Where will the padel in 6 months ? How many licensees will we have? We will try to make the numbers talk and find the trend for the next 6 months.

Of course, this is a projection which means that many things can evolve by then.

Remember that the padel lives unique hours in France and abroad with many sporting events and especially a number of clubs padel which continue to grow in Europe.

For many players in the padel, we are only at the beginning. And there are still many things to build and even to review. But was Rome built in 1 day?

The gentlemen make the difference

As is often the case in sport, the men boost the figures on the side of the number of licensees. We exceed 6.000 licensees and we would pass the 7.000 mark next December for men.

Unfortunately for the ladies, the gap is likely to widen despite the clubs' policies to invest in the padel ladies. We finally passed the milestone of 1000 licensees for girls ... But it's hard! And the evolution of the number of licensees seems weak in our 6-month projection if we are to believe the general trend.

Very recently we saw Tennis / Padel Club de Pau offer a P1000 ladies. Ascap Montbéliard is trying to boost the padel ladies by also offering a big padel. We can talk about the Spoon Center in Nevers and many other clubs offer events padel ladies. But didn't, “it's hard to develop ladies' competitions"Explain us many umpires.

Review of

7000 licensees in France in the padel, is that a good thing? A priori, not really, even if the clubs explain that there is a large majority of players from padel who are not licensed and some prefer to play tournaments padel internal to the club or to play at leisure.

Esprit's initiative Padel, the Lyon club, to create tournaments padel P100 approved but restrained by creating the P10 and P50 can increase the number of licensees. We see this kind of initiatives taken in clubs. Tennis / Padel Club de Pau had also carried out this type of tournament. Other clubs seem to be moving towards “padel leisure ”which could well arrange the affairs of the French Tennis Federation.

Why having licensees is important? Because it's a number that speaks a lot more than giving a global slice of numbers of players. The FFT needs to see its number of licensees increase to show that the sport is changing.

But the problem is that our Spanish neighbors tell us that the padel "is not necessarily a sport of licensees". with less 100.000 licensed for about 2.5 million practitioners, will our numbers of licensees really gain importance?

There is a culture of licenses in France, much more than on the peninsula and many players of padel come from tennis, so we could bet that the path taken by France will be different.

Gilles Fiolet

Gilles Fiolet discovered the padel 5 years ago in the Hauts de France and has been passionate about this sport since then, which he practices on the fields and in front of the streams. Consultant in the world of Data, he combines and has fun with his 2 passions to analyze the performance of padel in France, leagues and players. He does not despair of seeing his name appear one day in the best progressions of the year… Veteran category.

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