What is the fastest growing sport in the world?
Ice cream sales and the battle of the armrests.
Hi there,
If you happen to have access to some commercial real estate with high ceilings and/or a couple of million quid you could do a lot worse than open a padel club.
The sport is ballooning in popularity in the UK, as it is globally, with year-on-year growth at around 400% in participation terms (currently sitting at around 150,000). Yet there are only about 300 courts across the entirety of the UK. That works out at c.500 players per court. Tennis, on the other hand, works out at c.27 players per court.
You’ll need to decide whether you’re going for a members’ club vibe called something like The Padelington Club which costs a fortune to develop and run but attracts high margins or a more rough and ready approach, potentially on an industrial estate with a microbrewery as the hospitality offering. You could call that one Blazing Padels or Padel Industries.
Anyway, just a thought. Each court costs about £30k to put in so you might need a small loan of £1 million and planning permission is a nightmare, but it seems like a solid bet over the next 5-10 years.
Without a padel,
Hugo
Chief Racketeer
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