Instagram interview “the Face-to-Face” of Romain Taupin, former teacher of padel in Barcelona, ​​and founder of the website Padelonomics.

Romain Taupin wrote a very interesting article recently, concerning the state of play of the padel in France, you can find it HERE.

The popularity of indoor courts in France

When you start to like the game and to be more picky, the indoor removes the variables wind, sun, and you make sure you can play your game without a variable that can spoil a match or training. We are in an era where people want to have fun and they don't want to spend an hour and a half in the field being bothered by the wind or the sun. In France, there are many tennis players, with a competitive habit, who enjoy playing indoors.

In Spain, there is a large practice very oriented towards leisure, of people who are happy to take advantage of the padel for sunbathing outside, and who therefore prefer the outdoors.

Evolution of padel in France between public and private

There are 8 tennis clubs in France. 000 are really interesting for the padel. This large number of clubs, scattered throughout the territory, will allow the territory to be scattered with padel. In the years to come, there will be more clubs padel in the public than in the private. On the other hand, it will always be small clubs, small projects with 1 to 2 fields, because of a lack of means.

The private a contrario will offer large centers with 4-6 lots. Thus, even if there will be more clubs in the public, we will be on 50-50 in terms of number of fields.

Today there are more sections of padel in the public, it's roughly 60-40. It is therefore clear that the public is the growth vector of padel. In 2014, there was more private but today that has changed, and it will not start again in the other direction.

Private club closings

In a study I did in 2017, I said that the padel was difficult because demand and supply had to be created. The offer is to put land, and the offer is to explain to people what the padel. Even today many people believe that when we talk about padel we are talking about paddle boarding on the water. I said in 2017 that it was very complicated to create 100% padel. And the clubs that have closed, Central Padel in Lyon, the Spot'In in Rennes, were 100% clubs padel...

The 100% formula padel is very complicated because you have to introduce the sport while selling it. What in marketing hardly ever exists: we respond to a demand, but creating supply and demand is very difficult, especially since generally rents are very expensive for a sport that is just starting out. Often I think that the private sector has difficulties not because the public overshadows them, but because their business plans are very ambitious. A 100% padel with 10 or 000 € in rent, that's ambitious. Personally, I wouldn't put my money there ... It's possible when you own your premises, and position yourself as number 15 in a region.

Decrease in the number of sites between 2016 and 2018

The first heroes of padel, who started the business, had very high rents, I think, and got eaten up a bit by the competition. The pioneers started a first wave, and some don't exist anymore, but they've started a momentum and the second wave will be stronger.

Willingness to be responsible padel to the FFT and its action plan

My action plan was already to remove the FFT Padel Tour. I thought that this money was to be used for private clubs, which starved to death. I found it more coherent to use the money from the FFT Padel Tour to help the public and the private sector to create courses and set up animations.

The second plan concerned training: in France, it's a very tennis market, it's different to give lessons to someone who has already played tennis than to someone who is starting from zero. For a real beginner who doesn't know how to hold a racket, there is no need for great instructors. In France, teachers of padel play with other people who come from tennis, and often they get beaten up, so they don't have much legitimacy. There is a problem in France because the teachers learned at the same time as their pupils and therefore the pupils will say: “why would I take lessons with you since in the end we learned together”.

I had seen with Pablo Ayma, who was my trainer in Barcelona, ​​where Benjamin Tison trains, it was to create a method to retrain tennis players. It was to go much faster, because in France we already have lots of good tennis players, who have an awareness of their body and the handling of the racket which are much more advanced than in a novice.

So I was thinking of training teachers to retrain tennis players. I wanted to do a month-long training for them just to learn all of this. Tennis teachers who have 20 years of experience, know how to teach, know how to develop a player, they have the mental side, they have anatomical experience. To do a good job, they just need a month to say “how to recycle, how to learn padel ?”.

Two days I think it's too little, it's a task. One month allowed to give legitimacy.

The FFT and the association of private clubs

The TFF is lucky, and it does a lot of things well. the FFT Padel Tour highlights the padel, so it's positive. The FFT is powerful and it puts the padel forward, she communicates, and she helps the padel to develop. This does not prevent me from being in favor of the private parties to unite to have more weight in their dialogue with the FFT. But we are lucky to have a powerful Federation which gives us visibility both in France and internationally.

Private clubs take a lot of risks and they have to get back the money they produce. They really develop the padel, offer with the indoor of padel quality all year round. On training, they are better than the FFT, they are the ones who have all the greatest players, the greatest coaches. They need to unite to enhance and monetize it. And above all, they must have possession of the Roland-Garros from padel.
The FFT tried to buy back the Toulouse Open for a symbolic € 1. 80% of the FFT's budget is Roland-Garros. At padel it will be the same thing, the event will be the goose that lays the golden eggs, so the private sector must recover it to finance itself.

Today, as the market is small, a tennis club which has padel more quickly transforms its tennis players into padel, so that the private next door picks up players from padel, who will go to private clubs when they want better facilities. For the moment, the medium-term dynamic is in favor of private clubs. In the long run, when there are plenty of cheap tennis clubs, they might be bad, but for now we have to think about how to make the pie bigger. I think the tennis club is an opportunity for the private sector.

Xan is a fan of padel. But also rugby! And his posts are just as punchy. Physical trainer of several padel, he unearths atypical posts or deals with topical subjects. It also gives you some tips to develop your physique for the padel. Clearly, he imposes his offensive style as on the field of padel !

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