Roaming the busy convention center floor one thing became clear: padel is America’s new Wild West.
WORDS
Dario Miceli
ILLUSTRATIONS
Benji Spence
First there was the robot ball collector. Scurrying around like a puppy, it ingested tennis balls and lobbed them back out only to be returned. Then there was the vibrating platform that, when stood on, promoted lymphatic health. After that there was the AI-enabled, app-controlled electronic scoreboard. Then the AI-enabled, app-controlled club manager. And the AI-enabled, app-controlled digital swing coach. And the AI-enabled, app-controlled match scheduler.
The scene at RacquetX, the nation’s only racquet sport convention, was chaotic. Over 150 companies came to showcase their newest tech, services, gadgets and apparel at the Miami Convention Center in late March, 2025; all 150+ of them confidently certain their company was the next big thing.
Through the jungle of vendors, past the pickleball, tennis and food courts, in the rear of the airplane hangar-sized hall, were five pristine padel courts. The unmistakable glow of blue turf, the muffled pop of racquet-hitting-ball, the 10’ walls of glass: I had finally found what I was looking for. No pamphlets being handed out, no business cards, no trials or demos.
Watching professionals and talented amateurs volley, bandeja and smash was a welcome sight. The familiar silhouette of proper padel technique calmed my nerves and focused my energy and, for a moment, I felt at home.
Returning to the convention center floor was like getting into a time machine to a chaotic future. When watching the game I felt connected to a distant time and place, watching a technique developed over decades expertly performed. Now amongst the vendors I realize where American padel is: the Wild West.
“The American public is still confusing the sport with pickleball; because landlords aren’t familiar with the sport, it’s hard to get a lease for your padel business; Agustin Tapia and Delphi Brea can walk down the street unbothered.”
The time and place I felt connected to was Mexico in the late 1960s - the time and place of padel’s conception, birth and upbringing. Since then it has developed and matured into not just a game, but a sport with an accompanying lifestyle, one perfected in places like Mexico, Spain and Argentina.
While American padel is the Wild West, complete with saloons, a town sheriff and maybe a few outlaws, padel in other parts of the world is like a utopian future with self-driving cars and robot housekeepers. Consider this: Miami - the capital of American padel - has about 100 courts; Rome, a city of similar size and demographics boasts more than 1,500. New York City, the wealthiest and most populous city in the country has less than 11. That’s 11 courts, not facilities. 11 total courts for 10 million people. Small towns in Portugal and mountain villages in Argentina have more than that. And they’re public courts, costing a few Euro for 90 minutes instead of $240 an hour like in the US.
In Argentina, the professional padel players are household names; tournaments in Spain, Qatar and Mexico are turning 22-year-old superstars into millionaires; multi-national corporations are fighting over the names and likenesses of the sport’s biggest players.
The American public is still confusing the sport with pickleball; because landlords aren’t familiar with the sport, it’s hard to get a lease for your padel business; Agustin Tapia and Delphi Brea can walk down the street unbothered.
We are so far behind.
“It's unclear what will become of padel in the US; this sport is obviously still trying to define itself. Some venues are mixing padel with pickleball and tennis.”
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Maybe instead of thinking of the US as a backward wasteland, we can think of it as a land of opportunity. The Wild West was a dangerous time, but plenty made their fortunes. Across the American landscape padel is catching on. Even though there are 11 courts in NYC now, that’s 11 more than only 2 years ago. And in the next year there are confirmed to be 9 more with another dozen rumored. Real estate developers, wealthy financiers, venture capitalists and restaurateurs are getting into the mix opening up facilities in urban areas from Boston to Austin to San Diego.
Reserve, for example, is padel-as-a-luxury lifestyle. A sleek club with three locations in Miami and one in New York, it offers a high-end padel experience: world-class facilities, cold plunges, blazing fast WiFi, top-tier coaching, saunas, gyms, steam rooms and an onsite cafe with $20 smoothies. Padel Haus, in the middle of an audacious nation-wide roll out, has two locations in Brooklyn with a third on the way. It offers a more urban feel, less airy and laidback than South Beach, and more frenetic and focused. And yes, they too offer $20 smoothies. Padel also exists outside of wealthy urban centers in places like Sterling, Virginia. Just 20 miles northwest of our nation’s capital Padel Up has four courts in a building that was once a climbing gym. It shares a parking lot with a granite distributor and if driving by too fast you might mistake it with a Jiffy Lube rather than a cowboy in the frontier of American padel.
It's unclear what will become of padel in the US; this sport is obviously still trying to define itself. Some venues are mixing padel with pickleball and tennis. Some are members-only clubs requiring an application and a successful one-on-one in-person interview. Others are leading with a franchise-first model. In a market as developed and wealthy as the American consumer market, there’s certainly space for all these models to co-exist.
It is clear, however, that padel is catching on here. The number of courts in the U.S. has grown from 20 to 400+ over the past three years. Events like RacquetX are filled with padel gear and companies. Clubs are opening away from the coasts in places like Austin and Chicago. Arkansas has a professional team.
For all the excitement, padel in the U.S. faces some very real hurdles. The first is simply education: most Americans don’t know what padel is. It’s often confused with pickleball or squash or compared directly to tennis. If padel wants to grow and become a part of the culture, it has to first explain itself. It can’t sit behind prohibitive paywalls and identify purely as exclusive. It needs to get out there in front of the public and show itself.
Then there’s the issue of infrastructure. Unlike pickleball, which can be played on any flat surface practically for free, padel requires purpose-built courts with glass walls and finicky turf surfaces. They’re expensive, specific, and not easy to drop into urban environments. Zoning laws complicate things further—especially in dense cities, where noise complaints, parking requirements, and land use regulations can stall or kill a project before it even begins. Building a padel facility isn’t just a business challenge, subject to the usual supply and demand problem—it’s primarily a real estate one.
Even when courts do get built, the cost of play is high. A casual drop-in session can run $70 or more per player for an hour, and monthly memberships are between $150 and $500. If padel wants to scale, work its way into the collegiate level and steal cultural cache away from tennis and pickleball it needs to be more accessible to Americans not living in hyper-wealthy coastal cities.
For padel to reach its true potential, a mass education effort, efficient infrastructure development, and a clear vision to achieve widespread affordability are not just suggested, but required. Without these, growth could stall before it ever really begins and padel could get stuck in the periphery of American sports culture, or worse, get denied all together.
Like so many things in America, padel’s future won’t be written by governing bodies or slow-moving institutions—it’ll be shaped by entrepreneurs.
Most of the clubs popping up across the country follow a similar blueprint: raise money, build courts, generate returns, expand. It’s the startup playbook applied to sport. But even within that model, we’re already seeing creative variation. Conquer Padel, based in Tempe, Arizona, is flipping the model entirely—launching as a franchise-first brand, designed to scale quickly by empowering operators, not just investors. Others are building expansive amenity-heavy facilities like gyms, spas and workspaces with padel courts attached.
And the opportunity extends far beyond operating a club. Apparel, gear, lifestyle brands, and yes, even media are already beginning to emerge–the earliest signs of a healthy ecosystem. Coaching certifications, youth academies, national leagues, tournaments, and content creators will all help padel break through to a wider audience.
The U.S. may be behind the curve globally, but it’s poised to leapfrog.
We are currently in the Wild West. Where things go from here is anyone’s guess—but, like the gold rush of ‘49 it feels like something big is happening. It’s a beautiful sport and deserves to be played and admired, just as much as the public deserves this great pastime. At this point, it’s not a question of if padel can thrive here—it’s how it will thrive and who will shape it.
The big, smart money is still sitting on the sidelines. But not for long. What’s now a few $100,000 checks will soon become millions, then billions in venture capital and private equity. That’s how it goes in America. Education, healthcare, media and real estate were all ultimately defined by the financiers who fund - expect padel to be no different.
For now, American padel is still in its earliest moments. Still weird. Still scrappy. Still undefined. Still DIY. Believe it or not, these are the good old days—the golden moment before the suits arrive, before the valuations, before the roll-ups, before the “liquidity events” and all the stuff that ruined tech. If you play, enjoy it. If you’re throwing your hat in the ring as a brand or business owner, remember the spirit of the sport. Remember why you fell in love with the sport in the first place. Being an early entrant to any market gives you special powers to shape what comes next. Don’t take that responsibility lightly. ✸
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dario Miceli
Dario is the founder and editor-in-chief at Padel Magazine. With no experience in media or publishing he started Padel Mag with a bold dream: define padel in America by helping the sport grow. He’s probably working on his forehand volley somwhere in Brooklyn, NY.
