At the local level, the installation of padel in tennis clubs or in private commercial structures offering other activities such as futsal, but also the creation of private commercial structures offering only padel generate the structuring of a supply space of the padel.
About tennis and working around the concept of sports space, Faure and Suaud explain that “Through their facilities of unequal quality (covered or uncovered grounds, made of different materials, etc.), the clubs of a given city or region constitute a tennis supply area in which each club occupies a particular position and within which competition is organized for access to gambling [5]. »
The situation of padel looks similar.
In Rhône Alpes, for example, it is possible to see several tennis clubs setting up courts and a private commercial structure opening in 2018 (a private commercial structure closed at the end of 2017). Once again, if there are competition issues, cooperation projects are also emerging between associative clubs having only padel exterior and private merchant structure with covered grounds. This relationship between competition and cooperation and between different types of structures thus makes the space available for padel original and interesting to study.
This structuring of a space padel has also for consequence a transformation of the space of tennis, and more generally of the space of sports. By taking up Faure and Suaud's words, it is possible to see that tennis clubs investing in new equipment are moving within the tennis supply space.
Study the dissemination and institutionalization of padel, it is therefore to study the transformation of the world of tennis. It is also to study in a more global way the transformation of the sports world. The padel develops in commercial structures which modify the space in which practices are offered and develops alongside other disciplines such as futsal.
In recent months, the Five / urban soccer chain has set up in some of these complexes, next to the futsal pitches, padel. These new installations in addition to the specific structures padel and tennis clubs thus produce a diversity of places of practice, of associations between disciplines in the same place, and perhaps a diversity of relationships with different disciplines among practitioners.
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