How padel courts became a must-have for upscale hotels and members’ clubs
Professional padel is having its moment in the London sun this week as the capital plays host to an event on the top-tier Premier Padel tour for the first time.
The driving force behind its recent stratospheric growth not just in the UK but across Europe, the Middle East and North America, however, is its popularity as a participation sport.
So much so that padel courts are rapidly replacing tennis courts and golf courses as the sports facilities of choice for high-end hotels and members’ clubs across the country.
“It felt like an obvious thing to do,” Chris King, founder of Crafted at Powdermills, a “life-friendly” members’ club and hotel which opened in East Sussex late last year, tells Morning Wire.
King fell in love with the racket sport, a mix of tennis and squash, while living in Spain. “I wanted to introduce the game to people here, and when I’ve been looking for places to birth Crafted I’m always looking where the padel courts go rather than where tennis courts go.
“The barriers to entry for young and old are so much lower. I think it delivers a bit more joy on a pound for pound basis, and obviously from a real estate perspective, you can fit four padel courts on the size of two tennis courts.”
While padel’s growth has been dizzying – the UK passed 1m players this year – its urban concentration means that millions more may not have even heard of it, let alone played.
That makes it a good fit for Crafted, where there is an emphasis on leaving the daily grind behind and trying something new, whether it is wild swimming, pottery making or padel.
“We’ve encouraged members who’ve maybe joined for the gym, studio, workspace, social life, sauna, lake and everything else – they’re now trying padel and falling in love with it,” says King.
“We’ve got Saturday morning mix-ins and all our socials are very, very popular. People are now having to book those because they’re getting full very quickly.”
Padel muscling in on tennis and golf
King, who is backed by Swiss private equity firm Limestone Capital, plans to make padel a core part of future Crafted outposts across the country and in Europe.
The sport is also an increasingly popular offering for corporate groups on away days or short breaks due its sociability, ease of play and broadly equal appeal to men and women.
“If you go to any corporate golf day, I guarantee, unless it is highly, highly curated towards a female audience, there will be 90 per cent men there,” he adds
“Often when we’re curating these programs for people, we’ll have a choice of things, and people can either go and do something in the sauna and the lake, and something around wellness. They can go and play padel. They can then do something in the craft barn.”
At just over an hour from the City, Crafted has an obvious appeal to London corporates and King is keen to attract those seeking a different and highly flexible getaway.
“As a new business that’s trying to build its reputation, you’ll find us very eager to please and very user friendly,” he says.
“I think there’s a lot of very established hotels that are like, ‘No, you can’t do that’. We’re bending over backwards to say yes wherever we possibly can. Provided it’s not illegal or immoral, generally the answer will be yes.”
