As I’ve watched one padel club after another pop up in cities around the U.S., I’ve kept wondering when a large-scale club would finally open in the Phoenix area, which until now has only been home to the one-court Camelback Padel Club (pictured below).
So, I was pleasantly surprised when I recently discovered that a concept known as Conquer Padel Club has plans to bring five total clubs to the Phoenix area over the next couple of years, beginning with a five-court indoor facility in Tempe that is anticipated to open around May.
While opening five clubs is ultra-ambitious in its own right, as I learned from my recently conversation with Conquer Padel Club Founder and CEO Enrique Gracia, this is only the beginning. That’s because, as Gracia tells me, Conquer Padel is also actively working towards launching a national franchise model that will spread its brand from coast to coast and everywhere in between.
Notably Different — Yet Exactly the Same
Unlike so many other U.S. padel club owners and operators I’ve spoken with (including Patricio Misitrano of The Sports Haus, Nalle Grinda of Padel X, Miguel Correa of the Charlotte Padel Club, and Tim Bainton of Epic Padel), Gracia didn’t originally come to the U.S. on a college tennis scholarship. As a matter of fact, much to my surprise, he tells me he has no racket-sports background whatsoever.
“That’s one of the things I really love about this, man. I did a lot of extreme sports. I did motor-cross and dirt-bike riding. I currently do mountain biking and spear-fishing. I am also a free diver. But no, no racket background at all,” he explains.
Of his professional past, Gracia simply says, “My background is in international business. I’ve started and sold a couple of businesses in Mexico and in Arizona.” But, just like everyone else I interview, it’s obvious what he really wants to talk about his future and how padel will fit into it.
“I’ve been playing padel for about four or five years,” he confesses with a smile before going on to explain, “Padel arrived to my city (Hermosillo, Mexico), which is a town of about 1.2 million people, in 2019, right before the pandemic. Fast forward to today and there have got to be about 120 courts. It’s really grown. And I just fell in love with the sport.”
“With my business background, I’m always just looking for new opportunities. And I’ve had padel in my sights for about a year now, especially padel in the U.S. So, I decided to sell my last company and launch Conquer Padel,” he concludes.
Team Work Makes the Dream Work
Gracia is also quick to point out the extensive experience and expertise of the team he has built around him at Conquer Padel Club. This includes his partners in Mexico, one of whom, Gilberto Cañez, is the largest padel club owner in the whole country with 36 courts spread across four clubs in three cities, and a fifth club on the way.
“He owns five clubs and his brand, Duo Padel Park, is one of the strongest brands here in Mexico for padel. He has very, very nice, high-end, successful clubs,” he says of Cañez. Then he turns to another of his partners in Mexico, Liza Riefkohl.
Of Riefkohl — who was ranked in the top 300 in the world in tennis at one point — he says, “Lisa has been playing padel since the ’90s. She’s 61 years old and she is still representing Mexico. She’s actually in Argentina right now playing for Mexico in the Pan-Americans. So, she’s what we’re calling our global padel ambassador, as she’s very well connected in the global padel community.”
Then there are Gracia’s partners in the U.S., which include Tom Konkowski — who Gracia simply describes as having “a finance background” — and Barry J. Falcon, who Gracia tells me, “has been in the franchising industry for over 30 years.”
The BIG Picture
When I ask Gracia for specifics about what all he and his team are working on, he begins by telling me, “Our plan is to franchise as quickly as possible. We are trying to potentially come out in February or March with the ability to award franchise units.”
“Our main goal, more than building clubs of our own, is to help franchisees around the country. We want to help whoever wants to build a club, even if they maybe don’t have the experience or the relations or the know-how. We just want to make it as easy as possible for anybody that fits our profile to open a club. We want to support them throughout the process, before and after opening. That is our main, main goal,” he adds.
“As far as corporate clubs, we have five clubs in our plans for the Phoenix area. We chose Phoenix because we’re all right here and we think there’s great potential to the area. We saw padel businesses in the works all over you know… coast to coast, New York, Philadelphia, Texas — but nobody else was really doing Arizona” he continues.
As I learn, Conquer Padel Club’s first club will be a five court indoor facility in Tempe, which is currently in the permitting phase and they hope to have open by May or so.
“As soon as we signed the lease [in Tempe], we started our fund-raising — and we hit our goal in just one week. We had awesome response. With pretty much nine out of 10 presentations we did, nine of them were in,” Gracia proudly tells me.
Following on the stunning success of this capital raise, Gracia and his team are now looking to buy a piece of property for their second club in North Phoenix.
“That club will be an outdoor, covered model. Nine courts with a pretty large center court. The property is large enough that we can have a training complex, too. We’d like to partner with someone to start an academy, and potentially be the first live-in padel academy in the U.S. with duplexes, a large gym, and an indoor pool. That will be in our initial plans as a stage two,” Gracia explains.
From there, Conquer Padel Club plans to open three more Phoenix-area locations including Scottsdale, Gilbert, and Surprise (please note, all locations shown on the map above are only approximate and not confirmed).
So, suffice it to say, the brand is very aptly named.
Padel’s Next Big U.S. Hot Spot?
While Gracia admits that padel isn’t anywhere near as well known as pickleball in the Phoenix area, he does tell me, “There’s actually already a pretty good sized padel community in Phoenix, even though they only have that one court right now.”
“I was playing a tournament there last week. We had an NBA celebrity playing and a big party after the final on Sunday. There must have been about 100 people there, even though there’s just that one court,” he adds.
And Gracia is very confident this community will only grow exponentially larger going forward, saying, “People are excited and looking forward to it. I opened our social media accounts just last week and I’m already getting A LOT of messages from people saying they have been waiting for padel to come here.
There’s even a lady that told me she’s been taking her daughter down to Tucson to play several times per week, going down and back in the same day because she can just never get a reservation at the Camelback court.”
But the biggest reason Gracia is optimistic about the future of padel in Phoenix — and the sport in general? Well, that hits a little closer to home…
As we wrap up our conversation, he tells me, “My wife never did any sports ever. Not even go to the gym. She just wasn’t a sports person. But she started playing padel because of the social aspect of it. Now, she’s playing more than me. She plays every day. She’s just hooked on it. And that’s what I love about this sport, anybody can play and everyone gets hooked.”
Please check back often for updates on the progress of Conquer Padel Club and, in the meantime, be sure to follow them on Instagram and LinkedIn.
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