Meet the Man Building ‘the IMG of Emerging Racquet Sports’ — and Why He's Betting Big on the USA

Jonathan Rowland founded a bank, built a sports investment group, and flew to Miami to watch Premier Padel build its American fanbase. What he saw in padel’s hub of Florida convinced him the US is the sport's biggest prize — and that VVV Sports offers the ideal model to grow the sport.

Jonathan Rowland is not a man who moves slowly. When COVID cleared his diary in 2020, he used the time to do something he had been waiting two decades to do: get into padel business.

He had first picked up a racket in Argentina around 2005, playing with a friend who had a house there. He was immediately hooked — and immediately frustrated. "I've always been looking for an entry point to invest into padel," he tells Florida Tennis. "And it's been very difficult because the sport is relatively new most places in the world."

So, he built his own entry point. In 2023 he formed R3 Sport, a UK-based business focused on the four verticals he believed padel needed to professionalise: brands, player management, tournaments, and venues. TV production and media followed. Then, earlier this year, R3 merged with a publicly listed company — VVV Sports, now trading on the Aquis Growth Market in London — creating what Rowland describes as the infrastructure platform emerging racquet sports has been waiting for. Or, in the eyes of commentators ‘the IMG of emerging racquet sports’.

The model, he says, is simple in concept, if not complex in execution: back experienced operators, build vertically integrated ecosystems, and get there before the mainstream does.

"I've never met anyone who tried padel once and never played again. They always say, when can I play again? I've never seen that in a sport, ever."

It is a philosophy that has already produced results. R3 now manages Britain's leading padel players, runs the R3 Bullpadel Cup — the UK's highest prize-money domestic tournament — and holds an exclusive distribution deal with Bullpadel, one of the sport's largest equipment brands. R3’s parent company VVV, meanwhile, has invested in Top Series, the global pickleball tour modelled deliberately on Premier Padel, and is preparing to launch an Amazon Prime production project that will bring padel to a mass, truly global audience for the first time.

The ambition, Rowland makes clear, is not to be a participant in these sports. It is to be the company that shapes how they grow - and ensure they grow in a sustainable way.

The Miami Moment

Last month, Rowland flew to Miami for the second outing of Premier Padel P1 — the sport's highest tier of event, equivalent to a tennis Masters. He had been to P1s before, but in the sport’s heartlands of Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. What he found in Florida surprised him.

"I was surprised how small it was compared to other P1s I've been to," he says. "The surrounding community of padel around the event wasn't half as big as you would see in Europe or in the Middle East."

For most observers, that might read as a disappointment. For Rowland, it read as an invitation.

"That only meant one thing for me. It meant there's an opportunity." He pauses. "The US is at the infancy of the game, for sure. I think that presents a huge opportunity, and one that needs to be grasped with two hands."

The timing of all this matters. VVV is deep into a major project in Abu Dhabi — a padel centre of excellence with the Emirati government, described by Rowland as potentially the largest padel facility in the world, combining courts with fitness, physiotherapy, medical, education and academy facilities. With that project ongoing, he is also focussing west.

"Alongside the project in Abu Dhabi, my focus has also been on the US," he says. "The feasibility we put together in Abu Dhabi can equally be executed in the US. Americans thrive on big ambition and the country has a pro-business, bold mentality - building an academy of this scale in the U.S. will demonstrate all of those things."

"Once the commercial engine of the United States sees the opportunity — like it did with pickleball — it will become the biggest single place for padel. I'm 100% sure of that."

The American Opportunity

Rowland has a clear theory on how padel takes hold in the United States — and it starts with infrastructure, not marketing.

"I think it will take a lot of investment in venues, courts, academies," he says. "But padel has always been about community. If you go to some of the clubs in Barcelona or Madrid at a weekend, you have the dads playing, the mothers playing, the kids playing, and they all have a barbecue afterwards. It's a destination for the day."

He points to Florida's Hispanic community as the logical starting point — the sport's Argentine and Spanish roots giving it a natural home in Miami before spreading up the South Florida coastline, then to New York and, increasingly, Texas and the West Coast. "It will come to the big cities first, and then slowly spread from there," he says. "That's what happened in the UK, in Sweden, in the Middle East."

The indoor dimension, he argues, is under appreciated by those planning new facilities. "People want to play indoors," he says. "Professionals want indoor tournaments. That's important to think through when people are building venues, and the U.S. will be no different."

And the contagion effect, once it starts, is unlike anything else in sport. "I've never met anyone who tried padel once and never played again," he says. "They always say, when can I play again? I've never seen that in a sport, ever."

On the five-year view, Rowland is unambiguous. "When the USA takes hold of something — whether it be business, sport, anything else — they always tend to eventually lead. I don't think padel will be any different. Once the commercial engine gets behind it, the US becomes the biggest single market for padel. I'm 100% sure of that."

He sees the Olympics as the accelerant. Padel is widely expected to enter the Olympic programme - whether it be before, after, or alongside pickleball is a matter for much debate - and Rowland believes the funding and federation support that follows Olympic recognition will transform the sport's trajectory in every market — the US included.

Building the Platform

What VVV is building, Rowland is at pains to emphasise, is not a single bet on a single sport. It is a platform — a listed vehicle designed to back experienced operators across emerging racquet sports before the institutional money arrives.

"We don't want to go into major sports because it's all been done," he says. "There isn't that much investment in niche sports, which could be racquet sports, could be other sports. We want to be positioned as a public vehicle that is riding the wave and being at the forefront of that."

The verticals — player management, tournaments, brands, venues, media — are designed to reinforce each other; think of VVV as an ecosystem that’s greater than the sum of its parts. An athlete managed by R3 competes at an R3 Bullpadel Cup event, wearing Bullpadel equipment distributed by R3, watched by audiences through a VVV-produced TV series. "For me, success looks like having all of my verticals collaborating with each other and being cohesive together," he says.

In the US, the immediate priority is a venue. A padel — and potentially pickleball — centre of excellence, modelled on the Abu Dhabi feasibility work, designed to serve as both a community hub and a global academy for the sport.

"We will look to find either a partner or a place to build a significant venue," he says. "Something of this size — the first global academy for padel in the US. That would be what success looks like for me."

"We funded padel before anyone had heard of it in the UK. We funded kids, universities, the sport generally. We knew there'd be no return on that. But eventually there would be."

For a man who spent twenty years waiting for the right moment to invest in a sport he loves, the wait, it seems, is finally over, and the world’s largest sports market is set to be the real beneficiary.