The New York Times
By Adam Crafton
“I live in a community in Delray Beach, Florida. We had 14 tennis courts, two
padel courts and eight pickleball courts. We are now going to have four padel
courts, and the way that we can build those additional courts is by converting
tennis courts. The sport that is going to suffer at the expense of padel is
tennis.”
David Eisen, one of the newest investors in the North American Pro Padel
League (PPL), believes he is at the start of a revolution that will upend the
existing order of racket sports. Given he has just acquired the Los Angeles
Beat padel franchise, at a valuation of $10 million (£7.6m), it is probably in his
interests to say that — and for his community’s ratio of tennis courts to padel
courts to swing further in his favor.
Padel, played on an enclosed court using skills and rules that make it a kind of
hybrid of tennis and squash, is experiencing a wave of investment in the
United States, with PPL franchises being acquired at rising valuations. The
league currently comprises 10 teams in nine cities and one state: Toronto, San
Diego, New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Cancun, Los Angeles, Houston, Orlando
and Arkansas.
U.S. tennis player Frances Tiafoe, who is ranked inside his sport’s top 30,
recently became an adviser to the New York Atlantics PPL franchise, as part of
a funding round that the league said exceeded $2 million. The deal valued the
Atlantics at over $10 million, up from the $200,000 entry fee that franchises
paid to join the league in 2023.
Perhaps this explains Eisen’s buoyancy. “I see the league potentially growing
by leaps and bounds in valuations,” he told The Athletic.
Richard Nicolson, the president of the Miami team, pointed to other
burgeoning leagues for inspiration. “The numbers are astronomical. If you look
at MLS, the WNBA, emerging professional volleyball leagues, or professional
bull riding…”
For the uninitiated, Professional Bull Riders stages more than 200 live events
per year. ESPN reported that it reaches over 285 million households, in more
than 60 territories.