When Julian Wortleboer, the Chief Padel Officer at Ultra Club in Miami, reaches out and says he’s got something “big” to tell me, I’ve learned to listen…
Like, for example, earlier this year, when he dropped the news on me that Ultra would soon be expanding into a 29-court facility that would be among the largest in the world.
This time, though, he reached out to tell me that Ultra is preparing to open not just one or two — but five — new padel clubs in Miami over just the next few months.
Of course, the original reason Julian and I were supposed to speak was because Ultra recently unveiled some jaw-dropping renderings of a four-court floating padel club that instantly sent padel addicts across the globe into a frenzy on social media. Yet, amazingly, this floating court isn’t even one of five new Ultra padel clubs in Miami that Julian wanted to tell me about.
The Life Aquatic
While “Ultra On the Water” is only a small part of what Julian has to tell me, he is understandably quite proud to talk about the project.
He says, “We’ve got really good traction on the floating court, and it’s going to be super, super exciting. It’s a new concept and a whole new gaming environment. And it’s going to have astounding water views. Our vision is to build floating courts and move them every few months to new locations.”
He also tells me they’ve been approached by other floating concepts — like social clubs — who are interested in finding ways to collaborate with them to create an entire floating community experience on the water.
Of the floating padel court concept itself Julian explains, “Look… when it comes to setting up the structure and the permitting process, it’s actually much easier to build a padel court on the water than on the land. For us, the traction to get courts going on the water was much easier than for us to build courts anywhere else.”
“Ville Leiste (of Floating Padel) is the brains behind the floating court. It’s interesting… he’s an engineer and his background is in floating restaurants. But then he fell in love with padel and he started looking into how to do floating courts,” he further explains.
I actually briefly met Leiste at RacquetX back in March, and was immediately impressed with his unique vision and overwhelming optimism about the potential of floating courts. But, honestly, at the time, I didn’t really foresee too many people in the U.S. being bold enough to actually try building them.
That being said, if anyone can — and will — pull it off, it’s surely Julian and the Ultra team.
Meanwhile, Back on Land…
While Julian is obviously excited about the five new padel clubs — and 33 total new courts — that Ultra will soon be bringing to land in the greater Miami area, he also admits there will be plenty of challenges. Chief among them, finding qualified coaches to properly staff all of them.
He says, “You know, it’s not just putting in the courts. You have to build the whole structure around it and think about putting together the teams… the logistics… the coaching… and everything that will make it as good — or better — than our original flagship location.”
“One of the biggest issues we have in the U.S. right now is how to get qualified coaches. That’s what all of us in the padel world really need, qualified coaches to teach padel and introduce new people to the sport. So, that’s really my main focus… to vet and certify and make sure we have the best coaches at Ultra. We’re not trying to just get the best coaches in town, but in the United States,” he continues.
Julian highlights the fact that Miami is very spread out and coaches don’t always have their own transportation, which makes it especially difficult from them to get from club to club.
He explains, “When you’re talking about going 20 miles north… or 10 miles east or west… or whatever, it’s not always easy — and sometimes these guys can’t do it. So, that’s what I am trying to put my head around — and think about how to structure our team to be the most efficient as possible.”
As many challenges as Julian and his team face in getting five new clubs off the ground within the next few months, Julian is optimistic as ever. Throughout our discussion he laughs and smiles and his eyes beam from behind his signature, brightly colored spectacles (the red ones for this conversation).
Of course, Julian is one busy guy, so I don’t even have a chance to ask him about the five other national locations that Ultra’s website says are coming soon to Austin, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York. But that’s okay. I know as soon as he does have time — and more details — he’ll reach back out and let me know he has something big to tell me.
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