Opening a Padel Club in the United States: Is It Profitable?
US padel is still a modest market in absolute terms, but the trajectory is what actually matters here. Playtomic's Global Padel Report 2026 names the United States among the sport's biggest long-term growth markets, and the numbers behind that claim are moving fast enough to matter for a decision to open now versus wait.
Where the numbers stand today
The United States had just over 1,000 padel courts open across 31 states as of April 2026, according to the United States Padel Association (USPA). The first national participation count, published in the SFIA's 2026 report, recorded 1,073,000 Americans who played padel in 2025, up from under 100,000 in 2023. Member club counts grew 51.5% year over year, and individual membership grew 53.5%.
Why investors are paying attention
Based on current infrastructure and growth, the USPA projects the US could reach 10,000 courts and over 10 million players by 2030, and whether that exact target lands on schedule or not, the direction it points in is what is pulling real estate developers, hotel groups, and wellness-focused operators into the space. Padel in the US is positioned less as a standalone sport and more as a premium lifestyle amenity, which opens doors with capital sources that a pure sports pitch usually doesn't reach.
Where padel is growing fastest
Florida leads US padel investment, with Texas close behind as the fastest-growing state, and California and New York rounding out the top tier. Miami is the most mature US market, warm nearly year-round and already priced at a premium, while Austin, Houston, and Dallas all have a real, growing scene but noticeably more room and lower barriers to entry, and secondary markets like Connecticut and San Diego are starting to see investment precisely because the obvious cities are getting more competitive. Unlike Spain or Sweden, where the conversation increasingly centers on optimizing existing clubs or hunting for the last open neighborhood, most of the US remains genuinely open territory, and that window will not stay open indefinitely at a growth rate of more than 50% a year in club count.
What a successful US club needs
Pricing has to be calibrated to both the metro and the tier of club being built, not a single national average. Real booking data puts mainstream court rental at roughly $50 to $70 an hour per court in a market like Miami, with boutique and premium venues running $85 to $140. A club modeled on the wrong tier's benchmark, not just the wrong city's, will misjudge its own numbers badly in either direction. Climate also shapes construction, Florida, Texas, and Southern California allow outdoor or partially covered courts most of the year, covered in more detail in our indoor vs outdoor vs covered guide, while states with real winters need fuller indoor investment to avoid seasonal occupancy swings. Corporate and hotel partnerships, covered in our corporate padel events guide, also matter more here than in markets with a larger base of individual players already used to booking on their own.
The biggest risks for US padel investors
Pickleball is the risk most new entrants underweight: the US has over 50,000 pickleball courts versus roughly 1,000 for padel, and the US pickleball player base, around 24 million, dwarfs padel's roughly one million players, which means some of the capital and real estate that could go to padel goes to the cheaper, faster-to-build alternative instead. That said, padel earns roughly 57% more per court-hour than pickleball since it charges 50 to 70% more, so the two aren't really fighting over the same customer, and the most profitable venues in 2026 tend to offer both. The other recurring risk is simpler: picking a location before demand has proven itself locally, in a market where habits and awareness vary enormously state to state, is a far bigger threat here than saturation.
Should you open a padel club in the US now?
For the right city, at the right price tier, with a realistic read on whether padel alone or a padel-plus-pickleball concept fits local demand, the case is strong, the US remains one of the few markets on this list where getting in early is still genuinely possible rather than an already-played-out story. Getting the city or the price wrong is the far more likely failure mode than getting in too early.
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