The Operators Who Win the Next Five Years Are Already Thinking Differently
- Jun 1
- 6 min read
Courts are being built. Clubs are opening. Padel is arriving in U.S. markets that did not know what a padel court looked like eighteen months ago. Pickleball facilities are multiplying faster than the industry can staff them. And tennis clubs that spent decades focused on one sport are now managing two or three - with the same team, the same budget, and a director of racquet sports who used to have one job and now has three.
The energy is real. So is the pressure underneath it.
Most of the businesses entering this space are thinking about product. About what they offer, what they charge, and how to get people in the door. Almost none of them are thinking about brand - about what makes someone choose them specifically, and keep choosing them, once the market gets competitive enough to matter.
That is the conversation worth having.
What the Data Actually Shows About Retention
The global padel data I covered in Issue 03 had a number that stuck with me after I finished writing it.
Ninety-two percent return rate after a first padel session. Globally. Across every market where it has been tracked.
Read that again. The product converts. Once someone plays, they come back. The retention challenge in padel is not the sport - it is everything that happens around it. The experience. The community. The reason to keep showing up at your facility specifically, when there will eventually be another one down the road.
The same dynamic exists in tennis and pickleball. Participation numbers are up. The interest is there. The courts are filling.
But filling courts and building a business are two different things. The operators who win the next five years will be the ones who figured out the difference before the competition arrived.
What I Watched Happen Under Real Pressure
In 2024, I was CMO of the Racquet Sports Professionals Association when we launched the first rebrand in the organization's nearly 100-year history.
Eight months in, USTA Coaching entered the market as a direct competitor. National scale. Institutional resources. A governing body with reach we could not match.
The instinct in the room was immediate: push harder. More workshops. More certifications. More events. More reasons to stay. More activity pointed at the problem.
We did the opposite.
We stopped leading with what we offered. We started leading with what we stood for.
The Hire Standard. One membership. Five sports. Unlimited opportunity.
Not a promotional campaign - a declaration. A belief that RSPA professionals were not just certified. They were held to a higher standard. And that standard meant something to every club, player, and employer who worked with them.
Here is the simplest way I know to explain why that mattered. Every brand has two kinds of benefits. Functional benefits are what you offer - the certifications, the workshops, the events, the programming. Those are the reasons someone shows up. Emotional benefits are what you stand for - the feeling someone gets from being part of it, the identity that comes with membership, the sense that this place is theirs. Those are the reasons someone stays.
Most organizations in this industry compete entirely on functional benefits. They keep adding more to the list. More programming. More services. More reasons on paper to choose them.
The best brands - the ones people are loyal to, the ones people talk about, the ones that hold their ground when a competitor enters the market - lead with the emotional and let the functional be the proof.
When The Hire Standard launched, it did not replace the certifications, the workshops, or the events. It gave all of them a reason to matter. Everything we offered became proof of something bigger.
Membership dues renewals in January 2026 were up 25 percent versus the same point the prior year.
Not because we promoted more. Because people finally had a clear reason to stay.
The Pattern I See Across the Industry
I talk to club operators, association leaders, padel entrepreneurs, equipment brands, and platform builders. The conversations are almost always about product. About programming. About court utilization, membership tiers, and what the competitor down the road is offering.
Rarely about why someone would choose them specifically - and keep choosing them.
I understand why. When you are trying to fill courts and make payroll, brand feels abstract. You focus on what is in front of you. You promote the next clinic. You run the next membership special. You add another event to the calendar.
That approach works until it stops working. And in an early market like padel, or in a crowded market like pickleball, the moment it stops working tends to arrive faster than most operators expect.
There is a newer development worth watching here. Fully automated padel and pickleball facilities - no staff, no front desk, just book online, get a code, show up, and play - are a growing model in the industry. The economics are appealing. Lower overhead, 24/7 availability, and no labor cost on court time. I get it.
But a facility with no staff is a facility with no community. No one to introduce a beginner to the sport. No one to run the social format. No one to make a first-time visitor feel like they found their place. You can automate access. You cannot automate belonging.
Automation as infrastructure - booking, payments, smart lighting, access control - is becoming standard, and that is fine. But fully staffless facilities risk becoming court rental boxes. Convenient, yes. Defensible as a business when competition arrives, probably not.
The businesses that hold their ground when competition arrives are not the ones with the most programming or the lowest overhead. They are the ones whose members feel like they belong to something - not just something to do on a Tuesday night, but a place that is theirs.
That does not happen by accident. It is a decision. And it is a decision most operators have not made yet.
What Padel Is About to Learn
Part of my work right now is serving as U.S. Development Partner for the International Padel Cluster - a Barcelona-based global organization representing more than 130 companies across every part of the padel ecosystem. I spend a significant amount of time connected to operators and brand builders in markets that are five to ten years ahead of where the U.S. is right now.
What I see from that vantage point: the markets that built real businesses - not just filled courts during the growth phase - are the ones that made deliberate decisions early about what they stood for and who they were building for.
Spain has 17,300 padel courts. The market is mature, crowded, and competitive. The clubs that are winning are not the ones with the most courts. They are the ones that built communities worth belonging to before it got competitive enough to matter.
I have seen facilities in mature markets go from waitlists to discounting court time in under eighteen months once competition arrived and the novelty wore off.
The U.S. padel market is early. That is an advantage - but only if you use it.
The operators building U.S. padel businesses right now are making decisions that will determine whether they are still standing when the market matures. Most of them do not realize that is what they are doing.
The Question That Actually Matters
Here is what I know for certain after watching this play out across the industry: brand is not something you add later when the business gets big enough to afford it. It is a decision you make at the beginning - or one you make under pressure when it is harder to get right.
Every operator is making a brand decision right now, whether they realize it or not. The facility you build, the staff you hire, the experience you create when someone walks in for the first time - all of it is communicating something. The question is whether you are being intentional about what that something is.
This is not about a six-figure agency engagement or a rebranding exercise. It is about having a clear point of view on what your business stands for, who it is for, and what you want people to feel when they are part of it. That clarity has to be built deliberately. It does not emerge on its own.
That is the work. And it is some of the most important work a racquet sports business leader can do right now - before the market matures, before the competition arrives, and before you are trying to fix a retention problem that a clearer brand would have prevented.
If someone who visited your facility today described it to a friend tomorrow, what would they say - and is that what you want them to say?
If the answer is yes, you are ahead of most. If the answer is no, or if you are not sure, that is exactly where the work starts.
The Growth Pressure Diagnostic is how I start every engagement - including the ones where the operator thinks the problem is marketing and it turns out to be something else entirely. It is free. It takes about ten minutes. And it will show you exactly where the real pressure is coming from.
Take the diagnostic ->Â https://www.mikehknowles.com/diagnostic
Mike Knowles is the Principal of Inside The Lines Advisory, a growth strategy practice for the racquet sports industry. He is also the U.S. Development Partner for the International Padel Cluster. mike@insidethelinesadvisory.com