Padel Circuit Raises $10mm Under Belief U.S. Just a ‘Little Late’ to Game

Padel Circuit Raises $10mm Under Belief U.S. Just a ‘Little Late’ to Game

The Pro Padel League (PPL) recently closed a $10mm seed round led by Left Lane Capital.

The 18-month-old North American league will use the funding to build out its front office with seasoned sports executives (CEO Mike Dorfman has a tech and insurance background), expand its events calendar (season one had three events, second two will have five), and grow awareness of the game on the continent.

While padel has become the ‘fastest growing’ sport in the world –it is now the second most popular, behind only soccer, in several Western European countries (see: Spain, France, Italy, Germany)– it continues to fly under the radar of most English-speaking sports fans.

“The reason we have such confidence in future growth here is because we see it internationally. We see it in the Middle East, we see it in Europe, we see it in the U.K. and in places like Australia,” Dorfman said. “The U.S. is just a little late to the game.”

Investors are betting the PPL will be able to develop tens of millions of fans in North America over time, and that when combined with the 30mm existing padel supporters worldwide, the property will have an audience that ‘far exceeds’ the TAM for many other emerging properties.

“We don’t have any assumptions that we’re going to cut through and reach the mainstream next year,” Dorfman said. But “the global appeal of padel is unique and so is the opportunity we have to own a sport in the U.S. market.”

Padel was founded in Acapulco in the late 1960s. Think of it as a hybrid between tennis and squash. The game is played in pairs, on a surface area about two-thirds the size of a tennis court, with a tennis-like ball and hard foam bracket.

Padel initially gained popularity in places like Mexico and Argentina. But Spain has served as the sport’s ‘unofficial capital’ in recent several decades.

Most fans of the game today live abroad, which makes sense. There are ~60,000 padel courts outside of the U.S. and just ~500 stateside—and the bulk of those were built within the last year. 

But the belief is that will change over time.

“We’re on a trajectory or path to 10,000 courts in North America by the end of the decade,” Dorfman said. 

While that kind of hyper-growth should drive participation (it’s estimated there are currently 100,000 players in the U.S.), the PPL is building a ‘media property’ and an ‘entertainment product’. And the correlation between active participation and passive fandom is weaker in the U.S. than in most other countries. Sports fans here simply have more choices here.

So, PPL game play will have to stand on its own merits if the league is going to draw viewers. Dorfman understands that and is convinced it will.

Padel is “a fun, dynamic sport to watch,” he said. At the highest level, there is an “insane level of athleticism. Fans will see some crazy points where the ball is going out of the court, over the wall, and the players are running out of the door to get it back into play. They are doing stuff that you just don't see in any other sport.”

In fact, PPL’s backers are convinced the game’s ‘viral’ nature will spawn far more casual viewers than active participants in North America, at least in the short-term. 

PPL’s first three events drew a collective 20 million fans (and 15,000 in-person attendees).

Of course, turning casual viewers into engaged fans of the nascent league and/or its players, which most have never heard of, is a steeper hill to climb.

“That's why we modified the format of how padel works in Europe and created city-based franchises,” Dorfman said. “It's an easy and proven way to get people to care.”

Once roped in, the PPL can begin to tell stories and create true engagement. 

The PPL has 10 individually owned franchises. The first few sold for $200K/each in late 2023.

“The latest mark on them has been high single-digit millions on secondary,” Dorfman said. “So, they’ve gone up substantially in just a year and a half.”

The clubs, owned by a mix of wealthy businessmen, padel benefactors, and celebrities (see: Daddy Yankee owns Orlando club), are entitled to 50% of league revenues.

The PPL is not the only professional padel league. The QSI-backed Premier Padel Tour debuted in 2024.

But Dorfman does not see the ATP-like property (think: individual entry, international circuit) as a direct competitor. 

“For the most part, the PPT is going into much more mature markets than us,” he said. For example, “they’ll do a Paris major at Roland Garris and fill the stadium.”

The PPL is, by contrast, largely focused on cultivating fandom in North America. 

The league has taken a bifurcated approach to communicating with fans across the three countries. There really was no other choice.

“A lot of people from Spanish speaking countries have played padel since they were young,” Dorfman said. So, many Mexicans and Latino Americans are lifelong fans of the sport and “excited to see a new local league.”

Padel is certainly not a fad to them. But there is doubt and a need to educate much of the Anglo-Saxon population on the continent.

Success for the PPL does not mean an eventual merger with the PPT.

“If you look at most other successful sports in the world, there’s not just one league that works,” Dorfman said. “We’re thinking bigger than that.” 

While that observation may be true in soccer and baseball, it is tougher to identify a tier two or three sport with multiple thriving pro leagues. And it’s only getting more difficult for challenger properties to monetize their media rights in the established system.

“We know that there is strong competition, and a lot of those remaining dollars are being consolidated into the major properties,” Dorfman said.

So, the PPL is not banking on generating meaningful domestic rights revenues in the short-to-medium term. The league is instead focused on reaching millennial and Gen-Z fans online via social/digital media and streaming distribution (think: TikTok, IG, YouTube).

It can afford to take that approach, in part, because of the ‘pretty big head start’ it has on media rights-related revenues; particularly relative to other upstart sports properties. The PPL has been able to monetize its live match content from the outset in countries like Mexico, Spain, and Australia, and across the Middle East.

Sponsored partnerships and live events are expected be the league’s other ‘key’ revenue drivers. Eataly, Hyperice, and Athletic Brewing were all on board for season one.

Adidas has signed a multi-year deal to be the PPL’s official court manufacturer, and other endemic European brands are beginning to look to the property for help establishing a presence in the U.S. too (see: Bullpadel is the official ball provider). It seems like just a matter of time until luxury brands follow suit (see: Babolat and Lamborghini collaboration).

Remember, “the Anglo community currently around the sport in the U.S. is the who’s who of any industry,” Dorfman said.

And the tour-based property can offer up something unique to them from an access and experience standpoint.

“The players know they are not enough of superstars that you can actually get partners or VIPs on the court with them,” Dorfman said. “The chance for amateurs to have access to and learn from the top athletes in the world at something is a special opportunity.”

The expectation is those highly curated —and lucrative— experiences will funnel up into attending future live events, becoming fans of a team, and/or regularly watching the league on TV.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but Left Lane and the other investors are betting it will happen; that the U.S. is just late to the fast-growing game.

“Having witnessed padel's explosive growth in the European and MENA regions over the past decade, we understood its undeniable social and addictive appeal-and believed it would gain significant traction in North America as well,” Arjun Kapur (VP, Left Lane Capital) said. “PPL now has a clear opportunity to own the market for one of the fastest-growing emerging sports. As infrastructure expands and participation rises, we believe this momentum will cultivate a passionate fan base around a thrilling professional league that showcases world-class talent.”

And the league should have time on its side. The PPL projects to be break even in ’26.

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