The most valuable thing about the recently published Playtomic Global Padel Report 2026 isn’t what it tells us about padel….it’s what it tells us about how to read industry reports.
I spend an unhealthy amount of time reading racket sports research. PLAYTOMIC. International Padel Federation. Tennis Europe. (USTA) United States Tennis Association/SFIA – Sports & Fitness Industry Association. SportBusiness. Operator reports. Consulting studies.
And the older I get, the less interested I am in the headline number and the more interested I am in how the number was produced.
The Playtomic report is fascinating because it’s both one of the strongest reports I’ve recently seen and a reminder that no report is perfect.
Its biggest advantage is obvious: Playtomic sits on a mountain of live operational data. Court utilization, pricing, revenue per court, product mix, booking behaviour, peak demand patterns. This isn’t a survey asking club owners how things are going. It’s a window into what players and clubs are actually doing.
For operators and investors, that’s incredibly valuable.
The report estimates there are now 58,300+ padel courts worldwide, with almost 8,000 new courts added in 2025 alone. It also estimates 19.4 million players globally, though notably lower than the 35 million often cited by FIP. Rather than brushing this aside, Playtomic explains exactly why it chose a more conservative figure, using bottom-up analysis and triangulation from multiple sources.
I liked that, because too many reports pretend certainty where none exists.
Playtomic and Strategy& repeatedly remind readers that their figures are intended as directional benchmarks, not precise market censuses. They openly acknowledge that their Club Survey covers just 185 clubs, mostly larger, more digitalised and commercially sophisticated operators.
That’s honest and important:
If you’re trying to understand elite club economics, this is probably one of the best datasets available, but if you’re trying to understand every municipal court, community club or emerging market, it’s not.
And that’s okay. In fact, I think that’s the report’s greatest strength: intellectual honesty.
The sports industry has a habit of falling in love with big numbers and neat narratives. But markets are messy, data is incomplete, and assumptions matter. The people producing the most useful research aren’t the ones claiming certainty. They’re the ones telling you exactly where the uncertainty lies.
After reading hundreds of pages of racket sports research over the years, that’s become my main takeaway: Don’t ask whether a report is right or wrong.
Ask where it’s strongest. Ask where it’s weakest. And then build your own view from there.
That’s more work, admittedly. But it’s also where the interesting insights begin.
Sources: Playtomic Global Padel Report 2026, Strategy&, FIP.
(Originally published on LinkedIn)
