What is unique about The Padel Squad’s model, compared to typical commercial operators?

We do not compete with commercial operators. We access land they cannot touch, in catchments they cannot reach, with planning advantages they do not have. Our entire operating model — safeguarding protocols, timetable integration, special purpose vehicle structure, and governance expertise — is designed from scratch for the campus environment. Every facility is purpose-built for children by day, community by evening, and institution for life.

We eliminate every one of those barriers. We cover all capital expenditure and all operating costs. In return, the institution provides a 25-year lease of land and agrees to a shared timetable — pupils and students play free during school hours; in the evenings, weekends and holidays the courts open up to teachers, parents, siblings, alumni, local residents, nearby businesses, social groups, NHS referral patients, and anyone else in the community who wants to pick up a racquet. The result is a decision where the institution has nothing to lose and everything to gain. We are able to make this offer because our founder’s deep ties to the City of London — combined with an established network of high-net-worth individuals, friends and family, benefactors and institutional investors — give us direct access to the capital required to fund each facility from day one.

We are assembling three squads — Commercial, Campus and Sport — each composed of specialists recruited to solve a specific barrier. Architects, planning consultants, acoustic engineers, safeguarding specialists, solicitors, fund structuring advisors, school and university governance experts, coaches and programme managers. Every member of every squad went to school — and that personal connection to an institution is what turns a cold introduction into a warm one. Whatever question comes up in the meeting, there is somebody in the squad whose job is to answer it.

Each facility we deliver generates something no competitor starting from scratch can replicate: proven supplier relationships, tested safeguarding frameworks, solved planning precedents, refined construction programmes, and a live venue that the next head, bursar or vice-chancellor can visit before they sign. Behind every individually branded facility sits a shared operating platform — standardised procedures, aggregated procurement, shared coaching standards, and a growing evidence base that compounds with every school and university. The first institutions build on their reputation as leaders in sport. The tenth inherits a proven playbook. The hundredth joins an ecosystem where deployment risk has been engineered out at every stage.