Two Scorekeepers, One Number
The International Padel Federation published its World Padel Report this week. Third edition. One hundred and six pages of the sport.
The numbers everybody will quote are the big ones. Forty million players. 91,234 courts. 28,497 clubs and facilities. One hundred ninety-one countries and territories where somebody is playing padel. Courts up almost 18 percent in ten months, and that is the measured figure, not the projection.
Big numbers are nice. They are not the news.
The news is a small number buried in a table on page 30, and it is the best thing that has happened to American padel all year.
The Federation counts 1,160 padel courts in the United States.
Patricio Misitrano counts 1,112.
The number matters. The smaller gap between the numbers matters more. Two scorekeepers. Two different methods. One counts through national federations and global databases. The other drove the list himself, facility by facility, the way he has for two years. They landed 48 courts apart, about 4 percent, across a summer when American clubs were opening every month.
A few years ago, a US padel number was whatever a press release said it was. Everybody had a figure, nobody had a count. Now the world federation's published count and the independent American count land in the same place, and the federation lists Misitrano Consulting as one of its own sources. The American who counts padel best is now one of the counters the world game relies on.
That matters because money follows counts. A lender has a firmer starting point now. A sponsor does too. An operator picking a market can begin with a count instead of a vibe. That is what a sport becoming an industry actually looks like. It does not look like a ribbon cutting. It looks like two spreadsheets agreeing.
And the growth underneath the agreement is real. The United States added 309 courts since the last survey, and the Federation projects American club growth of about 50 percent for 2026. In 2025, American women broke into the Federation's world top 100 for the first time, and American men into the top 300. The Federation's economic model estimates 193 million euros in direct American padel spending for 2026. The biggest market in the world is not the future of this sport anymore. It is a going concern.
The rest of the world is not waiting around either. Great Britain added 978 courts, more than any other country in Europe, and fifty-nine countries now have more than 100 courts, up from 47 in the last survey. Spain still leads the world at 17,730, and it is going to. But padel stopped being a Spain story a while ago.
One honest note, because honest counting is the whole point of this piece. The forty million players is a federation estimate. It counts anybody who played padel at least once last year. The same report puts 27 million of them playing weekly or every other week. The sport does not need the generous math. The regulars are already a great story.
I want padel to win in America. I have said so in this space plenty, usually right before pointing at something I thought the industry was getting wrong. So it is worth saying plainly when the industry gets something right.
A sport you can count is a sport you can build on. This report gives American padel its clearest count yet.
I would love to hear from you. Reach out and schedule some time to talk about it, brainstorm, vent, whatever is on your mind. That's the whole point. DIY is over, let's build this together.
Go find your court.
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