More South Africans are taking to the padel courts as new research shows that it's becoming the pastime of the middle class, but will this change?
According to a BrandMapp survey of over 33,000 South Africans living in households with a monthly income of R10,000 or more, approximately 1% of these people play padel.
This puts the new sport on par with horse-riding, surfing and motorsports.
The research found that padel is the country’s fastest growing sport, and for those who have been living under a rock, it is a hybrid tennis-squash bat and ball game.
Globally, padel boasts 25 million players across 90 countries and it emerged in South Africa in 2020, according to the research.
“With more and more courts being developed in up-market neighbourhoods, at gyms and on the rooftops of shopping malls, there’s little doubt that padel is ‘a thing’ for affluent South Africans,” Brandon De Kock, BrandMapp’s Director of storytelling said.
“According to the leading booking platform (Africa Padel) for the activity, there are around 100,000 active padel players right now, which correlates quite closely with our data,” he added.
De Kock noted that there has been a rapid development of leagues and tournaments in SA and even local star players are emerging.
He added that brands and celebrities are also becoming increasingly interested in the sport.
However, De Kock wonders whether the sport will become another elite pastime in SA, like golf or mountain biking, or if it will develop and become accessible in SA’s broad culture over the long term.
“That’s going to be determined by the vision and intentions for the sport in the country, which at the moment is in the hands of corporate developers and other businesses in the game,” he explained.
Padel started out and gained momentum in middle-income to wealthy-class enclaves. The first court was built at Val De Vie in Paarl.
Elite country clubs in the Western Cape and Gauteng were also amongst the early pioneers of SA padel.
De Kock noted that these pioneers were converting under-utilised bowling greens and tennis courts into padel courts.
He said that the sport’s footprint has spread out somewhat from the major cities but remains an elite activity.
According to the survey, South African padel players are split equally when it comes to gender demographics.
Almost 60% are in the 35- to 65-year-old bracket and about 80% of the country’s padel players are living in Gauteng and the Western Cape, the research found.
But perhaps most notably, about 50% of padel players are “Top Enders,“ according to De Kock and this means they are members of an exclusive group of 3 million South Africans (just 5% of the population) living in households earning more than R40,000 per month.
“It’s not surprising that when we look at the income breakdown of South African padel players, we find that the majority of them are sitting in the upper middle class and higher,” he added.
“There are well-organised padel courts and clubs in the middle of their neighbourhoods, and they have the luxury of time to play the game three times a week.”
“Padel is currently in the category of sports that have a significantly higher footprint as you go up the income ladder. It still has a way to go to catch golf as a millionaire’s pastime, but for top income earners, padel is almost as popular as mountain biking,” De Kock said.
In contrast to those elite activities, where the costs of taking part in the sport are prohibitive to most, like horse riding or motorsport, padel expenses are relatively modest, he explained.
De Kock noted the game is typically played by four people, and the cost of an hour’s play ranges from R400 to R600 a game.
If you are a group and share the cost, this is R100 to R125 per individual.
Padel racquets range from R1,000 to R10 000, but at most facilities you can hire one for a fee of around R50 per game, he added.
There are also applications that offer discounts to players, the Playtomic App for instance offers discounts on all bookings through the platform, and padel club owners and padel networks such as Virgin Active and Discovery Vitality offer similar, regular incentives, De Kock said.
“Do the maths and it could be argued that playing a game of padel in South Africa is about as much of an investment as a movie ticket,” he said.
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