Tennis Is Not Losing To Padel — But The Padel Business Model May Be About To Face Its Biggest Test

There is a statistic currently attracting plenty of attention across the British racket sports industry.

England has lost 183 tennis courts since 2023, the first recorded decline of its kind since at least 2000, while over roughly the same period the number of padel courts has increased from just 382 to more than 2,200.

Padel participation has followed an equally extraordinary trajectory, rising from only 15,000 players in 2019 to 129,000 in 2023, 400,000 in 2024, 860,000 at the end of 2025 and one million by May 2026.

Put those numbers alongside each other and there is an obvious headline: padel is booming and tennis is paying the price.

Racket Business isn't convinced.

In fact, the conversion of the right tennis courts into padel courts could prove to be one of the best things that happens to Britain's traditional tennis clubs.

Look beyond the number of tennis courts

Consider the experience of one established UK racket sports club which was an early adopter of padel.

Several years ago, the club took the then relatively radical decision to replace two outdoor tennis courts with three padel courts.

It wasn't an entirely straightforward journey. Like a growing number of padel developments across the UK, the club subsequently encountered significant issues surrounding noise and the impact on nearby residents, highlighting something the industry has since become acutely aware of: simply because it is physically possible to build a padel court somewhere doesn't necessarily make it an appropriate location.

Commercially, however, the decision proved extremely successful.

The loss of two tennis courts did not materially damage the existing tennis operation, while padel attracted new players and members into the venue, diversified its offering and created valuable incremental revenue.

Most significantly, the club has subsequently recorded its best ever year for both revenue and profit.

That example should make the racket sports industry think carefully about what we actually mean when we talk about tennis "losing" courts.

A court is an asset.

The important business question isn't simply whether TENNIS or PADEL is written above the entrance. It is how intensively that asset is being used, how many people it attracts, how much revenue it generates and whether it contributes towards the long-term sustainability of the facility surrounding it.

If two underutilised tennis courts become three busy padel courts, introduce hundreds of new customers to a racket sports venue and help make the overall club financially stronger, has tennis really lost?

183 courts sounds dramatic — until you look at the bigger picture

Context is important.

The loss represents less than 1% of England's tennis court stock and essentially takes provision back to 2018 levels. Tennis courts still outnumber padel courts by approximately 11 to one.

More importantly, the direct displacement of tennis by padel appears relatively modest.

There has been a net loss of 77 tennis courts at venues which have added padel since 2023, while the LTA says changes in Sport England's tennis court data since the beginning of 2024 represent just 0.7% of all courts. According to the governing body, only 0.3% of courts have actually been replaced by padel.

The LTA also makes an important distinction about the courts disappearing:

That is crucial.

Britain's racket sports infrastructure problem isn't necessarily that it has too few outdoor tennis courts.

There is a reasonable argument that the country has too many poorly utilised outdoor tennis courts and nowhere near enough indoor tennis capacity capable of delivering reliable year-round participation.

Those are very different problems.

An ageing outdoor court receiving relatively little use isn't automatically a strategically important tennis asset simply because it happens to exist.

If converting it to padel dramatically increases participation and creates revenue which can be reinvested into the wider facility, protecting the court at all costs starts to look less like safeguarding tennis and more like protecting infrastructure for infrastructure's sake.

These aren't two separate groups of customers

One of the most important statistics in this debate is that the LTA estimates around two-thirds of Britain's one million padel players also play tennis.

That should fundamentally alter how clubs think about the relationship between the sports.

Tennis and padel are routinely presented as competitors fighting over players, land and investment.

Consumers don't necessarily see it that way.

Someone can play tennis on Tuesday and padel on Friday without having to decide which sport they "belong" to.

For racket sports operators, that crossover creates a significant commercial opportunity.

The same customer can potentially consume tennis, padel, coaching, competitions, social events, food and beverage, equipment and other services within the same venue.

Padel can also provide a relatively accessible entry point into racket sports.

One player quoted in the wider debate described padel as “a bit easier on the body” and “a really great way to meet people”, while beginners can generally reach the point of enjoying competitive rallies relatively quickly.

That social accessibility is one of padel's greatest strengths.

It could also be one of the reasons why traditional tennis and multi-racket clubs eventually become among the best places for padel to thrive.

The real question is where we're building padel

Racket Business is considerably less concerned about a relatively small number of tennis courts being converted to padel than it is interested in the enormous wave of standalone commercial padel facilities appearing across Britain.

Retail parks, industrial estates, warehouses, temporary developments and other repurposed commercial spaces have all become part of the padel landscape.

These operators have played an enormously important role in the sport's expansion. Without private investment and rapid court construction, padel simply could not have grown at its current rate.

And right now the commercial proposition can be extremely attractive.

But businesses shouldn't be built solely around today's demand curve.

Padel cannot continue growing exponentially forever.

Eventually court supply will move closer to demand, the novelty factor will diminish, consumers will have more choice and competition between operators will intensify.

At that point, the proposition surrounding the court could become just as important as the court itself.

The question investors and operators should therefore be asking isn't simply:

How many padel courts can we build?

It is:

Why will customers choose our padel courts when there are plenty of others available?

Will players still pay £40 an hour to play next to Burger King?

Consider two hypothetical padel businesses five years from now.

The first is a standalone facility on a retail park. It has six excellent courts, changing facilities and perhaps a café. Customers arrive, play for 90 minutes and leave.

The second is an established racket sports club.

It offers tennis and padel — potentially pickleball and squash as well — alongside coaches, teams, leagues, junior programmes, tournaments, a clubhouse, food and beverage, social events and an established community of members.

Which has the more defensible long-term business model?

During the current growth phase, when finding a convenient padel court at the right time can itself be difficult, availability can trump almost everything.

That won't necessarily remain the case.

When consumers have plenty of courts from which to choose, community, programming and experience become differentiators.

Will players still want to pay £40 an hour to rent a court between Burger King and Pets at Home?

Or will they increasingly prefer somewhere where racket sports players congregate, friendships develop, competitions are organised, children can learn to play and their 90-minute booking becomes part of a broader sporting and social experience?

Nobody yet knows the answer.

But anyone investing significant money into the next generation of UK padel facilities should probably be asking the question.

Community could become padel's economic moat

Traditional racket sports clubs possess something that is remarkably difficult for a new commercial operator to manufacture quickly: community.

In some cases it has taken 50, 75 or even 100 years to create.

That community rarely appears on a balance sheet, but commercially it can be extraordinarily valuable.

Members form friendships, their children learn to play, they join teams, enter competitions, stay for drinks, volunteer, attend events and gradually develop an emotional connection with the venue.

That creates retention.

Retention creates lifetime customer value.

And lifetime customer value creates sustainable businesses.

Padel's inherently social characteristics should make it exceptionally well suited to this environment.

Four players share the court, barriers to entry are relatively low and the game naturally encourages interaction before, during and after play.

There is therefore an interesting irony developing within the market.

A sport whose rapid expansion is currently attracting enormous investment into standalone pay-to-play venues may ultimately discover that one of its most sustainable homes is the traditional racket sports club.

Stop protecting courts and start optimising facilities

None of this means tennis clubs should indiscriminately remove courts and replace them with padel.

Demand has to dictate the decision.

A thriving tennis club operating at capacity would clearly be foolish to sacrifice heavily used courts simply because padel happens to be growing quickly.

But keeping chronically underused courts simply because we've always been a tennis club isn't much of a strategy either.

Club boards should be examining utilisation much more closely.

How many hours is each court actually occupied? What revenue does it generate? What does it cost to maintain? Could the same footprint accommodate more commercially productive facilities? How much incremental membership might padel create? Would those customers subsequently consume coaching, tennis, food and beverage or other club services?

And perhaps most importantly:

Could revenue generated by padel ultimately help fund better tennis?

That is a considerably more sophisticated conversation than asking whether padel is stealing tennis courts.

Tennis isn't exactly collapsing

There is another problem with presenting this as the rise of padel at the expense of tennis: tennis participation itself is performing strongly.

The LTA says participation is at record levels, while more than 3,000 public park courts have been refurbished as part of major investment into grassroots tennis.

Meanwhile padel development is spreading beyond a handful of affluent areas.

Since 2023, 39 courts have been added in Sheffield, 38 in North Yorkshire and 36 each in Leeds and Cheshire East.

Despite perceptions of padel as an affluent sport — particularly when some courts can cost close to £100 per hour — provision has also reportedly been relatively evenly distributed between more affluent and deprived neighbourhoods.

This shouldn't have to become a zero-sum contest for players, courts or investment.

Indeed, the increasingly interesting model is the multi-racket facility, where tennis, padel and potentially pickleball coexist rather than compete.

The first padel boom was about courts. The next will be about clubs.

The first stage of Britain's padel revolution had one overriding requirement:

Build courts.

The second stage will be much more complicated:

Build sustainable businesses around them.

That means coaching programmes, competitions, junior pathways, retention strategies, secondary spend, events, social programming and, above all, community.

Traditional racket sports clubs already possess much of that infrastructure.

There are already examples in Britain where tennis clubs have sacrificed a small amount of existing court capacity for padel, maintained healthy tennis participation, attracted a new customer base and strengthened their overall financial performance.

Rather than viewing the loss of 183 tennis courts as evidence of an existential battle between two sports, perhaps the industry should be examining what those courts have become and whether the facilities surrounding them are healthier as a result.

Because the really interesting question isn't whether Britain will have more tennis courts or padel courts in ten years' time.

It's what kind of racket sports venues people will actually want to belong to.

When padel's explosive growth eventually settles into a more mature market, the biggest competitive advantage might not be having the newest courts, the cheapest booking app or the most convenient retail-park location.

It might simply be having a club people don't want to leave.