Analysis of the emergence of padel

[tabs type=”horizontal”][tabs_head][tab_title]Flavien Bouttet[/tab_title][/tabs_head][tab]Favien Bouttet is an associate researcher in the “Sport and Social Sciences” team at the University of Strasbourg. He conducts research on the transformations of the sports world and is currently working on the diffusion of padel in France.[/tab][/tabs]

The media interest in padel raises the sociologist's question of the socio-historical conditions of diffusion of this new discipline.

Invoked by Bourdieu at the end of the 1970 [4] years, socio-historical approaches to sport studying social contexts, institutional policies and the role of certain individual actors have been widely developed by researchers, particularly with regard to tennis [2].

The emergence of padel

This work can thus serve as a basis for understanding the way in which the Padel has emerged ?

How private structures like Casa Padel, but also traditional clubs and the French Tennis Federation have become involved in the discipline and are seeking to structure it? What groups or associations existed upstream? How could the media interest of recent months presented in the previous paragraph have existed? In terms of this last question, it should be noted that the spotlight on padel is also a spotlight on certain actors involved in the discipline.

Few articles are not accompanied by interviews of actors involved in the development of a structure, a media, or an associative project. These actors, some of whom are visible several times may appear as entrepreneurs of cause, or promoters to use the words of Samuel Julhe [3].

On the subject of martial arts, Julhe analyses in the processes of institutionalisation of disciplines a work of promotion which is also a work of distinction of the disciplines in relation to each other. The words of the promoters of padel refer to these two logics: to present a convivial, innovative practice, and to distinguish it, by these characteristics, from other practices and in particular from tennis.

All horizons are interested in padel

What may, however, appear as a significant nuance in the development of padel compared to the process of institutionalization of other disciplines studied by sociology and the history of sport is the particular morphology of the padel space.

The first part showed that the emergence of padel was taking place both in traditional associative tennis clubs benefiting from the support of local authorities, which in the majority of cases own the facilities, and in private commercial structures calling on private investments.

As a result, the promoters of the discipline have extremely varied profiles and trajectories.

Above all, their interests diverge. Exploratory interviews present cases of tennis teachers investing in padel to diversify their activity, of private executives with no connection to the sports world investing in commercial structures offering the practice of padel or organizing events, or even cases of leaders of the French tennis federation seeking to stop a decline in the number of licensees at the national level.

Common interests

As with the various players in a field [1], all of these players nevertheless have common interests. In particular, they need an increase in the number of players and resources invested in the discipline. During the first interviews conducted with some of these promoters (specialist journalist, tennis and padel teacher, manager of an events company, teacher trainer), it appears that they all prefer to put forward ideas of cooperation rather than competition between the various players, both individual and institutional. It should also be noted that many of these padel promoters know each other and exchange ideas with each other, meeting at events. They thus create a form of network of padel promoters on a national scale.

[1] Bourdieu, P. (1984), How can we be athletic, in Question of sociology, (173-195), Paris: Éditions de Minuit.

[2] Waser, AM (2004), Sociology of tennis. Genesis of a crisis (1960-1990). Paris, L'harmattan; Juhle, S. (2009), Japanese martial practices in France. Institutionalization of disciplines and professionalization of teaching, Acts of research in social sciences, 179, 92-111. Defrance, J. (1989), A sport schism [Structural cleavages, splits and oppositions in athletic sports, 1960-1980], social science research, 79, 76-91.

[3] Op. Cit.

[4] Bourdieu, P. (1984). Some properties of the field, in Sociology issues (113-120). Paris: midnight editions.

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovered padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since then, padel has been part of his life. You often see him touring France to cover major French padel events.