Padel – it's a hit

You’ve seen them – smallish astroturf courts enclosed by glass walls and fence panels. They’re padel courts, built for a sport that’s taking the world by storm.

Padel is the love child of tennis and squash, invented by a Mexican businessman in the 1960s. It’s played with a bat, and players are allowed to use the glass walls to rebound shots as in squash. The ball is similar to a tennis ball and scoring is the same as tennis. Padel has been popular in Latin America and Spain for decades, but recently its popularity has spread. It’s one of the fastest growing sports in the world and money is pouring into the top level of the game: Qatar Sports Investments, which owns football club Paris Saint-Germain, has invested heavily in the International Padel Federation (FIP), one of two rival associations fighting for dominance in the sport.  

The infrastructure comes at a cost. Depending on the level of groundwork required, a single court can cost as much as R850,000 to build. Which in turn makes playing padel a relatively expensive pursuit. The vast majority of facilities are privately owned and run, and courts and bats are rented out by the hour.

To evaluate the growth of padel in South Africa, we looked at transactions made by 22seven users on Playtomic, an aggregator platform that seems to be the default padel booking service.

Last year was clearly a boom period for padel in South Africa, with the number of 22seven users paying to play increasing by 14x. As more padel facilities are built in the major cities, this upward trend seems set to continue.

The growth in the number of people paying padel has not affected the average spend per user. Among the cohort sampled, median spend per user per month had a minor flutter in February and March, then remained stable at around R400. Assuming the court costs are shared and players hire bats, R400 equates to roughly two visits to a padel facility each month.

Whether it's the fast-paced action, the social aspect or the beginner-friendly nature of the sport, padel’s addictive qualities are without question. Clubs and retailers had better take note.

Thanks for reading. If there’s a sector of consumer spending you’d like to learn more about, get in touch and let us know.