While another sporting event happening about 600 miles north in Augusta, GA, no doubt drew slightly more attention this past weekend, in the padel world all eyes were on Ultra Padel Club in Miami for the grand finale of the start to season two of the Pro Padel League (PPL).
In fact, according to the PPL, week one of the second season, which ran April 2-7, drew over 1 million streams on the PPL YouTube channel and accumulated an impressive total watch time exceeding 280,000 hours.
“In comparison to its performance in 2023, these numbers reflect staggering growth, being 15 times higher than the total YouTube watch time recorded throughout the entirety of the PPL’s 2023 season,” said officials from the PPL.
Although week two viewership stats aren’t available just yet, it proved to be every bit as exciting and action-packed as week one, if not more so, with the Los Angeles Beat ultimately defeating the Daddy-Yankee-backed Flowrida Goats 2-1 in the finals.
Meanwhile, the Arkansas Matrix team took down the Toronto Polar Bears by a score of 2-1 to secure a third place finish. Interestingly, the Polar Bears were the only team in the league to finish in the top four both weeks, with the Miami Padel Club, Las Vegas Smash, and New York Atlantics placing first through third respectively week one.
Ryan Redondo — who is the CEO of both the San Diego Stingrays franchise and also Taktika Padel — said, “I am so impressed with how this second season kicked off. To have essentially 50 or so of the top 70 players in the world on American soil was truly a remarkable accomplishment for the league.”
He added, “From here, it is essential to keep the momentum as all of our players head back out to the Premier Tour, A1, etc. We must come back for the second portion of the season in Los Angeles having learned of what could have been better and make the fine adjustments to raise the level. But, again, to kick off the season with the likes of Tapia and Ari Sanchez winning was stellar.”
Andres “Tito” Moreno — a pro padel player who serves as the communications director for the Houston Volts among many his other roles in the padel world — echoed Redondo’s sentiments, telling me in a recent conversation, “The event itself obviously has things to improve but given the circumstances of never having done it at this scale with this caliber of players we did quite well!”
“From a personal level it was a dream come true to be able to hang out with these players and meet them,” he continued, before further explaining, “To most it was not a big deal to see these legends, but wow let me tell you it was a great thing having players like Juan Martin Diaz, Juani Mieres, Maxi Sanchez, Sanyo Gutierrez!!! All [former] number one players in the world, this was legendary! I couldn’t help but smile the whole time while there. The experience [was something] any of us padel OGs and fanatics would kill for.”
Season two of Pro Padel League play will resume in Los Angeles for two weeks later this summer (August 12-17 and August 19-24) and then culminate with the PPL Cup Final in New York this fall (November 18-23) and a PPL All-Star Game on December 13 at a yet-to-be-determined location.
