PBM Insight Report: Padel tournaments offer growing riches for players and operators

With the number and scale of padel tournaments expanding at pace globally, both professional and amateur competitive events are helping drive the sport’s development, raise its profile and attract new players, while also growing revenues for operators. As padel’s growth continues, event organisers, venues and clubs are all looking to cash in. But amid the sport’s expansion, what are the best strategies for establishing and expanding different types of padel tournament, and how does it vary across key growth regions like the US, UK and Middle East, and more mature markets such as Spain? PBM Insight Report by Laura Syrett and Paul Cochrane.

Padel clubs across booming growth markets such as the US and UK, as well as established markets like Spain, are increasingly turning to tournaments and competitive events as revenue drivers and structured ways of engaging a growing padel-playing population. 

The earning potential of tournaments is partly borne out by a surge in numbers, with an increasing number of clubs looking to host more competitive events. 

The International Padel Federation (FIP)’s World Padel Report 2025 noted that the number of FIP-organised tournaments alone jumped to 290 in 49 countries last year, up from 182 in 36 countries in 2024.

For 2026, the Premier Padel tour has expanded to 26 tournaments across 18 countries, with nearly 75% indoors. In 2025 there were 24 tournaments across 16 countries.

Meanwhile, according to the United States Padel Association (USPA)’s annual report for 2025, along with surging membership and club numbers in the US, the association sanctioned 104 open padel tournaments in 2025, more than doubling the 48 events hosted in 2024. At the middle of April, the USPA’s 2026 schedule had 255 events, with more being added each month.

Experts say the appeal of hosting tournaments to clubs is their potential to deliver one-off high profit margins from entry fees, ticket sales, commercial partnerships and hospitality. They also benefit from the longer-term ‘community-building’ benefits of events that clubs are keen to cultivate, boosting and maintaining high court occupancy levels outside of competitions. 

Tournaments a major source of income for padel industry

According to Alicante, Spain-based padel court construction and installation company MejorSet, the official court provider of Premier Padel, tournaments are already a major source of income for the padel industry. 

“For clubs and investors, tournaments are no longer just visibility, they’re a revenue engine and part of their growth strategy,” says a company spokesperson. 

MejorSet notes that as tournaments become part of clubs’ business models, this is driving demand for courts that are designed, tested and approved for high-performance competition – meaning that tournaments boost business activity and revenue throughout the padel supply chain. 

“Today, well-structured padel tournaments can generate six to seven figures [in US dollars or euros] annually across entry fees, sponsorship and brand activations, increased court occupancy, food and beverage uplift and media exposure and long-term memberships,” the company adds. 

Significant investment costs

Investment costs to create international tournament-standard courts are significant, due to demands about court surfaces, such as FIP-compliant high-quality, short-pile synthetic turf filled with silica sand for consistent, controlled ball bounce and player traction.

Also, according to guidelines from padel’s UK governing body the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), tournament play may require an increased height of court screens (glass and mesh panels) to accommodate professional level shots, of four metres, compared to three-metre-high screens for recreational courts.

Additionally, clubs need to ensure that player and spectator facilities, including dressing rooms, must be of sufficient quality. However, many clubs calculate that the returns are worth the outlay. 

MejorSet highlighted the example of Padel 4 Maroc, a recently-completed, FIP-approved 10-court premium MejorSet club in Casablanca, Morocco, established to host regular tournaments and cash in on the growing popularity of padel in Morocco, which as of 2026 has been included as a stop on the Cupra FIP Tour of international tournaments.

Big prize money pots across professional circuit

Several professional padel tournaments offer big prize money pots, such as the national and international events organised by professional padel bodies like FIP, whose Madrid-based Hexagon Cup offers a prize pool of €1.2 million.

Meanwhile, the Pro Padel League, North America’s first professional padel circuit, offers six-figure US dollar cash prizes to be shared by winners of individual tournaments, with a total prize pool of more than $1 million across tournaments in 2026/27.

And the UK’s LTA Padel National League offers prizes ranging from a few thousand GBP for LTA events to €150,000 for top-grade LTA-hosted FIP tournaments.

There are also amateur community-based tournaments organised by clubs or local sponsors where non-professional players compete for fun, such as the LTA ‘Grade 5 Local Tour’ events, which are aimed at beginners and held regularly at local venues across the UK, with entries accepted on a first come, first served basis and World Padel Quest events held in cities across Europe and open to amateur players of all levels.

In the latter category, one format gaining popularity in fast-growing padel markets is the ‘Padel Americano’ – a round-robin doubles format where players rotate partners and opponents every round. Unlike a traditional knockout or league padel tournament format, every player competes individually and points are accumulated personally across all rounds, and the player with the most points at the end wins the tournament. 

Structured calendar essential to build player and spectator community

Julián Romaguera, an independent executive adviser to sports clubs based in Marbella, Spain, tells Padel Business Magazine that “a structured calendar of leagues, social activities and events such as tournaments” are essential to building the player and spectator community padel clubs need for sustainable profitability. 

He notes that social tournament formats allow for maximum court occupancy and high utilisation of club facilities such as onsite retail and catering. 

According to Alessandro Corti, co-founder and CEO of London-based Padel Consulting, the key to monetising tournaments is to turn them into “experiences”, for example with music and Prosecco offerings, rather than just competitions. 

Alessandro Di Stefano, CEO and founder of Padel Travel and a global padel consultant based in Andalucia, Spain, says that both professional and amateur padel tournaments can attract padel-playing tourists and with them an influx of revenue for padel clubs. 

He observes that one of the ways clubs can monetise tournaments is through “trips linked to major professional events, where travellers watch top players live and combine this with some on-court activity”. 

While Spain remains the main destination for professional tournaments, Di Stefano notes that other international tour stops are becoming more relevant.  

“There are amateur tournaments also attracting international players … mainly in Spain,” he adds. 

Di Stefano thinks the key to turning destination tournaments into major money spinners is to make these tournaments “clear and recognisable offers” to a willing market of spectators and players through better communication about the events. 

He says that clubs need to “use tournaments and events as travel drivers, not just competitions”. 

Learning from tennis about monetising tournaments

Miguel Coelho, founding partner of US padel court designer and supplier APMX, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, tells Padel Business Magazine that padel should learn from tennis about how to monetise tournaments. 

“There is a small but growing segment of amateur tournaments, exhibition events or pro tours, where participants combine watching top-level padel with playing themselves,” he says. “This mirrors what tennis did around events like Roland Garros or Wimbledon.”

According to Cesc Caceres, co-founder and CEO of Padel Smash Academy, a padel gear supplier in the US, which also operates padel clubs in the country, some clubs take an innovative, hyper-local approach to tournaments to maximise inclusion by working with corporate brands to put on regular mini tournaments and allowing players to compete free of charge.  

For example, Reserve Padel’s Design District padel club in Miami, Florida, an exclusive members-only facility featuring three glass-enclosed padel courts, a viewing lounge, and a pro-shop, “do one of the best” examples of this model, Caceres observes. 

“The club in Miami’s Design District is surrounded by a lot of high-end shops. So they work with them and create a kind of a tournament that [the retail] employees can come and play in. And meanwhile, they will ask the members to come and play as well for free,” he explains. 

Caceres notes that this works well for both the retailers, whose staff get to access a premium sports venue in their community for a fun, social, nominally competitive occasion, while their sponsorship pays for an event that allows them to promote their brand and products to a key target audience of well-heeled padel players, including celebrities. 

“The members come in to play for free and usually there are gifts and even food, provided by the sponsors, which creates a great event. They do a great job of this,” he adds. 

Corporate tournaments becoming big business for padel clubs

Caceres also notes that the corporate tournaments for the staff of big companies is becoming big business for clubs. 

He cites examples of corporate tournaments he has been involved in for financial services firms such as New York-headquartered asset manager BlackRock and Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel, where the companies bring their staff and often their clients to a padel club as a social ‘mixer’ and team-building occasion for employees, based around coaching and tournaments. 

“Most people are willing to pay more of a premium for this because, remember, all these companies, they have a budget already allocated for these corporate events,” he adds, noting that such events also tend to please club sponsors because of the exposure their brands get to key target audiences. 

Middle East war hinders padel contests in the region

Another key growth market for padel is the Middle East, where both professional and amateur tournaments have been expanding over recent years. Progress has been heavily impacted this year, however, with the US-Israeli war on Iran, and Iranian attacks on neighbouring Gulf countries since late February, upending padel tournaments in the region.

On March 16, Premier Padel and FIP announced the postponement of the Ooredoo Qatar Major, which had prize money of €1.04 million, scheduled for April 6–11 in the capital, Doha, “due to the unprecedented situation in the wider region”. There have been no announcements as to when the event will be rescheduled, with Premier Padel not providing Padel Business Magazine with further details. 

On the other side of the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, the 2026 Qatar Airways Premier Padel tour event at New Giza in Egypt, took place on April 13-18. There are two other Premier Padel tour events in the region slated for later in the year, in Kuwait in October, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), in November.  

The war “could not have come at a worse time” for the sport in the Gulf as padel had “been in the momentum-building phase,” says Jon Dault, partner at private equity firm Fletchstone Global, which has offices in the UAE, UK and USA. The firm recently invested in Dubai-based padel service provider and court operator Just Padel in Dubai to expand tournaments and leagues in the region. 

“We are hoping that there is some good movement over the next couple of weeks to solidify events once the war is over,” he says. “A lot of people are champing at the bit to get going again, and we will see more action going forward. As long as there is no long-term disruption, over the next three to four months we will see 100% recovery, and an explosion of momentum. Padel is ripe to expand in the Gulf and across the MENA.” 

UAE predicted to emerge as region’s top padel tournament destination

Dault expects the UAE to emerge as the region’s leading padel tournament destination, despite Qatar and Saudi Arabia having pushed the sport in the Gulf and further afield, including through organised competition.

Qatar has led padel Gulf and global tournaments through Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), a Qatari government-backed investment fund behind Premier Padel.

Saudi Arabia is also investing in the sport through the BSF Padel League, with games launched in September 2025 by the Saudi Padel Committee, the country’s padel federation, and the sports and entertainment agency 54, which has received backing from Sanabil Investments, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), teaming up in December 2025 with the Hexagon Cup and FIP to create the Hexagon World Series, a global professional circuit governed by FIP. 

“We will see Dubai take over the largest tournaments, and draw the largest number of people,” says Dault. He points to the UAE having a larger expatriate population than Qatar or Saudi Arabia to draw on in terms of players and fans, while also having more attractions and facilities to host tournaments and attract a wider fan base.

But for that to happen, more padel facilities and courts will need to be built to host large tournaments. “Most facilities in the UAE have 8 to 10 courts. Compare that with the 180 pickleball courts in Naples, Florida, and its centre court holding 25,000 spectators,” observes Dault. “Dubai needs to get to that level to draw in the biggest players from around the world. This will happen in the UAE sooner rather than later, as well as big purse money to attract the biggest players, which you need to grow the sport, not just a title.” 

New padel tournaments are underway elsewhere in the MENA, such as the Royal Air Maroc Golf & Padel Cup 2026, organised by Padel+ Agency and golf event agency Agence Swing, sponsored by US-based tennis brand Wilson Sporting Goods and the Moroccan national airline Royal Air Maroc.

There are to be nine stages in France, with the tournament final in Morocco at the end of the year. The organisers announced that the event is “part of a new business to business circuit, designed for entrepreneurs, golf and padel enthusiasts”.

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