Julian Wortelboer interview: Ultra Club’s chief padel officer on growing through innovation

Ultra Club, the largest padel club in the US and one of the five biggest in the world, has gained plenty of momentum since opening one year ago. It has created a strong brand and loyal following due largely to the vision and meticulous planning of chief padel officer, Julian Wortelboer. In an interview with Padel Business Magazine, he outlines the keys to Ultra’s exponential growth, the innovative technology it uses, and how vital coaching is to a padel club’s sustainability.

Ultra Club has ascended to the forefront of padel centres in the US in just over a year. First opened in February 2024, it has the largest padel club in the country with 29 courts, attracting between 400-500 guests daily, and now has plans to expand to locations nationwide. 

Its flagship facility, based in the Miami neighbourhood of Magic City, includes a full-service gym, fitness studio, spa, wellness centre and restaurant with terrace seating. When factoring in the 15 outdoor courts, 12 indoor courts, and two kids’ courts, Ultra offers a complete experience for its guests. 

Julian Wortelboer, chief padel officer at Ultra, has been a key figure in its development. The Argentine grew up playing padel and tennis in his native country in the early 1990s. He moved to the US at 18 after he was offered a tennis scholarship. 

He put down his padel racquet at that time, not to pick it up again until seven years ago. Since getting back into padel, he’s gained invaluable training as a Padel Master Coach, the only one in the US, and experience developing padel clubs that he carried to Ultra.

“For the past year and a half, it's been very long days, long hours setting up Ultra and the growth”, says Wortelboer. “I've been putting so much time into the club, so I have had to prioritise what is most important. So I put all my efforts in developing the club and hiring the coaches, developing a methodology for the coaches, the SOPs, and everything that relates to operating a club”.

How coaching is vital to padel clubs

Wortelboer credits the strength of its coaches as a critical component of how much Ultra has developed in such a short time. The club has eight coaches as part of its staff, all with years of experience as professional padel players.

He believes with how fast padel is growing in the States, quality coaches are the most valuable resource a padel club can have. Without the coaches, he says, you cannot build a community.

Much of Wortelboer’s time is spent teaching and empowering padel coaches. He helps them understand how to teach the fundamentals and teaches club owners the business management aspects of running a padel club. 

Wortelboer is the president and CEO of the Padel Coaches Association, an organisation dedicated to raising the standards of padel-teaching professionals and coaches across the US.

He also co-hosts the Padel Smash Academy podcast, the first digital educational padel platform in the US, which provides foundational information for all levels of padel players. Since its inception in 2022, the YouTube channel for the podcast has gained 21,000 subscribers and had over 1.29 million views.

In addition, Woertelboer released his book, MASTERING THE ART OF COACHING PADEL: Unlocking Your Padel Coaching Potential for Excellence and Success, on January 27. It’s one of the first books written in English made specifically for padel coaches.

This dedication to the next generation of coaches, he says, is crucial to the health of the sport in the US, especially with padel still in its infancy compared to Europe and South America.

“We're seeing that a lot of these new club owners, they love the sport, but they don't know the management part. They don't know the ins and outs of how to run a seven-day club operation. So that's why we go in and try to help them do that”.

“Because what's happening right now”, Wortelboer continues, “suddenly everybody is a padel coach. It's somebody who comes from squash, from racquetball, from tennis and starts coaching padel. And if we don't have an entity that follows up on that, at the end of the day, the sport gets hurt, the club gets hurt, and the revenue gets hurt at the club”.

Using innovative technology to stand out from other padel clubs

Ultra is proactive in implementing innovative ways to differentiate its club from others.

The club uses AI-powered cameras to record gameplay. Instead of simply playing back an entire match, the cameras automatically analyse matches and display the best highlights for players to review. Players can watch the highlights on one of the screens in the gazebo, send them to their email, or directly post them on social media while connected to Ultra’s WiFi network.

Ultra is also launching an app that creates a better match-making system for guests. The app, Wortelboer explains, will automatically reach out to people the guests have played with within the last six months to set up a game.

If none of those people are willing or able to play, the app will look to pair the guest with people with similar skill levels based on a rating system assigned each time the guest plays.

Although its opening has been delayed, Ultra plans to launch floating courts soon as another innovative way to entice guests. Inspired by a similar concept in Nordic countries, Ultra began planning its execution six months ago.

It’s been more complicated than expected, Wortelboer says, to execute the floating courts. Ultra must still navigate challenges related to permitting, restrictions from different marinas, and the occasional hurricane-force winds in Miami. But once officially open, they would be the first of their kind in the city.

Collaborating with other clubs in Miami’s unique padel scene

Despite its efforts to differentiate itself, Ultra believes a key to padel’s sustainable growth in the US lies in collaboration with other club owners.

“I think all new club owners, we have to be able to come and work together”, Wortelboer says, “to make this sport grow”.

Competition for new members should only encourage clubs to join forces, he explains. He mentions that the beginner’s clinics are Ultra’s most popular, always booked with a long waiting list, and suggests that club owners should embrace the healthy growth signals of the sport instead of operating from a scarcity mindset.

Miami is unique among US cities in how rapidly padel has grown there. In March, Premier Padel is coming to the country for the first time, naturally selecting Miami as its first choice city for an introduction to the States, while the Miami Open tennis tournament will feature the Publix Padel Cup, a new professional padel competition, at this year’s edition.

The city will also host Property+Padel, an event that brings padel and real estate together to foster collaboration and investment opportunities.

Sustaining growth

Wortelboer admits there needs to be more courts and the targeting of young people for sustainable growth. The US is set for a major expansion of courts across the country in the coming years, and it is expected that the quality of the courts and amenities each club offers its guests will help spread padel further. 

Ultra is one of the few clubs in the US with both kids’ courts and junior clinics. It was difficult in the beginning, Wortelboer reveals, to get a consistent number of kids to participate.

Now, they have a weekly average of 30-35 kids, ranging from 3 to 15 years old, playing padel at the club. He credits a proactive outreach campaign of going to local schools and convincing parents to try padel as a factor in boosting youth participation.

Wortelboer also believes country clubs will accelerate growth alongside commercial clubs.

“All these country clubs, what are they doing? They're putting in pickleball and padel courts. And they spoke about this phenomenon at the last USPTA convention saying that now general managers of these country clubs, which you have all over the country, they're seeing that they can create another source of revenue by adding these other two racquet sports. Now, you have the membership, the pickleball membership, and the padel membership on top of the tennis membership”.

The wealth of country club members, estimated to be above $250,000 annual income on average, could bring new investors into the mix for the spate of new padel clubs opening nationwide.

Wortelboer expects the process of growing the sport nationally to be long. But by taking the necessary steps, he says, it will be an exciting journey as progress is made.

“We're in the beginning. We have to start building more courts nationwide. We need more coaches. Then we have to create those junior programmes. So it's a slow process, but we have to hit the targets on the head each time, for us to grow efficiently. It's only a matter of time, the wheel is gonna start turning, going faster and faster”.

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