How executives at the ATP, WTA, UEFA, and more stay on top of all news in sports business

Daily Playbook delivers the must-know headlines on deals, investments, and power moves shaping sports business – 5 minutes, every weekday for free.

 → Subscribe for free to stay on top

Hello dear readers, friends, and racket sports enthusiasts.

Growth Is Easy. Making It Work Is Harder.

Racket sports continue to enjoy extraordinary momentum. Courts are busy, new facilities are opening, participation is climbing and investors are paying attention. But throughout this month’s Racket Business, one question keeps surfacing: does growth automatically make for a good business?

October’s issue looks beyond the participation headlines to examine the economics, accessibility and business models shaping tennis, padel, pickleball and squash.

We start with the US Open, where Rich Neher asks some uncomfortable questions about ticket prices, celebrity culture and who major tournaments are really being built for. That theme continues at Wimbledon, where 2027 ticket prices are rising by more than 15%, with the most expensive seats reaching £400. Rising prize money and event costs provide some explanation — but could one of tennis’s greatest occasions eventually become unaffordable for the ordinary fan?

There are equally important questions being asked away from the Grand Slams.

Can you build a successful tennis club without actually owning a tennis court? We speak to the founders of Network Ace, whose unusual model combines public courts, local hosts and technology to create a tennis community that can effectively travel with its members.

The economics of professional tennis also come under scrutiny. The WTA is attracting record crowds and distributing record prize money, yet reports suggest it could post a $23 million operating loss in 2026. It is a fascinating contradiction — and one with lessons for businesses throughout racket sports.

Then there’s padel, where the numbers are becoming impossible to ignore.

We examine Britain's padel boom through the data, investigate the remarkable claim that 92% of players come back, and ask whether retention rather than acquisition could ultimately be the number that matters most to operators.

But rapid growth brings its own risks. In America, $100-plus court bookings and increasingly luxurious facilities raise the question of whether padel is becoming a mass-participation sport or a premium lifestyle product. In London, courts cost 79% more than in Northern Ireland despite almost half still being uncovered.

We also look at one of the industry's most contentious questions: is padel taking courts away from tennis? England has lost 183 tennis courts since 2023 as padel has expanded rapidly, but perhaps the more interesting business question is whether padel could actually help traditional tennis clubs become stronger — and what happens to standalone padel venues when today's extraordinary growth eventually begins to mature.

Elsewhere, there are lessons from a thriving Aberdeen Squash & Racketball Club turning over half a million pounds a year, analysis of what the US Open can teach us about player performance, Gary Horvath's assessment of the past, present and future of racket sports, and Andy Whipp on the difficult business of scheduling live sport.

Pickleball takes us considerably further afield as The Pickleball Passport shows how the sport is becoming a reason to travel, while our regular coverage brings together the latest industry news, technology, retail trends, facilities, management thinking, podcasts, publications and developments from across the global racket sports business.

And finally, we're putting some of that thinking into practice ourselves.

This month sees the introduction of Racket Business Retention, our new service helping tennis, padel and pickleball clubs use the customer data they already have to improve participation, repeat bookings, renewals and customer lifetime value.

Because perhaps that is the real theme running through this entire issue.

Racket sports don't have a growth problem right now. The challenge is turning that growth into businesses, clubs and communities that are sustainable, accessible and still thriving when the boom inevitably becomes business as usual.

If you have insights, ideas, or industry experience to share, we invite you to contribute to RacketBusiness — because the conversations that shape our sport start with voices like yours. 👉 Write for RacketBusiness

See you courtside,

Rich & Tim (Learn more about us)

^{P.S. If ever you can’t find Racket Business in your inbox, check your spam folder. And please mark this address as ‘not spam.’ If you’re using Gmail: On mobile, please tap the three dots in the top right and select “move to” and then “primary.” On desktop, please drag this email into your “primary” folder. If you’re using Apple mail: please select our email address and then select “Add to VIPs.” This will ensure you get the email each month.}

From inside the lines…

An exclusive series of short features, only available to newsletter subscribers, from the owner’s of Racket Business. This month…

Why Racket Sports Needs a Stronger Business Ecosystem

The first Racket Sports Business Expo offered a useful reminder that the long-term growth of tennis, padel and pickleball will depend on much more than participation numbers and new courts.

There has understandably been a lot of excitement around the growth of racket sports over the past few years, particularly when it comes to padel and pickleball, and most of the headlines have focused on participation numbers, new facilities and the amount of investment coming into the sector.

Those are all important measures, but spending a day at the inaugural Racket Sports Business Expo at Sywell Aerodrome in the UK this week was a useful reminder that there is another part of the equation which doesn't receive quite as much attention.

If these sports are going to continue growing, they also need a healthy and increasingly professional industry sitting behind them.

Racket Business partnered with the Expo because we believe there is real value in creating more opportunities for the people working within racket sports to meet, exchange information and, importantly, learn from people working in other parts of the industry.

The event brought together operators, coaches, equipment companies, court builders, technology providers, facility specialists and other suppliers from across tennis, padel, pickleball and squash, alongside a seminar programme looking at subjects including AI and technology, the development of padel, multi-sport facilities and the changing business of coaching.

It was the breadth of those conversations, rather than any particular product or presentation, that was probably the most interesting aspect of the day.

Growing quickly means learning quickly

The UK racket sports market is changing remarkably quickly. Tennis remains huge, while padel has grown from around 15,000 British players in 2019 to more than one million today, according to the LTA, with more than 1,800 courts now operating across the country. Pickleball has also developed rapidly, with increasingly large events, more organised competition and a growing commercial sector appearing around the sport.

With that growth comes a whole new set of business questions.

Where should facilities be built? What should operators charge? Which booking systems work best? How should venues attract customers and, perhaps more importantly, keep them? How many courts does a viable venue need? What makes a good coaching programme? Which equipment, surfaces and technology actually work?

There is a danger, particularly in rapidly expanding industries, that hundreds of businesses end up trying to answer exactly the same questions independently.

That is one reason why B2B events and specialist industry information become more important as a sector grows. They provide opportunities for somebody considering their first padel development, for example, to speak to someone who has already built five of them, or for a tennis club thinking about becoming a multi-sport venue to learn from a club that has already been through that process.

Some of the most useful exchanges at an event like this aren't necessarily happening during a seminar. They happen when a court builder talks to a club operator, a software company listens to a coach explaining how its product is actually being used, or two businesses discover that they have been trying to solve the same problem in different ways.

We can learn much more from each other

The other encouraging aspect of bringing several racket sports together is that the commercial boundaries between them are becoming increasingly blurred.

Tennis, padel and pickleball naturally have their own governing bodies, competitions, cultures and communities, but many of the businesses serving them no longer fit neatly into one category. Court companies work across several sports, booking platforms are increasingly multi-sport, coaches are diversifying, equipment manufacturers are entering new categories and traditional tennis clubs are adding padel and pickleball.

The players themselves are crossing those boundaries too. The LTA estimates that around two-thirds of Britain's padel players also play tennis.

There is therefore a lot to be gained from looking beyond our own particular corner of the racket sports industry.

Tennis has decades of experience in areas such as club management, coaching, competition and participation programmes. Padel has developed some interesting approaches to pay-and-play facilities, online booking, social competition and customer experience, while pickleball has shown just how powerful community, accessibility and relatively low barriers to entry can be in growing a sport.

Rather than seeing everything through the prism of competition between sports, there is an opportunity to ask what each can learn from the others.

Suppliers are part of the growth story

The Expo also demonstrated just how large the ecosystem behind racket sports is becoming.

When somebody books a court and plays for an hour, there is an extraordinary number of businesses potentially involved in making that simple experience possible. Somebody built and surfaced the court, another company provided the lighting, nets, rackets and balls, while other businesses may be providing the booking system, payment processing, access control, insurance, coaching software or CRM.

As the market grows, having a competitive and innovative supplier base becomes increasingly important. Operators need choices, suppliers need competition and new businesses need opportunities to challenge established ways of doing things.

That is particularly relevant in padel and pickleball because so much of the commercial infrastructure is still being developed. The decisions being made now about facilities, technology, coaching, equipment and customer experience could influence how those sports operate for many years.

Building the industry around the sports

There is also an important role here for industry media and information platforms, which is obviously something close to our hearts at Racket Business.

A rapidly growing sector needs somewhere to share what is working and, just as importantly, what isn't. It needs research, data, trade events, newsletters, conferences, professional networks and places where people can challenge some of the assumptions that inevitably emerge during a period of rapid expansion.

This doesn't mean every idea needs to be celebrated or that every new padel or pickleball business is going to succeed. Quite the opposite. A healthy B2B environment should make it easier to have conversations about mistakes, failed business models and lessons learned, because sharing those experiences should ultimately lead to better businesses.

That may be one of the most valuable roles that events such as the Racket Sports Business Expo can play as they develop.

The growth of racket sports in Britain has created a considerable commercial opportunity, but participation alone won't guarantee that the businesses built around that growth will be successful.

For tennis, padel and pickleball to make the most of the current momentum, we need good operators, good coaches and good facilities, but we also need strong suppliers, better information, useful technology and more opportunities for people from different parts of the industry to meet and exchange ideas.

The first Racket Sports Business Expo felt like another useful step in building that wider ecosystem, and perhaps the biggest opportunity is not simply to create stronger individual sports, but a more connected racket sports industry that is prepared to learn from itself.