Can anyone explain to me why this sport is so popular that it’s taking over prime locations in expensive cities?
dandaka 3 hours ago [-]
Quite a few reasons:
1/ Easy to start, hard to master.
2/ Good balance between being still athletic (you have to run), while not punish less-fit players a lot.
3/ Social component. In Portugal you must get a beer after each match. Suddenly you have 100+ friends and a shared interest.
4/ Full gradient between 'funny dumb ass game with friends with no experience' to 'professional competitive sport'. With a lot of options in between like beginners games, clubs events, amateur leagues and semi/pro tournaments.
5/ The game is more tactical, that athletic. After you get initial technical background, you start to play more 'chess' than 'overpower opponent' style.
6/ Good business. More people on less space = more revenue. More social = more spending in a bar. Coaching is more profitable as well (groups of 4).
7/ Open to all social groups. My wife is playing female-only tournaments. We play mixed tournaments together.
I play padel for 3 years, played tennis for year, tried squash and badminton.
AlexGerasim 2 hours ago [-]
I can definitely relate to this!
tambourineman88 5 hours ago [-]
Simply put: it’s a very fun sport.
It’s doubles so you only need four people to play. The underarm serve gives it a very shallow learning curve so almost anybody can play.
However, there is enough nuance to the game that there’s lots of tactics and skill to learn as you get better.
Also the app (Playtomic) for organising games works great.
We have indoor courts here in the UK where’s there’s not much else to do in the winter. It’s a lot easier to get four people together to play padel for 90 minutes than trying to get 10/12 together for a 5/6-a-side football match.
AlexGerasim 4 hours ago [-]
Yeah, it's addictive. I saw stats that 9 out of 10 people who played for the first time plays twice and more.
ArekDymalski 4 hours ago [-]
Besides being beginner friendly (forgiving mistakes), easy to learn and see the progress quickly (instant gratification, quick catch-up with friends who started earlier) the fact that it's not as physically exhausting as squash or tennis makes it attractive for many people.
AlexGerasim 4 hours ago [-]
I see a lot of people transition from squash and tennis to padel nowadays and basically any racket sport experience helps it a lot.
1313ed01 2 hours ago [-]
5+ years ago, perhaps? Almost all the places have closed down now here in Sweden. The bubble popped and now it's a joke and you see repurposed ex-padel buildings around every city. It's been years since I heard anyone talk about it other than to comment on how weird it was that it was so popular for a short time and then disappeared.
zingar 8 minutes ago [-]
My question was based on seeing courts springing up all over London recently.
AlexGerasim 43 minutes ago [-]
Wow, it's really surprising to hear that about Sweden. According to the FIP report there are 14,355 courts built in 2025 worldwide (39 courts per day!).
And Sweden seem to be way ahead than any other country in this padel mania and who knows, many same future is prepared for other countries soon.
But now in Portugal we see a different situation, a lot of clubs are 90% to 100% booked and new padel clubs still appear.
gus_massa 4 hours ago [-]
I ussed to play it with friends. The big advantage to tennis is that the ball never gets too far away :)
solids 5 hours ago [-]
It takes much less time to learn it at a playable level than tennis. In my opinion, learning tennis and being able to hit a powerful drive is much more rewarding, but nowadays people don’t want to “waste” time in improving technique.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3 hours ago [-]
Tbf I haven't actually played much tennis, but I've watched plenty of it, and been playing padel for a couple years now. I would agree that tennis has a steeper learning curve, and is definitely more physically demanding. Besides the learning curve though, I'm not sure padel can be said to be any less technical than tennis, at higher levels. Padel seems to me to have a much bigger variety of shot types all requiring specific technique. And positioning is also much more fluid and complex than in tennis. Same thing for leg work.
To be clear I realise you were mostly talking about learning curve specifically; this is not an attempt at refuting what you said, just adding to the discussion.
AlexGerasim 3 hours ago [-]
After reaching a playable level people start to compete in tournaments and in competitive games on Playtomic and then the technique starts to matter, maybe a bit less than in tennis. There are still plenty of basic padel shots you have to spend 10-100s of hours to master with a coach to be able to compete on a higher ranking.
moron4hire 39 minutes ago [-]
Wait, is this like European pickleball or something?
ageitgey 23 minutes ago [-]
Yes, or pickleball is American padel.
They are similar games and have similar advantages making them popular. But in general, padel is slightly more athletic/intense than pickleball.
andrepd 5 hours ago [-]
Yuppies/expats love it, that's pretty much the reason.
victorbjorklund 3 hours ago [-]
Bubble. We had it a couple of years ago. Everything got converted to a paddle place. Then it popped and most closed down.
jgalt212 3 hours ago [-]
Every time I'm playing pickleball on vacation with my younger children, I look over at Padel courts (if available) with envy. It seems both more fun and athletic, but still less challenging to pick up than tennis.
AlexGerasim 3 hours ago [-]
Agreed, I think padel found a great balance between being accessible and athletic at the same time.
m00dy 5 hours ago [-]
yeah, it is getting popular everywhere.
OJFord 1 hours ago [-]
Quick feedback: I kept instinctively trying to press the A/B/C on the actual court(?) even after realising it's at the bottom on the first one.
I would suggest either making those clickable, or styled less like buttons somehow, so they don't have such an affordance for being the thing to press.
AlexGerasim 51 minutes ago [-]
Thanks for the feedback! The buttons on the actual court should also be clickable, doesn't it work for you? If so can you please tell me your device / OS you're testing it on?
dandaka 3 hours ago [-]
Love the design and implementation. Even small details like cage on side!
AlexGerasim 3 hours ago [-]
Thanks a lot! Yeah, having some landmarks on the canvas helps to transfer the app's experience and concepts to a real padel court.
lightbulbish 3 hours ago [-]
Only played paddle twice but played a lot of badminton and would like to play more paddle.
Love the concept. Feedback: more explanations for beginners. I didnt know what ”mine’s up/ your’s up” means.
When you guess wrong, also show what the right answer would mean (lines, animation and explanation)
Also more than 5 puzzles per day for free tier please. For me to even begin the habit i want to spend more than 2 minues a day here. After i feel i could convert. But i’m not paying for a habit i dont yet have and might not establish.
Good luck with the product!
AlexGerasim 2 hours ago [-]
Thanks a lot for the feedback! I raised the limit from 5 to 10 free puzzles per day so far and I will consider alternative monetization models.
lightbulbish 3 hours ago [-]
Thinking about it 2 second more. Maybe unlimited puzzles but you pay to see the animations of the solutions. That would be a nice and valuable upsell if i notice i come back a lot. The Paywall feels limiting to my habit enforcement, is the overall take.
4 days ago [-]
Rendered at 14:49:12 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
1/ Easy to start, hard to master.
2/ Good balance between being still athletic (you have to run), while not punish less-fit players a lot.
3/ Social component. In Portugal you must get a beer after each match. Suddenly you have 100+ friends and a shared interest.
4/ Full gradient between 'funny dumb ass game with friends with no experience' to 'professional competitive sport'. With a lot of options in between like beginners games, clubs events, amateur leagues and semi/pro tournaments.
5/ The game is more tactical, that athletic. After you get initial technical background, you start to play more 'chess' than 'overpower opponent' style.
6/ Good business. More people on less space = more revenue. More social = more spending in a bar. Coaching is more profitable as well (groups of 4).
7/ Open to all social groups. My wife is playing female-only tournaments. We play mixed tournaments together.
I play padel for 3 years, played tennis for year, tried squash and badminton.
It’s doubles so you only need four people to play. The underarm serve gives it a very shallow learning curve so almost anybody can play. However, there is enough nuance to the game that there’s lots of tactics and skill to learn as you get better.
Also the app (Playtomic) for organising games works great.
We have indoor courts here in the UK where’s there’s not much else to do in the winter. It’s a lot easier to get four people together to play padel for 90 minutes than trying to get 10/12 together for a 5/6-a-side football match.
And Sweden seem to be way ahead than any other country in this padel mania and who knows, many same future is prepared for other countries soon.
But now in Portugal we see a different situation, a lot of clubs are 90% to 100% booked and new padel clubs still appear.
To be clear I realise you were mostly talking about learning curve specifically; this is not an attempt at refuting what you said, just adding to the discussion.
They are similar games and have similar advantages making them popular. But in general, padel is slightly more athletic/intense than pickleball.
I would suggest either making those clickable, or styled less like buttons somehow, so they don't have such an affordance for being the thing to press.
Love the concept. Feedback: more explanations for beginners. I didnt know what ”mine’s up/ your’s up” means.
When you guess wrong, also show what the right answer would mean (lines, animation and explanation) Also more than 5 puzzles per day for free tier please. For me to even begin the habit i want to spend more than 2 minues a day here. After i feel i could convert. But i’m not paying for a habit i dont yet have and might not establish. Good luck with the product!