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Britain’s thriving number of paddle players can grow ten times because the country has the “perfect ingredients,” said the founder of Rocket Padel as the operator prepares to open a new club in Beckton, East London.
The new site, which will be open in April, will be the Scandinavian brand’s seventh club all over the world and its fourth in England as the requirement to play racket sports shows no signs of braking.
Its Ilford -Philial is so popular that it was fully booked on Christmas Day, while the number of players across the country has mushroomed from 6,000 in 2019 to 129,000 on the last bill.
“I think you can definitely see between five and 10 times from now on,” Rocket Padel told Sebastian Gordon City is.
“It will take some time, but we will be there. Britain has the perfect ingredients, with its rocket heritage from tennis, squash and badminton and a great mix of people.
“To some extent, we may never reach the saturation in London, especially at premium indoors (facilities). London is a city with high population density, so there is a lot of growth to do, but we really focus on where to make that growth and how to help build the sport.
“We take it step by step. There is no in a hurry. I think the growth that is happening in the UK is now quite healthy, especially in London. “
Beckton, at the site of a former community gymnastics center, will be Rocket Padel’s most complete club yet and close to both City Airport and University of East London.
Its five indoor and three outdoor courses will be supplemented with a spa, with sauna, jacuzzi and cold plunge pool, café and collaboration.
Rocket Padel Croydon will follow Beckton
It joins a portfolio that contains a website at Battersea Power Station, Ilford and Bristol, in addition to the company’s three clubs in Denmark. A fifth British club in Croydon is on the way.
The new arenas are part of a wave of advanced openings of such as Padel Social Club, which has places in Earls Court and at O2 and Padium in Canary Wharf.
“We are mainly looking out to cover most of London within the next two years,” Gordon added.
Rocket Padel’s expansion has seen its turnover grow 250 percent from year to year, while it also has designs on a flagship site on the Costa del Sol, a hotspot for the sport.
Spain remains Europe’s Padel Heartland, but the UK is on its way to match Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy for players per capita.
The government’s promise to remove bureaucracy about planning and construction has in the meantime encouraged rocket paddles that it can build more custom -built clubs from the ground up.
“Within one to three years, we will focus a lot on Greenfield projects and build our own clubs that we have done in Denmark,” Gordon said.
“It would be the next step in our development because we can create clubs that are space -efficient, energy efficient, completely indoors, but we can build the convenience and the needs exactly according to our concept.”
