Guys i just wanted to share Padel is not tennis, but i didnt have a flair for it so i picked the closest one to it :)

In Sweden the padel boom came 3-4 years ago. Now there are empty halls everywhere

Come join us in /r/padel for your padel home in reddit.

Still growing strong in the Netherlands.

Is it the same as pickle ball?

Empty?

No, a little different but similar in terms of being more social and easier to get into. I think the biggest drawback for scaling is the need for walls - something pickle ball doesn’t have.

No, more like Paddle Tennis

Have they started reducing prices yet? Atleast in Finland its mostly on the boom phase still, and the courts are really expensive. Around 36€/h is the norm here.

And Belgium… and we’re wishing we had halls because we’re playing outside in rain and freezing conditions

We have one place relatively nearby in Belgium to play indoors and with a yearly membership of 30 euro you get reduced renting fees and you pay 24 euro/1,5h for a court (and if you but credits for enough money you get an additional discount)

I've played padel a few times in the rain. It's a completely different experience. Do you play often in the rain?

Actually I find it very funny that in this age of widespread globalization, we still got regionalized booms, padel in Europe vs pickleball in the USA. I guess globalization still has limits to this day.

I’ve played often in the rain in the first couple of years that padel started in Belgium. The last year, with indoor padel becoming available, we only play in very light rain or after rain (wet surface and glass) if we don’t have other options (which sometimes happens during competitions).

In or after rain padel becomes a completely different game and ‘tennis’ on a padel court will actually work as letting balls go via the glass will have them deviate down instead of bouncing correctly… the balls also get heavy which isn’t great with an already heavier racket.

No one is playing padel anymore. It went away as fast as it came

Soon we’ll have the inevitable showdown of two titans, pickle ball and padel.

It's just the latest rage, expect to see the same thing happening as in Sweden

Playing in the rain requires a different tactic. Balls dont bounce as much. Playing deep lobs are killer during the rain. Hard to look up with rain falling in your eyes and you cant allow it to bounce as it will fall dead after hitting the glass.

Yeah, really deep lobs suck in rain, but most are OK. I hare hard balls against glass more as they slide down, especially with 2 glasses you’re toast. Also deep, hard serves are problematic.

It was also funny to see the WPT players at the tournament in Knokke in Belgium… at the sight of the slightest drop of rain they stop and head inside.

Our padel trainer in Spain was just today complaining about the humidity in the evening and the effect on the glass… so we had to tell him that that in Belgium still counts as quasi perfect conditions.

We’ve also played with -7 degrees which was interesting to say the least. Even a freshly opened can of balls didn’t help… new balls had the bounce of old ones in that temperature.

Playing in very cold but dry conditions is better than wet conditions imo. The ball bounces unexpectedly due to the glass being a frozen sheet of ice however it atleast bounces.

A freshly opened can of balls helps however you can just toss them in the training basket after 1 session due to them getting soft and soggy.

Doubt it.

This sport is crazy, sometimes you leave the arena and hit it back through the door back in

It boomed (at least in Sweden) during the pandemic since it wasn’t restricted. Now that people went back to what they prefer, it died down a little.

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Stop spreading misinformation, padel is still growing in Sweden, there are more padel hours booked year after year (even in 2022) and theres no expectation that it will decrease any time soon.

The problem is that the growth curve has slowed down and that this has put an incredible strain on the over saturation of padel halls, forcing these to shut down in order to reach a somewhat equilibrium of supply and demand.

https://elitepadel.se/statistik-padel-sverige/

I mean it has died down a little as I said, it’s not misinformation. Several biggest Swedish outlets even reported about the crisis and a lot of halls closing down or going bankrupt, you can google it. Happened around October/November this year. You are just saying what I said in different words basically, at least try to understand what I said before going balls deep.

Statistics doesn’t lie but in my experience, which is observing my kids playing padel, the general interest has died down. We enrolled them in a beginners course in padel in 2020. The place was packed. All the courts were fully booked and there were 20 kids in the group. Our kids and their friends would go and play as a way of hanging out with each other. A year later when we enrolled for the follow up course, there were three kids enrolled. And there was maybe two of 8 courts being used.

Maybe it’s just bad timing when we were there if we look at the statistics but it certainly has influenced my opinion of padel. And my kids, or any of their friends, haven’t touched a padel rack for a year. They’re all back on the football pitch.

Isn't this just because of oversaturation of supply?

Depending on where you live this could also be explained by more padel halls competing for costumers.

Still growing fast in Denmark. Love this sport more than any other sport I have ever played. One problem though is that it is quite expensive. I think prices probably needs to come down once hall owners recoup their initial expenses.

Yes

Yes. And perhaps the reason the local newspaper reports on halls going bankrupt