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What will our legacy be?

Matt Needham
Squad Leader
Matt Needham, Squad Leader at The Padel Squad
Our Legacy

What we want to look back and say we built

Padel is the fastest-growing sport in the world, and the UK’s obsession with it is unmatched. UK residents search more actively for padel, pay more per court, engage more socially, and generate more revenue per court than any other market on earth. But Britain ranks 15th out of 17 major padel nations for court density, with just 1.7 courts per 100,000 people. To reach the top ten by the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, the UK needs to build 1,400 courts per year — roughly 4× the current pace.

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Our Mission

To unblock the barriers that prevent schools and universities from introducing padel

Capital expenditure, operating cost, site constraints, planning, design, construction, timetabling, safeguarding, coaching supply, commercial risk, institutional governance, and the sheer decision-making complexity of getting a new sport from committee approval to campus.

And through doing so, help alleviate the national shortage in courts that is holding back the sport, the country, and the communities that would benefit most.

By the Olympic Games in 2032

By the time padel makes its anticipated Olympic debut at Brisbane 2032, we want to look back and say…

Team GB padel player competing at the Brisbane 2032 Olympics

“We discovered Britain’s first generation of Olympic padel talent.”

The problem

The players who will represent Great Britain at Brisbane 2032 are ten to fourteen years old today. Without local courts, an entire generation of talent will go undiscovered — not because they lack ability, but because they lack access. Britain’s elite pathways cannot pick what its grassroots cannot produce.

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How The Padel Squad can help

By putting courts on school and university campuses across the country, we put a racquet in the hands of children wherever they live. Every facility becomes a discovery engine — giving coaches, governing bodies and the LTA a national network of young players to spot, support, and develop in time for Brisbane.

A family playing padel together on a sunlit court

“We gave families a sport they can actually play together.”

The problem

Padel is the only mainstream competitive sport where a 12-year-old, a 45-year-old, and two grandparents can share a court and genuinely compete — but for most British families there is nowhere accessible enough or affordable enough to play together. Family time defaults to four phones in four rooms.

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How The Padel Squad can help

On school campuses, our facilities give families a reason to put the phones down, book a court, and spend an hour doing something active, social, and fun — together. On university campuses, they give students, staff, and the local community the same thing: a sport that brings people together who would otherwise never share a playing field.

An inclusive, mixed-ability padel session in full swing

“We opened up the most inclusive sport in the world to the people who needed it most.”

The problem

Padel is doubles-only, mixed-age, mixed-ability, and requires no prior sporting background — yet today it remains overwhelmingly concentrated in affluent postcodes and private members’ clubs. The sport that is structurally the most inclusive in the world is, in Britain, structurally the least accessible.

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How The Padel Squad can help

By placing courts on school and university campuses in communities across Britain — and running open-access community sessions every week — we make sure the one sport where everyone naturally plays together is no longer gated behind membership fees, geography, or gym culture.

Women and girls playing padel on equal terms

“We made a measurable dent in gender inequality in sport.”

The problem

Most racquet sports infrastructure was built for, and is still dominated by, men. Decades of campaigns, quotas and programmes have moved the dial only modestly. Padel attracts near-equal male and female participation without any of that — but only where the courts exist.

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How The Padel Squad can help

By building hundreds of facilities — including on the campuses of girls’ schools, mixed schools and universities — we give hundreds of thousands of women and girls an entry point into regular, social, competitive sport that no other infrastructure could have provided. The gender split happens naturally; we just have to build the courts.

A social padel mix-in bringing strangers together

“We gave lonely people a structured reason to leave the house.”

The problem

Britain has a loneliness epidemic. Most “wellbeing” initiatives are screen-based, solo, or self-directed — and rarely create the regular, real-world, face-to-face connections that actually move the needle on isolation.

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How The Padel Squad can help

Every padel session requires four people, face to face, for an hour. You can’t play alone and you can’t fake it on a screen. Our open-access community sessions, mix-ins and beginners’ nights create tens of thousands of real-world connections every week — not through a wellbeing programme, but through a sport that makes socialising unavoidable.

Padel as social prescribing — community health in action

“We gave the NHS something to actually prescribe.”

The problem

Social prescribing only works when the infrastructure exists within walking or short driving distance of the patient. GPs can tell people to “be more active”, but rarely have anywhere credible, bookable and local to send them. Without infrastructure, social prescribing is just advice.

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How The Padel Squad can help

By placing courts on school and university campuses embedded in communities across the country, we give GPs a credible, bookable, local activity to prescribe — turning “be more active” from a slogan into a postcode. Each facility becomes part of the local health infrastructure, not just the local sports infrastructure.

Britain catching up with Europe on padel infrastructure

“We closed the gap between Britain and the rest of Europe.”

The problem

At 1.7 courts per 100,000 residents, the UK sits 15th out of 17 major padel nations. Every year of delay widens the gap, and every year of rising land costs makes catching up more expensive. Commercial supply alone cannot move fast enough to change this.

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How The Padel Squad can help

By deploying courts onto school and university land — bypassing the planning friction and acquisition economics that are choking commercial supply — we give Britain a route to top-ten infrastructure density that the market alone cannot deliver. Each campus becomes another step on a path the market can’t take by itself.

Institutional sport funding flowing into padel infrastructure

“We unlocked institutional funding that had nowhere to go.”

The problem

Olympic inclusion triggers funding streams from Sport England, UK Sport, and university scholarship programmes — but only if the infrastructure exists to absorb them. Without courts, those funds have nowhere credible to flow, and aspiration stays unfunded.

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How The Padel Squad can help

By building that infrastructure, we turn padel from an unfunded aspiration into a sport with institutional backing, coaching pathways, and competitive structures that reach into every region of the country. The money is there; we build the network it can flow through.

Padel courts being built at pace on a British campus

“We proved that Britain can still build things at speed.”

The problem

Britain has earned a reputation for stalling on large-scale infrastructure: housing, transport, energy, sport. Even sensible community projects get tangled in planning, procurement and permission. The country has forgotten how to deploy at pace.

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How The Padel Squad can help

We demonstrate that social infrastructure — community-embedded, commercially sustainable, and nationally coordinated — can be deployed at pace, in months not years. The model we build for padel becomes a proof of concept for every other sport, health intervention, and community programme waiting for evidence that rapid delivery still works in Britain.

A thriving, commercially sustainable Padel Squad facility

“And we built a commercially compelling business in the process.”

The problem

Most community-led sport projects rely on grants or public subsidy and don’t sustain themselves commercially — so they stop, shrink or fall over the moment funding runs out. Good intentions without a working business model don’t scale, and don’t last.

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How The Padel Squad can help

Every facility we build generates revenue from day one through community bookings, coaching programmes and events — creating returns for investors, guaranteed ground rent for schools and universities, and a growing network where each new campus deployment is faster, cheaper, and lower risk than the last. The economic value flows in every direction: to the institutions that host us, the communities that use us, the investors that back us, and the country that needed someone to solve this problem.

“The players who will represent Great Britain at Brisbane 2032 are ten to fourteen years old today. By putting courts on school and university campuses, we are ensuring they pick up a racquet in time.”

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