Through the figures given by Google Trends, Padel Magazine compares searches for keywords “padel"And"tennis”In the different countries of padel. Developments that are supposed to reflect the state of padel in the world.
First of all, understand that the graphs you are going to see give us the evolution of interest in searching for these two keywords on Google, which give us popularity trends. These graphics alone are not enough to understand the situation of a sport in a country. That being said, we are trying, with the information we have, to analyze the evolution of this research, in countries where the padel already enjoys a good popularity rating.
Finally, we do not use these two keywords to oppose the padel in tennis, but for assess the notoriety of the padel compared to a sport popular around the world like tennis! En red tennis, riding a blue the padel.
Sweden: a boom, a real one!
We often come back to the Swedish figures, because it is the country that sets the benchmark in terms of growth in 2020.
In November 2019, the padel passed tennis, and today he is quite far ahead, with about 70% of requests in favour !
Google searches demonstrate the dynamic and the phenomenon visible throughout Sweden, with the creation of clubs padel gigantic, and the presence of ambassadors of choice such as Thomas Johansson, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, or Jonas Björkman.
The other Scandinavian countries like Sweden in a few years?
We don't talk much about the Finland, but since 2019, research on the padel have experienced a real boom, from there to passing tennis a few months ago. Today the two sports are neck and neck and the dynamics seem very interesting for the padel. From there to experiencing an explosion like the Swedish neighbor?
In Norway and Denmark, while the two sports are less popular than among Swedish and Finnish neighbors, the padel has been really getting closer to tennis for a few months!
Le padel in France is stagnating
Spain: more practitioners but fewer fans for the padel
Spain is still the country of padel. Despite the tennis fervor released in particular by national stars like Rafael Nadal, padel stays close to tennis since 2017, with passages where he has even managed to pass in front for two years.
Le padel, second most practiced sport in Spain behind football, follows a fairly linear curve, while tennis benefits from large research peaks, which correspond to professional competitions such as Roland Garros for example.
We understand that le padel is really a “leisure” sport in Spain, which mainly affects a population that likes to practice it without necessarily following professional competitions, when tennis has more fans!
Portugal, on the Spanish footprints?
In the other country of the Iberian Peninsula, the padel has taken on more and more importance recently. In 2020, the padel even exceeded tennis for the first time in number of requests.
The policy of padel at school established in Portugal should greatly contribute to the development of this sport, and create the talents of padel professional of tomorrow.
A new boom in Argentina?
We know that Argentina is a big country of padel, at the origin of a good number of innovations which today allow the padel to practice widely. The padel clearly developed there in the 90s, before losing popularity, in particular because it was considered too violent for the joints.
We were told a second wave of development in 2020, with a new boom, but we don't see it too much in the numbers. The sale of equipment padel was nevertheless 10 times higher to that of tennis in 2020, which seems to reflect a trend similar to that of Spain: many players from padel but more tennis fans.
Paraguay on the upward curve
We don't talk much about it, but Paraguay seems to be at the start of a good dynamic padel. It must be said that the country hosting the first two APT tournaments Padel Tour 2021, will have champions to identify with!
La PadelItalian mania?
Slowly but surely for a year, the padel is catching up against tennis. In recent months, the padel accounts for 1 third of tennis requests, which is a very good number in this tennis nation.
Despite the creation of many sites, and a phenomenon called the “PadelMania" by Italian journalists, including with football players completely fans of padel, the figures do not show a boom in research as may be the case in the Scandinavian countries ...
Belgium is historic
Belgium continues to develop padel with a sharp increase in the number of courts these last months.
Le padel even surpassed tennis in terms of research for the first time in late 2020.
Global analysis
The Tennis federations who have the padel, despite their firepower on paper, do not demonstrate for the moment that this is an asset for the padel. This is where there are big clubs that we see strong developments.
L'Argentina and Paraguay show their willingness to see more padel and we understand that the APT Padel Tour organizes many tournaments there! To meet this demand from aficionados, FIP has also decided to offer a tournament circuit on the American continent!
The Scandinavian countries seem to bet on large indoor structures that mix padel and fitness. This model works very well for them. The many exhibitions with stars of padel global seem to work to create fans!
Spain is the most mature market in terms of padel, and we realize that in this country which contains many great tennis players, the padel is very well established as a leisure sport. At Portugal, the new policy of padel in school already seems to be paying off.
En Italy, padel takes up more and more space; but don't seem to generate a lot of fans. Tennis still has a good margin in terms of popularity. Until when ? Skeptics will observe that it is a tennis federation which is at the head of the padel Italian.
En France, it is surprising that the number of requests today equals the number of requests in 2017. On paper, and if we compare with the other countries affected by the covid, France is the only country where the we see the figures of padel stagnate… We will come back to this shortly.
Team Padel Magazine tries to offer you since 2013 the best of padel, but also surveys, analyzes to try to understand the world of padel. From the game to the politics of our sport, Padel Magazine is at your service.
La France is by far the worst student in terms of number of share of requests between tennis and tennis. padel. It is even quite amazing because there are more and more clubs of padel and the wave padel is indeed there.
We create true fans of padel ? Is the FFT policy really effective? Should she free up this sport a little more? Should it trust more concretely the private structures which say they are increasingly taking a step back with the increase in the administrative involvement of the FFT? We will try to answer these questions shortly.