.

What about the USA Padel Seniors Circuit?

The second part of the domestic circuit is our senior tournaments. Next year, these senior tournaments will follow the official FIP senior categories of 40+, 45+, 50+, 55+, and 60+. And this is for pairs where both players are over the category age. So, in the 40+ category they could be 41 and 42.

We have senior tournaments around the country for those age groups. It’s a great way for players to compete against players of their age group and find people of a similar age group to hang out with and socialize with.

We also have senior national championships, which were recently won in the 55+ age group by former pro tennis players, Alex O’Brien and Jared Palmer.

Is the U.S. Padel Senior Nationals only for Americans?

So yeah, good question. To be a member of USA Padel, you just have to purchase some type of membership. You can be from any country in the world. All of our tournaments are open. We have no tournaments that are restricted to US citizens only.

So in the Senior Nationals, we had Palmer and O’Brien, who are both American, playing together. They played in the final, against a Canadian team. All of our tournaments at the moment are open to anyone from any country. And frequently, in the top tournaments, the 1000s, the 2000s, we have top 100 FIP ranked players from around the world coming to play, both men and women.

How many of the players playing USA Padel tournaments and playing on the national teams are pros vs. amateurs with day jobs?

Whether or not the person is a pro is maybe not the best question. The better question would be, are they playing full-time? And I would say on the men’s side, maybe like five or six are playing full-time. So that’s their job, they’re playing, they’re competing and they’re training. Others are still trying to maintain a full-time job or a part-time job, and then play.

For the women, it’s about the same, half of them have got full-time jobs and play as well, and the other half are, you know, dedicated to playing full-time.

Let’s move on to the various U.S. National Teams. How many are there and how are they selected?

We have over 250 athletes traveling every year to represent the U.S. It’s an amazing opportunity to play padel internationally and to spread the love of the game.

There’s a team for most levels of competitive play between seniors, juniors, “Absolute” and “Cat Libres,” and we’re super excited to have the clothing company Psycho Bunny as our official apparel partner and major sponsor of our USA National Teams.

Our national team program is overseen and governed by the USA Padel National Teams Committee, which is a committee of dedicated volunteers. The committee chair is Tomas Galvez Santaella from San Diego, and that committee sets the procedures and policies for the national teams.

The committee appoints volunteer coaches and a delegate (manager) for each team. USA Padel is able to cover the coach’s travel and accommodation expenses, but they are volunteering their time. They’re usually appointed for a two-year term, which lines up with the World Cup happening every two years.

Historically, there are two types of international competitions. There are the global competitions, which are governed by FIP, and then there’s the Padel America, or Pan American competitions, which include countries from North, Central and South America playing against each other.

About 12 weeks out from each tournament, we open up registration for players that want to play for the USA National Teams to indicate their interest. The coaches evaluate everybody who’s registered, they make selections, contact the players, the players sign a commitment letter, and then they’re on the team. We do hold scouting and training sessions for certain teams but we do also rely on the national rankings and performances on the USA Padel Circuit.

What can you tell me about the “Absolute” team?

That’s a padel term: “Absolute.” Essentially, it’s the top team, the professional team, the top-level national team. We have men’s and women’s teams but they compete separately.

This team has eight players on it. The coaches are less focused on tryouts and more about identifying the top players on the different circuits, whether it’s a USA circuit or the Premier Padel circuit.

The women’s Absolute coach is Richy Bailey. The assistant coach is Mariana Talarico. Richy played for the U.S. 10+ years ago, has coached for different federations around the world, and is a world-class coach. Mariana has coached and played on the U.S. women’s team for many years. They actively communicate with the top players from the U.S. throughout the year.

The men’s Absolute coach is Jacobo Blanco. Jacobo is from Spain originally and is a former World Padel Tour top-30 player. He’s a former number one on the USA circuit as recently as three years ago, still a regular player on the circuit, a great mentor and supporter of many of the players on the circuit.

His assistant coach is Jose Pablo Arizpe, who’s from San Antonio, Texas, has played for the USA many times at the Absolute level.

We just recently played in a World Cup qualifier against Canada and Mexico to qualify for this year’s World Cup. The way that the World Cup works is, to qualify, the men have to finish in the top two against Canada and Mexico, and the women have to finish first.

This year the World Cup will be held in Qatar in early November, and it’s known as the pinnacle of the sport. Only the top 16 nations in the world compete and it features all of the best players, including those playing professionally on the Premier Padel Tour. In the past the USA has played against Federico Chingotto, Juan Lebrón, Alejandro Galán, Agustín Tapia and Arturo Coello.

The World Cup, as I mentioned, is held every two years and the other years our teams play the Padel America Championship against the best teams from North, Central, and South America.

And how is that different than the “Cat Libres” team?

The next team is what they call the “Cat Libres” team or what we call the amateur team. It’s open to non-professional players. Coaches select players in categories 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. It’s loosely based on the Argentinian category system, and it’s a great opportunity for players that are not playing professionally to apply and to represent the U.S.

Nico Agritelley has played on this team. Vinny Di Francesco has played on this team when he was younger. It’s a great opportunity to wear the stars and stripes, experience international travel, represent the U.S. and compete against other countries.

That tournament is every year in Central or South America. We actually won the Cat Libres in 2023 in Cancun. That was such a high for that team. Registration for all the teams is at www.padelusa.org on the National Teams homepage. For each team, USA Padel provides a coach and delegate. We strive to fully fund the Absolute team but all our teams receive varying degrees of financial support.

What about the Senior National Teams?

We also have Senior men’s and women’s teams. The senior teams also compete in the FIP Senior World Cup every two years, as well as in the Padel America Championships and the Pan American Seniors Veterans Championships.

The age groups are 40+, 45+, 50+, 55+, 60+. This is the team that Angel Espadas coaches, the World Cup team is very, very competitive to get into. There are a lot of great players on the team. For example, we have players on the men’s and women’s side that are current or former members of the Absolute team and now playing on the World Cup Seniors team. So it’s super, super competitive. Both of our teams finished inside the top 10 at the last Senior World Cup and we’re very, very hopeful of competing for the top 8 at this year’s World Cup.

Every year we also field a team in the Pan American Championships which is in November of this year. It is still very competitive, although not as competitive as the World Cup. We take a team of 50 to 60 players. We can have multiple teams per age group. You could have an A team, B team, C team, competing in the different age groups. It’s a really big, exciting, fun tournament, with lots of opportunities for people to play. We encourage people to register online for that team.

So, for the Senior National Team you register online and then tryout — where are the tryouts and how do people find out about them?

We hold them (tryouts) in different places around the country. We’ve done them in San Diego before and also in Miami, Connecticut, and Texas. It’s not always easy to see or evaluate every player. So that’s why playing on the USA Padel Circuit is super important. We can look at results and see how players are doing. That’s a big part of it. There are also players playing internationally that are U.S. citizens that want to play on that team and those players are considered as well.

Finally, let’s talk about the juniors. How does that work?

The fourth team is our junior program. It also plays a World Cup, and every other year, the Padel America Cup. When we compete in that, we send three age groups, under-18, under-16, and under-14 and they play country versus country.

The coaches for that team are a brother and sister from Spain, Jaume “Tato” Rouillon Jimenez and Lorena Rouillon Jimenez. They’ve been coaching the team for three years now. We competed in the World Cup in Spain last year, and this year, we have the Padel America Cup, which is the continental championship, and that’s going to be in Mexico.

For the junior team, players are selected based on their play in USA Padel Circuit Tournaments, FIP Promises Tournaments, and other play opportunities. We are looking forward to launching a Junior National Championship and Junior Circuit in 2027.

There are also international tournaments that the junior team plays in, so for instance, we have 30 athletes going to Mexico this month to represent the U.S., this is a pairs competition rather than a country versus country.

While that’s certainly a lot to digest, should you have any further questions about U.S. padel tournaments, national teams, or competitions, please be sure to visit USA Padel.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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After traveling to Spain last month for the Premier Padel P1 tournament in Málaga and Southern California this month for the second leg of the Pro Padel League’s 2026 season in L.A., it has become clear to me that the magic and mastery of professional padel can be rather difficult to put into words.

So I reached out to Ben Blair — an L.A.-based creative director who has worked with brands like FILA, Boast, and Nike, and is also an avid tennis and padel player and sports photographer — to ask for some help.

Here’s how this past weekend’s Pro Padel League debut in Los Angeles unfolded in Ben’s own “words” (all amazing photos his, all questionable captions mine):

To learn more about Ben Blair and his work, please visit BenBlairDoneThat.com

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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I won’t sugarcoat it…

Things aren’t looking quite as bright in the U.S. padel industry as some people might have you believe — or as many self-proclaimed pundits predicted they would be a few years ago.

Yes, clubs and courts still continue to open from coast to coast and everywhere in between… Yes, the sport is starting to gain more awareness in the U.S. thanks to padel pop-ups at Coachella and CNBC broadcasting Pro Padel League matches… And yes, USA Padel is pulling out all the stops in an effort to get more people playing.

But there also appear to be a growing number of storm clouds on the horizon…

Once loud, seemingly baseless calls for 30,000 courts in the U.S. by 2030 eventually fizzled into still-confident-sounding predictions of 20,000. More recently that bar has quietly been dropped yet again, with many insiders now admitting that even getting to 10,000 by 2030 may be a serious stretch (which, keep in mind, is still monster growth!)

Meanwhile, clubs have started closing in once-promising padel strongholds like Houston and Orlando, and by some accounts, in certain (and often surprising) parts of the country, as many of half of all padel clubs are now discreetly up for sale.

There Are Some Bright Spo(r)ts However…

In fact, in a recent conversation with Jo Vos (who serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of our Padel Nation preferred partners at Playbypoint) about the current state and future of the U.S. padel market, she tells me:

Over the last twelve months, established multi-sport facilities on Playbypoint handled 124% more monthly bookings than padel-only clubs, and served 53% more unique players. For an operator weighing what to build, the multi-sport model isn't a hedge. It's a growth strategy.

I’ll be honest, I was a bit shocked by those numbers, especially as someone who has always leaned more towards padel-only in the whole “Should padel clubs also have pickleball courts?” debate.

But I tend to give a lot of credence to this data given that Playbypoint powers a wide variety of notable multi-sport padel clubs around the U.S., including:

• Ballers in Philadelphia, PA (with padel, pickleball, squash, indoor soccer, and more)…

• Three Rackets in Broomfield, CO (which will soon open with padel, pickle, and squash)…

• Nicol NJ in Fort Monmouth, NJ (also featuring padel, pickle, and squash)…

• The Sports Haus in Norwalk, CT (which offers padel, pickle, and golf simulators)…

• CityView Racquet Club in Long Island City, NY (with tennis, squash, and padel from the team at Brisas)…

… and that’s just to name a few.

Then there’s my home padel club in Charleston, SC, which is known as LTP Daniel Island and has dozens of pickleball and tennis courts along with three of the first — and still some of the only — padel courts in the region (though that’s all about to change big time, with many new SC padel clubs coming online also being powered by Playbypoint).

Of this particular variety of multi-sport facility, Jo further tells me:

For clubs running padel, tennis, and pickleball together, the median club logged about two and a half times the monthly bookings of a padel-only venue, and its players came back more than twice as often. Breadth of sport turns straight into depth of engagement.

What the Data Doesn’t Say

Yes, those numbers are pretty stunning. But, for clarity’s sake, Jo is also careful to add:

What's interesting is where the advantage doesn't come from. It's not that multi-sport clubs squeeze more out of each court. It's that they pull in more players, and those players play more often. The story is broader demand and deeper engagement, not tighter utilization. That's a healthier flywheel for a club to build on.

Alex Luscher, who serves as director of operations at Ballers, obviously agrees with this sentiment, telling me:

Multi- means more! More sports, more players, and more opportunities to socialize. Padel might just be your new favorite sport you've never heard of, it might be the perfect compliment to your golf sessions, and you might've found Ballers by searching for the best smash burger in town. Offering so many activities within one club is the special ingredient that allows our community to flourish.

Jess Nicol, co-founder and CEO of Nicol Sports, dives even deeper into this concept, telling me in a recent email exchange:

What we’ve found at Nicol is that the different sports really do serve different people, and that’s what makes the multi-sport model so interesting.

Squash is strong for juniors — they can get on court, hit the ball as hard as they want and just let it rip, but there’s also a very real pathway through high school and into college squash.

Padel is becoming a really exciting option for junior tennis players who can see where the sport is going and where the opportunities might be, particularly compared with how saturated tennis has become.

And for adults, padel is both fun and competitive. A lot of people who have played tennis or pickleball for years are ready for something new, and once they try it, they tend to get hooked pretty quickly. Both Peter and I come from squash and now almost exclusively play padel (the addiction is real).

We want people to have a reason to keep coming back, to improve, compete, meet people and feel like they’re part of something that improves their lives. Offering different sports under one roof helps achieve that goal.

(However, she also points out that while pickleball is a fantastic sport for certain segments of the population, future Nicol clubs will not have it and instead just focus on padel and squash.)

The Best Path Forward?

While many people are happy to argue whether tennis or padel or pickleball or squash is the better — or best — sport, Jo (and the entire team at Playbypoint) clearly take a much more pragmatic approach to the debate, with her ultimately concluding our conversation by telling me this…

Programming is the real engine, and multi-sport clubs simply have more to program. More clinics, more lessons, more leagues across more skill levels and more sports. On our platform, established multi-sport clubs ran nearly four times the clinics of padel-only clubs. That's what turns a court into a calendar, and a calendar into a community.

… and showing me this:

Let the Debate Begin Continue

After hearing everything I do day in and day out from U.S. club operators, owners, and consultants, do I think padel is doomed in the U.S.? Absolutely not — far from it, in fact!

But at the same time, I also don’t think it’s going to end up being the easy, get-rich-quick scheme that many people were led to believe it would be.

The majority of club founders I know are pouring an incredible amount of blood, sweat, and tears into just getting their doors open, let alone their courts filled.

At the end of the day, we’re still very early in this game…

And I think that the U.S. padel pioneers who have the brains (and guts) to stay the course and play the long game will ultimately be rewarded as the sport continues to meaningfully grow across the U.S. — especially if they can find ways to capitalize on the trends that this stunning data from Playbypoint brings to light.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last month. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!