The growth of padel in the U.S. over the past year has been nothing short of incredible. And it’s apparently caught the attention of the world’s top professional padel circuit, the Qatar Airways Premier Padel Tour, as the organization recently revealed they will finally be hosting a tournament on U.S. soil in 2025.
So far 2024 has been a banner year for Premier Padel, which effectively took over the World Padel Tour at the beginning of the year. In fact, to date, an incredible 350,000 fans have attended the 14 different pro tournaments that Premier Padel has hosted across 12 different countries through the end of August.
Granted, Premier Padel choosing to finally bring a tournament to the U.S. is really no surprise given some of the developments we’ve seen through the first eight months of the year here in the States including:
- Ultra Padel Club Miami’s massive expansion — which will soon put it among the very largest padel clubs in the entire world when all is said and done…
- Ryan Redondo, Gabriel Perez Krieb, and Taktika Padel bringing the first-ever padel courts to a U.S. college campus at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA…
- AMET International and NXPadel helping to bring the first-ever courts to a U.S. high school in Austin, TX…
- RacquetX hosting the world’s first-ever “all-racket-sports” extravaganza in Miami Beach…
- Numerous new locations being announced around the country from padel club operators like Taktika, Padel Haus, Sensa Padel, Epic Padel, Ace Padel, and others…
- redPADEL and the United States Padel Association (USPA) joining forces to create a unified U.S. rating and ranking system…
- Marcos Del Pilar and the Pro Padel League bringing some of the world’s best players to compete on U.S. soil for tournaments on both coasts…
But even so, the U.S. is an incredibly new and small market for padel compared to places like Spain, Sweden, Italy, Argentina, and Mexico. So, where Premier Padel chooses to host their first-ever U.S. tournament will be incredibly important.
The Big Question
Of course, probably the most obvious place to host this caliber of tournament in the U.S. would be Miami, which has clearly established itself over the past year as a global padel mecca. This is also clearly the very early consensus from our 2,100+ followers on LinkedIn, with an overwhelming 83% of respondents favoring Miami over alternatives like New York City, Houston, and Los Angeles.
But as some have pointed out in the comments, many pro padel players tend to prefer to play indoors, which might make a venue like New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden an attractive — and highly visible — option.
Premier Padel has promised to unveil their decision soon, so please stay tuned for updates. And in the meantime, feel free to weigh in below on where you think the first-ever Premier Padel tournament in the U.S. should take place.
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