After studying the issues surrounding the padel market, we are going to focus on a new topic today: the sporting career of padel players in France. Indeed, it is finally appropriate to ask where do the 500 practitioners listed by the FFT and who they are. We will first look at participants from other sporting disciplines.

The strong presence of tennis players

When padel arrived in Spain, the tracks were integrated into the tennis clubs, and these are therefore tennis players of these clubs which were the first practitioners. In France, we can make the same hypothesis. Padel arrived in the south of France and it was the players from the surrounding tennis clubs who were quickly attracted by this innovative practice similar to tennis.

Padel has therefore been included in the tennis family with the aim of offering a diversified and innovative offer in clubs. We can see that the first target audience of padel is none other than tennis players, who by their technical and/or geographical proximity are the most likely to discover padel. In fact, this is one of the reasons why The Ministry of Sports has delegated the management of padel to the FFT.

The questionnaire survey carried out among practitioners in the Orléans area confirms an overrepresentation of tennis players. Among the 202 individuals questioned, 58,9% declared tennis as sport they have already practiced, and 31,2% still play tennis today. These statistics show that almost 6 out of 10 players have already played tennis in their life and that almost A third of the practitioners surveyed still play tennis and padel in parallel today.

The particularity of the padel offer of the territory is that two of the three padel clubs are integrated and neighbors of a tennis club. The structuring of these two padel offers means that any tennis player coming to practice in his club, will necessarily be led to see and pass by padel courts. Therefore, by the passage of individuals, the communication of the clubs and the word of mouth phenomenon, we can deduce that These tennis players have a high probability of one day trying padel.

We find through several examples specific to the survey territory a common idea, that of starting the activity of the clubs by attracting the players most able to appreciate the discipline given the technical proximity. The FFT encourages the installation of padel courts in tennis clubs in order to retain licensees.

But if this observation corresponds to the policies of launching padel in France, is padel today so over-represented by a population coming from tennis? Aren't the clubs looking to diversify the profiles of practitioners by attracting athletes from other disciplines and with whom padel can be complementary ?

The arrival of new profiles

During the year 2021, we were able to see that many investments and action plans were launched to increase the number of padel courts in France, in order to meet increasing demand. However, when we talk about the massification of a sporting practice, it also appears the arrival of new profiles of practitioners. The subject here is sporting origin of the latter. If tennis clubs offering padel have participated in an over-representation of tennis players among padel players, a phenomenon of accessibility from padel to all sports profiles has appeared.

Jérôme Arnoux conducts a survey among listeners of Padel Magazine on the coupling of padel with other sports. The results show that two thirds of respondents do not see any disadvantages from the moment the quality of the padel courts is assured. In his analysis, the journalist concludes that: “ Combining padel with other sports allows for the diversification of the sporting origins of the participants, but also poses the problem of differences between sports (noise, population, codes of conduct, etc.)". A challenge then emerges for leaders to ensure good cohabitation.

In France, it is common to see an association of padel with other sports such as badminton, squash, 5-a-side football and tennis mainly. If the association with other racket sports may seem justified, the coupling with 5-a-side football is a rather daring bet. Indeed, the profiles of practitioners between a popular sport in the suburbs and another that is managed by a tennis federation, a sport with a rather noble and expensive reputation, are not very similar. On the other hand, these associations that we are talking about here are in favor of a democratization of padel, even if it is still too early to speak of a large-scale democratization.

This phenomenon relates to the ways in which practitioners know about padel, which we were able to analyze with the survey questionnaire. The ambition of these clubs is to bring together athletes who were originally quite different but who will then be led to cross paths and A 5-a-side football player, for example, might be tempted to try padel.. 

Representative histogram of the discovery modes of the padel players surveyed

We note on this subject that the word of mouth and transmission by relationships are the main ways of spreading padel. Attracting other audiences to the heart of padel centers will thus allow them to visually confront the padel courts and potentially make them want to try.

In addition, 100% padel clubs or those only offering racket sports will try to diversify their audience by doing initiations or events with associations of different disciplines. For example, during an internship carried out at 4Padel from Orléans-Fleury, I was able to observe the temporary arrival of football clubs, a fencing association, basketball players, and agreements are regularly made with the clubs to offer reduced prices. 

We must also not neglect the non-sporting, people who don't do much sport but who discover padel during business seminars or organized events. Corporate sport is a hot topic with numerous actions being implemented to offer moments of cohesion between employees around a sporting activity. For this, companies generally look for a sport that suits everyone and where any individual can do whatever their technical or physical qualities.

Assessment of the origins of practitioners

So, if padel was originally widely practiced by tennis players, the increase in the number of fields, clubs and therefore players has meant that Padel has become known to other sports and non-sports profiles. The survey questionnaire carried out asks participants about their past and current sporting practice.

If you tennis appears first in both cases, we find just behind the Football which has already been practiced by 50% of padel players. Then, we find in order the table tennis (16,3%), the basketball (13,9%), activities related to running (13,9%) or even the judo (12,4%). If we look at the activities practiced today, in parallel with padel, we find tennis (31,2%), activities related to running (17,8%), football (13,4%), activities related to fitness (9,9%) and the golf (8,4%).

We therefore find as many athletes from racket sports, team sports that of individual sports practiced freely. Note also the presence among the respondents of pure padel players, that is, athletes who started the sport with padel (3,2%). We can therefore observe that this sport brings together different profiles of practitioners and even attracts less sporty individuals.

Paul Dornberger

In a series of articles, Paul Dornberger shares his research dedicated to the development of padel. This confirmed player in France carried out a study work supported in April 2024 as part of his Master in Sports Management at the UFR STAPS in Nantes.

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