Every time someone suggests building outdoor padel courts in Northern Europe, the same objection from investors and operators appears almost immediately: “It’s too cold. It wont work. ”
But, hey, what do they know 😀 ….ask the actual players and you get a different picture.
Recently I was speaking with the COO of a fast-growing padel chain. He explained how they see the future of their facilities developing across three tiers:
• fully indoor permanent structures
• hybrid or bubble-type facilities
• outdoor courts at the lowest level
From a financial perspective I understand the logic. Indoor courts maximise utilisation and create predictable year-round revenue.
But from a player perspective, I’m not sure the hierarchy is quite right.
People enjoy being outdoors whenever they get the chance. If that wasn’t the case, the world’s most established racket sport – tennis- would look very different – but instead around 91% of tennis courts globally are still outdoor. Tennis has thrived for more than a century despite the occasional inconvenience of rain delays, frost, or cancelled sessions.
Padel seems to be developing a perception that it must be played indoors.
That perception came from the operators and not its players.
Part of the explanation is real estate. Indoor space is scarce and increasingly competitive. A warehouse owner I spoke with recently told me he receives around eight enquiries a week from padel start-ups asking about renting his space….Eight….Every week!
Outdoor courts bypass that bottleneck entirely.
And the economics still work. Industry benchmarks suggest a padel court costs roughly €35k–€45k to build and can generate around €170+ per day in bookings on average (CAA Portas). Even with seasonal usage, the entry cost is dramatically lower than building a multi-million-euro indoor facility.
There is also a cultural element that often gets overlooked.
I grew up in the UK, and we played tennis outdoors almost year-round. Rain stopped us… nothing else did. We simply put on another layer and carried on playing.
The British are culturally quite comfortable playing sport outside in winter. On the continent it’s slightly different, partly because so many courts are clay and become too soft during colder months.
Padel courts don’t have that limitation.
Which means the sport actually has an opportunity to shift perceptions and re-normalise year-round outdoor play.
Of course there will be days where it’s unpleasantly cold and sessions get cancelled due to weather. That’s simply the nature of outdoor sport. Tennis players have lived with those inconveniences for decades — and the sport has done just fine.
Price outdoor courts attractively in the off-season and many players will still book them, especially when indoor courts are fully booked.
Avid players rarely choose the option of not playing.
(Originally published on LinkedIn)
