Playtomic Sees Major Opportunity as Padel Continues to Grow Across the U.S.

Playtomic Head of Business Development for the U.S. and Canada Britt Ivy spoke with Florida Tennis Magazine about the rise of padel in the United States, Florida’s position as a leader in the sport, and how technology is helping connect a rapidly expanding community of players and clubs.

Padel may already be firmly established across Europe and Latin America, but in the United States, the sport is only beginning to show its potential.

For Playtomic, one of the world’s leading racquet sports platforms, that presents a significant opportunity.

Florida Tennis Magazine recently spoke with Britt Ivy, Head of Business Development for Playtomic in the U.S. and Canada, about the growth of padel, the company’s expanding presence in the American market, and what comes next.

“We are at this point in 68 countries,” Ivy said. “We work with approximately 7,000 clubs and have over 5 million active users—players.”

While Playtomic supports racquet sports more broadly, Ivy said the company has become particularly associated with padel. Its player app was built with the social nature of sports such as padel and pickleball in mind, where four players are typically needed to get a match going.

“The app makes it easy for people to find others to play with and find places to play,” Ivy explained.

For clubs, Playtomic extends beyond court reservations. Ivy described it as a comprehensive club management system incorporating bookings, memberships, training and competitive activities, point-of-sale and stock management, along with data and analytics.

Above: Playtomic Head of Business Development for the U.S. and Canada Britt Ivy

Despite the attention padel has generated recently, Ivy believes it is important to put the American market into perspective.

“It’s still very early stages in the U.S.,” she said, contrasting padel with the considerably more mature pickleball market in the United States and Canada.

Globally, however, padel has already built a substantial following. Ivy believes its international success made its eventual expansion in the United States almost inevitable.

“Padel’s still in its infancy, you could say—I mean here at least,” Ivy said. “Globally, it’s obviously been very well established in many countries.”

The diversity of the United States has also helped create some of the sport’s first American hubs.

“It was just a matter of time before it was going to start to take off in the U.S., especially the U.S. being such a diverse place with people here from all over,” Ivy said.

South Florida is perhaps the clearest example.

Padel has been popular for decades in countries throughout Latin America, and Ivy pointed to Miami and Florida's large Latin American community as one of the factors that helped establish an early foundation for the sport.

“In Miami there’s a lot of Latin people, so that’s been the origin so far—not exclusively, but I’d say predominantly anyway when it was just getting going,” she said.

Florida's influence on American padel now goes beyond its international connections.

According to Ivy, the Sunshine State currently stands at the forefront of the U.S. market.

“Florida is still the strongest state for the sport, having the most clubs, but Texas is very close behind it,” she said.

Growth is also beginning to spread beyond those established hubs. Ivy said Playtomic is seeing development along the East Coast and some movement in the Midwest, although expansion there remains slower.

As awareness increases, the sport is also attracting players who already have experience with other racquet sports.

“I’d say more tennis players cross over to padel than pickleball players cross over to padel,” Ivy said.

Part of the attraction, she believes, comes from padel's physical demands.

“It requires more physical exertion,” Ivy explained. “There’s a bit more of an athletic element to it that’s elevated from, say, pickleball. So for the people that need that to feel satisfied, they’re gravitating more towards padel.”

For a state with such an established tennis community, that crossover could become particularly important as more padel facilities and courts open throughout Florida.

Building courts is only one part of growing a sport. Players also need an easy way to discover facilities, find appropriate opponents and get involved in their local communities.

That's where Ivy sees technology playing an important role.

“It makes everything easier when you’re able to do things online and able to figure out where to start,” she said.

That can be particularly important for beginners. Instead of already needing three other people to organize a padel match, a new player can find activities such as beginner clinics and begin connecting with a local community.

Playtomic is designed to bring those different parts of the experience together.

“It makes it easier for players to do these things—to find places to play, to connect with other players, to see their playing history,” Ivy said.

Another component is Playtomic's player-leveling system, which Ivy described as the most widely used in the world for padel. The system can evolve based on a player's performance, helping users find clinics and opponents that better correspond with their playing level.

“You really kind of need technology to do that in an easy way,” Ivy said.

That combination of booking, matchmaking, player information and community building has helped Playtomic become closely connected with the global padel experience.

“Anyone that’s starting to understand padel is quickly learning of Playtomic if they didn’t know of Playtomic before,” Ivy said. “It’s sort of their go-to place…where they know they can do everything related to padel, basically.”

Playtomic's penetration of the still-developing American padel market is already significant.

“We’re working with the majority of the padel clubs in the U.S.—over 60%,” Ivy said.

For the company, however, growth isn't simply about adding clubs to its platform.

“We partner with clubs,” Ivy explained. “That’s our approach. That’s our business model. We work very closely with the clubs.”

That relationship includes providing business intelligence and helping facilities with different initiatives and activities.

“We want to keep helping clubs with their efforts to also grow the sport and bring more visibility to it in general,” Ivy said.

With Playtomic already working with more than 60% of U.S. padel clubs, Ivy said the company plans to continue building on its position within the sport while also increasing its attention on another rapidly expanding American racquet sport: pickleball.

“Now that we’ve captured the majority of the market share in padel at this stage where it’s still early on, now we want to put some effort into pickleball more,” she said.

But padel remains an important part of that future.

The American market may still be in its infancy, but Florida's growing network of clubs, the crossover from tennis, and increasing awareness of the sport offer signs of what could be ahead nationally.