Great stuff as always, my friend. Yeah similar (but independent) to Bill’s point, I envision padel becoming similar to tennis in the US. In other words, it will exist on a “spectrum” - i.e., exclusive country clubs, all the way to public courts in working class areas. That all said, I have no problem with country clubs including padel and furthermore, think they should keep doing so!
Maybe where I deviate a bit is the current scale and timing. What would bother me is country clubs building padel at a highly lopsided rate compared to padel clubs, pay-to-play padel facilities, and even free municipal courts. That’s when I feel like the sport would be truly “elitist.”
And furthermore, especially after bringing my racket with me through 3 continents, I still don’t buy into the “trickle down” theory. At this point, most of our entire planet has shown that this sport is fun - and necessary - and so the demand is already there across all markets and demographics. I mean heck, our friend Brevin buying 40 Blanca Padel racquets for folks in rural northern Indiana is just one of a plethora of examples. There are many ways to generate financial and community wellbeing simultaneously in this industry, and I truly believe that can be done at all ends of the spectrum RIGHT NOW.
Excellent article Austin and you are the first to write about the potential conundrum of country clubs adopting padel but at the same time that adoption putting pressure on other clubs and operators out there. Fortunately there are models/sports (golf and tennis come to mind) where both broad based access and country club prevalence co-exist. Having said that, it took over half a century for tennis and golf to become as accessible and widespread as we take for granted today. I continue to believe we are still at the very beginning of the padel journey in the USA and it is not always clear how or how fast the sport will be adopted across our very large and diverse population. Adoption rates and accessibility are unlikely to be the same across every region or metro area.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Bill -- great to have someone of your stature in the U.S. padel world weigh in. And good points about golf and tennis. One positive I see is that many of these private padel courts are going up in places where I doubt anyone is planning on opening a pay-to-play club anytime soon (like Gozzer in Idaho, Yellowstone Club in Montana, and Fort Wayne Country Club in IN). So it should be good to just help spread the awareness and visibility of the sport to parts of the country that might otherwise not have any exposure to it.
Great stuff as always, my friend. Yeah similar (but independent) to Bill’s point, I envision padel becoming similar to tennis in the US. In other words, it will exist on a “spectrum” - i.e., exclusive country clubs, all the way to public courts in working class areas. That all said, I have no problem with country clubs including padel and furthermore, think they should keep doing so!
Maybe where I deviate a bit is the current scale and timing. What would bother me is country clubs building padel at a highly lopsided rate compared to padel clubs, pay-to-play padel facilities, and even free municipal courts. That’s when I feel like the sport would be truly “elitist.”
And furthermore, especially after bringing my racket with me through 3 continents, I still don’t buy into the “trickle down” theory. At this point, most of our entire planet has shown that this sport is fun - and necessary - and so the demand is already there across all markets and demographics. I mean heck, our friend Brevin buying 40 Blanca Padel racquets for folks in rural northern Indiana is just one of a plethora of examples. There are many ways to generate financial and community wellbeing simultaneously in this industry, and I truly believe that can be done at all ends of the spectrum RIGHT NOW.
Excellent article Austin and you are the first to write about the potential conundrum of country clubs adopting padel but at the same time that adoption putting pressure on other clubs and operators out there. Fortunately there are models/sports (golf and tennis come to mind) where both broad based access and country club prevalence co-exist. Having said that, it took over half a century for tennis and golf to become as accessible and widespread as we take for granted today. I continue to believe we are still at the very beginning of the padel journey in the USA and it is not always clear how or how fast the sport will be adopted across our very large and diverse population. Adoption rates and accessibility are unlikely to be the same across every region or metro area.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Bill -- great to have someone of your stature in the U.S. padel world weigh in. And good points about golf and tennis. One positive I see is that many of these private padel courts are going up in places where I doubt anyone is planning on opening a pay-to-play club anytime soon (like Gozzer in Idaho, Yellowstone Club in Montana, and Fort Wayne Country Club in IN). So it should be good to just help spread the awareness and visibility of the sport to parts of the country that might otherwise not have any exposure to it.