If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the nine or so months since launching The Padel State, it’s that you never exactly meet anybody boring or underachieving in the rapidly emerging U.S. padel world. This is certainly true of Tim Bainton, the new COO of Epic Padel, a company which is approaching the U.S. padel industry in a completely different and revolutionary way.
For starters, as Bainton explains to me during a recent conversation, Epic Padel isn’t just focused on opening padel clubs… or manufacturing padel gear… or building padel brands.
Instead, they’re aggressively investing across the entire padel ecosystem in, “the best companies and initiatives that align with [their] vision of inclusivity, innovation, and growth.”
Their current investments include padel club concepts like Padel39, which will be opening its first club soon in Austin, TX, and BOND Life Club, which was co-founded by Litquidity, and is bringing high-end racket and wellness clubs to New York City and Miami.
Additionally, they have invested in modern, minimalistic racket and apparel company TWOTWO… the unique, celebrity-fueled international padel tournament known as the Hexagon Cup… and the New York Atlantics franchise in the Pro Padel League, just to name a few.
The Berkshire Hathaway of the U.S. Padel World
That’s what I tell Bainton that Epic Padel reminds me of after he describes their mission to me, and he doesn’t disagree with the assessment. But he also doesn’t go so far as suggest that makes him the Warren Buffett of this world, either — though I’d say he’s certainly enjoyed enough success to back that kind of comparison up.
Like so many others in this world, Bainton, who is originally from England, first came to the U.S. because he got a scholarship to play college tennis. Bainton tells me, “After graduating, it took me about a year to realize how much I missed tennis — and that I wanted to be in it. So, my goal was to own a tennis club. I thought that would be a pretty cool thing to do. So, that was my objective.”
He continues, “I wanted to live in the club, too, and just be there 24/7 making it [my own]. I wanted to let that be the next 40 years of [my] life and [my] legacy, if you will.”
As it turns out, though, the universe had slightly bigger plans for Bainton…
From Running One Tennis Club to an Entire (Blue Chip) Sports Empire
Like many other truly successful people I’ve spoken with over the years, Bainton attributes his success to “plenty of hard work and an awful lot of luck.”
In his case, at 25 years old, he had a member whom he gave lessons to at his original tennis club offer him the opportunity to take over another struggling tennis club and try to save it. But he wound up doing a bit more than that…
In fact, over a period of just nine months, he was able to grow the club’s annual gross revenues from $360,000 to more than $1.8 million(!).
Of this incredible feat, Bainton says, “How’d we do that? I still think about it to this day… but it was really nothing more than handshakes, smiles, and helluva lot of hours and hard work. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was passionate about it, and we figured it out.”
From there, the (very large and successful) ownership group behind the newly thriving club asked Bainton what he wanted to do next. He recalls, “That’s when the wheels turned on. I suggested, ‘Why don’t we replicate this and create an entity?’ And that’s where my company, Blue Chip Sports Management, was born.”
He continues, “The fun bit was we then got into running tennis and health clubs, and tennis-related operations in municipalities, counties, governments, public and private schools, racket clubs, country clubs — you name it.”
But Blue Chip Sports Management quickly expanded well beyond just tennis, and as a “full-service sports facilities company” has now generated over $100 million in customer revenue while serving over 90 sports, recreation, and entertainment facilities across North America.
Padel: The Final Frontier?
Although his company’s focus began to broaden greatly, Bainton says tennis always remained his first love. During our conversation he tells me, “Tennis was my identity. I became one of the best developmental juniors coaches in the country. I coached at every junior Grand Slam and assistant coached the U.S. Davis Cup Team.”
“I’m a tennis purist,” he continues, adding, “if I could just wave my magic wand and we could just have tennis and everything else would go by the wayside, I would. But I’m also a businessman, and I’m smarter than what my dreams and aspirations just for tennis are.”
Bainton tells me that coming from the U.K., he has been familiar with padel for a while now, and has definitely seen and heard the buzz growing steadily louder across the world through his travels.
Initially, his idea was to add a few padel courts at some of the existing properties his company manages to test the waters. Then last year he was approached by a group out of the U.A.E. who told him they wanted to be the largest padel operator in North America, but had little experience opening or operating clubs.
So, they hired Bainton for his immense expertise in that realm, and thus the Epic tale began.
“Born in Virginia, Taking Over North America”
That’s how Epic Padel describes itself on its Instagram page, and currently Epic has plans to open three new padel clubs in the greater DMV area (D.C., Maryland, Virginia), with the first slated for the upscale D.C. suburb of Tysons Corner, VA.
Of this first club, Bainton tells me, “It’s going to be a home run. We’ve got five outdoor courts with canopies on a rooftop there.” The second and third clubs will then open in the greater Baltimore and Alexandria, VA, areas. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg for Epic.
When I ask if Epic has any international investments or is only focusing on North America, Bainton mentions projects they are exploring — or already involved in — in the U.K., India, Paris, and Morocco, among many other exotic locations.
But ultimately he says that North America is their main focus and walks me through dozens of locations around the U.S. and Canada that are currently on their radar including places as far-flung as Coconut Grove, FL… Layton, UT… and Burlington, Ontario.
He also points out that unlike many other clubs that are intently focused on providing very posh “lifestyle clubs” complete with extensive wellness amenities and high-end food and beverage offerings, Epic is focused far more on volume.
“We want the most amount of courts. We are not trying to be the Equinox of padel. We are focusing more on captivating the middle class rather than the one percent” Bainton explains, before adding, “We want to be part of that grassroots middle-tier growth of padel across the U.S., and be first into markets that initially are going to be overlooked by others.”
At the same time, Bainton makes it clear that while the focus for their own clubs may not be on major markets, that doesn’t mean they aren’t investing in them in a big way.
“We are easily the most diversified padel operator — or padel investment company — out there. We have investments in close to 20 padel related brands that we’ve poured over $3 million into. Pretty much any padel club that you’ve seen open in a major metropolis in North America, we were there [investing] in the first round,” he tells me.
Combine this behind-the-scenes market dominance with their plans to open dozens of clubs and hundreds of courts around North America under their own brand, and it quickly becomes apparent that their company is very aptly named. What’s more, given Bainton’s background, it’s probably a pretty safe bet that they will have a truly epic impact on the U.S. padel industry, indeed.
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