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While I was hesitant at first about comparing tennis and padel in terms of popularity (because it felt like a no-brainer), I am glad I did. Otherwise, I would have not found some of these promising trends.
Tennis is currently more popular and a bigger sport than padel in terms of the number of players, market size, and exposure. However, the global padel market size grows faster than the tennis market and there are more padel players than tennis players in Spain, Argentina, and Sweden.
As I have defined popularity along these three dimensions in other articles when comparing padel and squash, I continue to do so in order to make it comparable. While I do find there are definitely promising trends for padel, this is a longer article and I want to make it worth your time.
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Padel vs Tennis : Number of players
Globally there are around 18 million active padel players, mainly played in Europe and Pan America. There are 87 million tennis players and IFT, the governing body of tennis has set the objective to reach 120 million tennis players by 2030
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For the ones that checked out my other article comparing squash and padel, you noticed I made the case that the number of players that are required to play the game needs to be taken into consideration along with the number of courts in order to draft a conclusion about the popularity. In our comparison between padel and tennis, this is lesser of an issue since squash is a singles game and padel is a doubles game, but tennis can be played as a singles or doubles game. Sure, there are singles’ padel courts, but these courts are mainly used for practice or kids.
Pan America
The US has the largest number of tennis players in the world, with over 21.6 million in 2021. Also, the number of tennis courts almost tripled between 2018 and 2021, resulting in 214,368 tennis courts! This means that in the US there are 100 tennis players per tennis court, supporting 2 hours of 50 singles games and 4 hours of 50 doubles games on a weekly basis. This is assuming that the tennis courts are open seven days a week from 8 am to 10 pm.
in the US there are 100 tennis players per tennis court, supporting 2 hours of 50 singles games and 4 hours of 50 doubles games on a weekly basis.
The same cannot be said about the availability of padel courts and the number of padel players in this region. There were only around 10,000 players and 160 padel courts in 2021. However, the US recognizes the potential of padel and is heavily investing in the sport. The United States Padel Association has set its ambition to reach 8 million padel players in the US and have a total of 30,000 courts by 2030.
Argentina is the main representative in Pan America when it comes to padel. In Argentina alone are already 2 million padel players and 4900 padel courts. The number for tennis looks very similar since there were 1.8 million tennis players and 4,941 tennis courts.
The number of padel courts is also growing in Mexico, Chili and Paraguay. Let’s take Mexico for example. In 2020, 1,200 new padel courts were built, while there were over 2,500 new tennis courts constructed in the period between 2018 and 2021.
Ultimately there is a large discrepancy between tennis and padel in Canada and Brazil. Around 2.2 million Canadians and 2.6 million Brazilians played tennis in 2021, while hardly anyone played padel. Next to that, there were 8,630 tennis courts in Canada, compared to only 10 padel courts.
Europe
Let me start with a staggering fact, in 2021 there were 3.5 million padel players in Spain alone! If we compare this against the population of 47.4 million, this means that 7.4% of all Spanish people play padel during that year. These people can only play if there are sufficient padel courts available of course. When we only take the Spanish padel players into consideration, there is one padel court available for 250 players (or 63 groups of 4 players). This means that on average, you can play 1.5 hours a week (assuming courts are open seven days a week from 8 am to 10 pm).
Although this number is not as big in the rest of Europe, there were still 500,000 players in Italy and 540,000 in Sweden in the same year. To make it comparable, in the UK and Finland were 10,000 padel players and 55,000 players respectively.
Sweden, Finland, and Spain have more padel courts than tennis courts, which is proof that padel is a growing sport. So how many tennis players and tennis courts are there in these countries, you might ask? Well, as in padel, Spain is the leading European country when it comes to tennis as well. There are 3 million people that play tennis on 13,385 tennis courts. Next to Spain there is another European country where there are more padel players than tennis players. In Sweden, there were 400,000 tennis players (compared to 540,000 padel players) in 2021. When considering the top 41 countries with the most tennis players, more than half of the countries are in Europe. While this sounds impressive, it is even less than the number of players in the US and Canada combined.
Tennis is a big sport in general in Europe I would argue, however, padel is following suit and is especially becoming much more popular in Europe. And as a consequence, there is a big shift happening where club owners (partially) convert their tennis courts to padel courts.
If this topic interest you or you are a club owner… well, then you might want to check out this article where I give you practical examples of how many padel courts you can fit on a tennis court.
Oceania
In Oceania, the number of tennis players is slightly growing. According to the ITF, the number of tennis players has grown in Australia from 1.2 million in 2018 to 1.3 million in 2021. Surprisingly, the number of tennis courts has dropped slightly to over 17 thousand. In New Zealand, it has grown from 309,000 to 347,145 during the same period. While padel is becoming more popular globally, it is not a big sport yet in Oceania, since there are only 22 padel courts in Australia.
Globally there are 578,671 tennis courts and almost all are in Northern America, Europe, and Asia. However, Oceania is the continent with the lowest population per tennis court. This implies that it is easier to get a hold of a tennis court. But that is of course if there is a court nearby.
Africa and Asia
In total there were 34 million tennis players originating from Asia and Africa, while 97% of these players are from China, India, or Japan. While the US has the most tennis players in 2021, China was the second-largest country (in terms of the number of tennis players). In 2018 it was even the largest country in that respect.
As I have concluded while comparing padel and squash, padel is not a big sport in Asia and Africa, except for the Middle East. Many investors noticed the growth potential of padel and new padel courts were built to host global tournaments like WPT and Premier One. Besides Qatar, United Arab Emirates, also Egypt is investing in the construction of padel courts (350 courts in 2022) and venues in order to host tournaments.
In general, tennis and padel are played most often in Europe and Pan America, but tennis is much more widespread. This might be explained by the fact that tennis has been a well-established sport and has been around since the 16th century, while padel is a newer sport. Want to find out more about how the popularity of padel evolved, I am convinced you find value in this article.
Padel vs Tennis : Market size
The global padel market is valued at $198.5 million in 2021 and is expected to grow to $337.2 million by 2028. The tennis market is valued globally at $3.8 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to $4.4 billion by 2028.
The global tennis market size was 19 times as big as the padel market size. However, padel is expected to catch up and be ‘only’ 13 times as small as the tennis market. This might seem insignificant, but if you take into consideration that tennis is played worldwide and padel is only popular in fewer countries. then the increase can be seen as an actual boom for padel over tennis. Because after all, the tennis market is still expected to grow by around 2.2% per year.
More than 60% of the global market is owned by the five biggest racket sports manufacturers. These companies invest heavily in the growth of padel by expanding their product lines, such as rackets, balls, bags, shoes, clothing, and accessories. You might wonder what type of product line the manufacturers focus on. Let me give you a fun fact: Padel rackets contribute to over 90% of all padel products sold!
Is Padel More Popular Than Squash? : The stats explained
If we focus on the market size of tennis and compare this to padel on a national level, we find that tennis is more popular in the biggest markets (based on the population). Tennis is more popular in the US, demonstrated by the fact that the US market consists of 25% of the global market size in 2021. The US tennis market was valued at $941.2 million in 2021 and is expected to grow annually at 1.8%. As a result, the market is expected to grow to $1.1 billion in 2028. A big contribution to this growth is that more people tend to purchase tennis equipment online, rather than in a physical store.
Padel vs Tennis : Exposure
Tennis has more exposure compared to padel, since it is broadcasted all around the world and is a more established sport when it comes to worldwide media and recognition. Nevertheless, padel is catching up and is becoming more popular than tennis in several European and Latin American countries.
It is no secret that tennis gains much more worldwide exposure than padel. After all, tennis is part of the Olympics since 1896, whereas padel is not part of the Olympics. However, padel is part of the European Games, but you can read more about that in this article covering the evolution of padel.
Tennis is broadcasted all around the world and tournaments are played on all continents. Add the fact that the Grand Slams are already played on 3 continents and it becomes apparent that tennis has more global exposure. A quick refresher on where those Grand Slams take place. There is the US Open in New York (United States), the Australian Open in Melbourne (Australia), Wimbledon in London (United Kingdom), and Roland Garros in Paris (France).
Nowadays it is easier to get exposure than ever before through the internet and social media. Initiatives can reach a global audience and online broadcasting is more popular. Both Tennis and Padel use platforms like YouTube but also have their own platforms. For tennis there is TennisTV and in 2021 World Padel Tour made a similar move and created its own broadcasting platform World Padel Tour TV. Tennis is broadcasted in almost any country imaginable, while padel is broadcasted on several national TV stations.
Celebrities are also playing an important role in the growth of a sport. Think about the reach that professional tennis players and padel players have if they utilize their audience. All those fans and social media followers are influenced by messages that these players send into the world. How many people would be triggered to play tennis after they see their favorite player win? Millions if not billions of people around the world, if you would have asked me. Think about the greatest players of recent times like Rafael Nadal in Spain, Roger Federer in Switzerland, or Serena Williams in the United States. The same holds for padel players, like Fernando Belasteguín in Argentina and Alejandro Galán in Spain.
Nowadays, the promotional role of celebrities (in the broadest sense) is more apparent for padel than tennis, at least if you ask me. Nevertheless, many tennis players are part of commercials or have public-facing positions. For padel it feels more promotional because many celebrities are drawn to the sport and recognize the potential. Okay, let me substantiate my claim with some examples. Football players like Zinedine Zidane and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have opened their own padel clubs. Also in the Netherlands, numerous football players have invested in padel. Tennis player Andy Murray is involved in a company that is investing in a network of padel centers in the UK. As a result, these sports figures promote the growth of padel by encouraging their fans and followers to play the game as well.
Another important vehicle for expansion is sponsors and partnerships. While it seems obvious for racket brands in the padel or tennis market to partner with the tournament organizers, there are other companies (outside the industry) that invest in the sport as well. For example, the famous champagne brand, Moet and Chandon, became a sponsor of the ATP. Or think about other luxury brands such as Lacoste and Rolex that are associated with the sport. Numerous companies, albeit a car brand, beer brewery, or healthcare provider are investing in padel. In this article, I discussed the role of sponsors and partnerships in the growth of padel in greater detail.
Oh, and did I say that I wrote another article, where I compared padel and squash in terms of popularity along the same dimensions.
