Signs of a more mature market

Richard Shaw CEO, SAPCA

Just like every middle aged bloke, it seems, I’m on my own padel journey. Playing once a week, I’m slowly – very slowly – improving (2.7 for those in the know).

When our group first started playing, we searched the internet for anywhere close to us that “did padel”, without much success, or many options. The courts that we could find were booked up quickly by regular players and people like us wanting to try out the new sport. Had you given us an outdoor, instant padel court with plastic click flooring and perspex sides and we’d have happily paid you over the odds! Covered courts with a nice surface were only a dream.

Today, it’s a different story. As more centres and courts have been built, we’ve tried and tested several. Like everyone else, we’ve become informed consumers – making decisions about where we play, how much travelling is involved and what the cost is. This week, while driving home and organising the following week’s session, we discussed everything from the price of the court and how cold the centre was to the roof height and even the quality of the drinking water. The site we have settled on is an extra 20 mins drive, but we’re happy to do it, to get what we wanted.

A much greater focus is now being placed on building facilities that people want to be part of, rather than a necessity to play the sport

Conversations with padel operators recently have suggested that consumer choices – and therefore club differentiation – is shifting. The days of “build it and they will come” was only ever partly true and never had much longevity as supply caught up with demand. A much greater focus is now being placed on building facilities that people want to be part of, rather than a necessity to play the sport. Quality of courts, roof height and surfaces all have a significant impact on the playability of the game. As standards increase and players demand more, these are the factors that will have long term consequences for operators.

At SAPCA, in the early days of padel, we spent a lot of time trying to convince operators of the need for having good courts and good installations on the basis of player safety, performance and longevity. All true, all correct, of course – but we didn’t really talk about return on investment based on consumer preferences. Simply put, we don’t really talk that language with any other sport. This is because the growth of padel has been very different to anything we have seen – it has been rapid because of its appeal to private capital. The lexicon of the sport is different, more entrepreneurial and more sensitive to differentiation of clubs.

The choices of consumers and the longer term prospects of padel as a sport, have brought together more operators to focus on quality and consider the longer term implications of their investment. Long may this continue and, hopefully, bring much needed stability to the world of padel, both literally and figuratively!