Simon Hainsworth considers the emergence of new sports like pickleball and padel.

Football. Golf. Tennis. Cricket. Rugby. All sports most people in the world know about; a huge majority will have played and even more will have watched either live or on television. They are staples of the sports world, concepts we grow up knowing about – often playing at school or at grassroots level as children.

And it is little wonder: most of these sports date back hundreds of years. The UK claims to be the birthplace of football – although in fact a version was being played in China some 5,000 years ago. But certainly, the exact sport we know and love today was established in England with the formation of the Football Association in 1863. Passed down from generation to generation and spread across the globe over time, these sports have become some of the most popular pastimes ever. Indeed, it’s claimed 3.5 billion are football fans, which equates to two in every five people.

There are thousands of leagues, millions of players, and multiple high-profile events each year. And it’s the same for cricket, the world’s second most popular sport when it comes to fanbase (reportedly 2.5 billion people), which dates back to the medieval times. The thought conjures a delightful mental picture of knights bowling and batting dressed head to toe in armour rather than the more traditional cricket whites we’re used to seeing today.

There is a whole industry which has built up around these sports: from merchandise manufacturing and athlete sponsorship to the logistics experts responsible for factors such as transporting teams and their kits to crucial events.

But now, there are some new kids on the block. Recent decades have seen the emergence of sports which don’t have hundreds of years of heritage behind them. From being played in gardens of inventors’ homes and parks in specific geographical locations, they have started to creep into the public consciousness. In just a few decades, they’ve managed to make inroads into the mainstream sporting world – but, there is of course more to done before we could ever consider their popularity on a par with the likes of football and cricket. That’s if that goal is even attainable: can anything topple football as the most beloved global sport? And if it’s possible, will it be pickleball, padel, or a sport we’ve not even heard of yet?

A whole new ballgame 

Rewind a couple of decades and there were few people outside of localised areas of Mexico and Spain who had ever heard of ‘padel’.

According to LTA Padel, the game originated in Mexico in 1969. While man was landing on the moon for the first time, businessman Enrique Corcuera was busy modifying a squash court at his holiday home and amending the rules to create a sort-of tennis/squash hybrid.

Padel is similar to doubles tennis in many ways: the same scoring system, victory in a set is claimed by winning six games with a clear two-game advantage, and players must return the ball either volley-style or after one bounce on their side of their net. But elements of squash are brought in too: the walls are in play, and the ball can be bounced off multiple walls before being returned to the other team (as long as it only hits the ground once).

By the 1970s, the game had caught on in Spain and it has since spread worldwide, remaining most popular in countries like Spain and Argentina (which ranked as the top two countries in both the men’s and women’s competition going into the last World Championships). This year alone, Spain has hosted events including the International Padel Federation (FIP) Euro Padel Cup, the Red Bull Padel Dash World Final, the Premier Padel Tour Finals and the FIP Seniors Euro Padel Cup.

iPadel reports the FIP was formed in 1991, and it wasn’t until 2011 that the first courts for the sport were built in the UK, following demand from holidaymakers who had enjoyed playing while abroad. Now, we are seeing a growing a number of fans: one Spanish sports channel reported a peak of 170,000 live viewers, while YouTube videos of competitions are attracting upwards of 5 million views, and 25,000 fans travelled to Rome for a 2023 event.

These are encouraging signs that there is an appetite out there for bigger and better padel events – and of course we have no way of knowing how many people were interested in football or cricket in their infancy (not that the figures would be comparable given the lack of television or social media then). But the numbers do pale in comparison when we consider almost 90,000 people watched the final of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022 live, and a further 1.5 billion tuned in to watch on TV.

However, with the FIP stating there are 30 million players worldwide, the sport has come a long way from the back garden of a Mexico holiday home. Having been included on the programme of several international events, padel has now been officially recognised by the International Olympic Committee. Whilst there has been no formal announcement, it is believed we could see it included in the 2032 Games in Brisbane, Australia.

It certainly ticks the boxes when it comes to key criteria for new Olympic sports: rapid international growth, gender equality, accessibility, and a federation structure. The catch-22 is evidence of global participation and competition management is needed for Olympic inclusion, which is the very thing which would see padel attracting a much higher level of funding, increased development pathways for young people who take up the sport, and extra visibility – which of course then leads to more global participation.

Anyone for doubles?

Padel isn’t the only rapidly-growing sport to have been inspired by tennis in the 20th century. Just four years before its invention, further north in the USA a family game which combined tennis with badminton and ping pong was created.

In Bainbridge Island, Washington, state congressman Joel Pritchard teamed up with his friends Bill Bell and Barney McCallum to think up a way to entertain their bored children in the summer of 1965. The result was pickleball, thought to take its name from the ‘pickle boat’ made up of leftover oarsmen, a nod to its creation as a mish-mash of various existing sports. Paddles are used rather than racquets, and the ball is slightly bigger than a tennis ball – with an area known as the ‘kitchen’ where volley shots are not allowed.

Singles or doubles games are played on a badminton-sized court, but with a tennis-height net, and the ball must bounce off the floor after a serve and the return shot, but can be volleyed during a rally after those initial two bounces. Players win by scoring 11 points, with a 2-point lead, and only the serving player or pair can score.

The first pickleball tournament was played in 1976 in Washington, according to the LTA, but it only became a professional sport six years ago, despite being played by a reported one in ten Americans with more than 10,000 dedicated courts across the US. Rating system DUPR is used across more than 175 countries and 10,000 clubs, and a 2024 report states participation has increased by 311% in just three years, which would make it the fastest-growing sport in America.

But it’s proving equally as popular in other continents too. Earlier this year, UPA Asia and YouGov Singapore led a study of 14,000 respondents across 11 countries which revealed 812 million people in Asia had played pickleball at least once, and 282 million said they played once a month or more. Pretty impressive numbers for a new sport – but perhaps not surprising in a continent which has a track record of strong participation in other racket sports like badminton and table tennis.

Whilst the signs are looking positive for future inclusion in the Olympics, the sport has not yet cleared all of the hurdles necessary for the IOC to add it to the schedule: a universal and standardised system of play must be in force, the sport ideally needs to be part of major multi-sport events like the World Games, and regulations must be established globally which align with the necessary standards such as the Olympic Charter.

Game on

While pickleball and padel haven’t yet been declared official Olympic sports, the past few summer games have numerous additional disciplines – either in the form of sports never before included in the schedule, or those returning to the programme after a gap.

Rio 2016 saw the reintroduction of two sports: rugby was included on the schedule for the first time since 1924 when founding member Pierre de Coubertin retired (although now rugby 7s is played rather than 15s), and golf was also added back on the list after a 112-year gap. The next games in Tokyo also saw returning sports: baseball and softball were reintroduced, although they had only been dropped in 2008. New additions to the list came in the form of karate, skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing. Then in Paris last year, we saw the ‘new’ sports of 3x3 basketball, breakdancing and kiteboarding.

Changes are afoot for the 2028 LA games too, with baseball and softball returning (again) to the schedule after a break in 2024, cricket being played for the first time since 1900, and lacrosse for the first time since 1908, while flag football and squash will make their Olympic debut. The official line-up for the 2032 games is yet to be announced, but kickboxing, netball and esports are all rumoured to be up for consideration – alongside padel of course.

Running with new opportunities

The growing hype around newer sports presents us with multiple opportunities, to ensure that we harness their popularity. There is no doubt that, while the likes of padel and pickleball were actually invented before the internet, the 21st century explosion of social media and online news has helped elevate their popularity exponentially.

In an era of innovation, where connecting across the globe (both physically and digitally) has become easier than ever, individuals have access to so much more information, allowing excitement around sports to be shared not only from neighbour to neighbour, but across regions, countries and continents in a split second. A quick search of the words ‘padel’ and ‘pickleball’ on social media platforms like TikTok shows users who’ve grown followings of many thousands from sharing insights into the sports – attracting viewers from across the world eager to pick up tips, watch snippets of games, or even simply learn what the sports are.

But where do we go from here? No longer niche hobbies or holiday pastimes, a proportion of today’s young people may well grow up to be professional padel or pickleball players. And these athletes will require venues, transport, training spaces and equipment in just the same way as footballers or cricketers have done for many years.

Whilst increased exposure naturally brings with it more opportunities – and to prove that we only have to look at the type of sponsorship deals the world’s top footballers attract, compared to those in lesser-watched sports – the fact is that this type of exposure can only come from investment. That doesn’t just mean financial input, it means grassroots clubs being set up to encourage people from every area of every country to take part; it means schools and youth clubs beginning to offer newer sports as standard on their weekly programmes; it means businesses sponsoring these smaller clubs and leagues; and it means event organisers looking to add newer games to their multi-sports events as well as organising specific events for new games at bigger venues, with larger capacities, and with more marketing surrounding them to attract spectators and sponsors alike.

It means all of the people involved in the behind the scenes work associated with events – the logistics teams, the accommodation providers, the hospitality staff, the transport companies – shouting about their involvement in helping bring these newer sports to mainstream audiences. It’s only by advocating for bigger and better events that we can continue to grow the community interest in new sports, that we can ensure they command the attention of the likes of the IOC and other governing bodies, and that we can increase participation and fanbases alike.

Crucial elements which affect the popularity of sporting events like venue accessibility, nearby accommodation, and ease of travel all become even more essential when we’re trying to encourage people to attend something new (either as a participant or a spectator). Excellent events will attract repeat attendance and good reviews, meaning not only do people go home perhaps wanting to try the sport themselves, but also wanting to come back to the next event on the schedule.

By everyone in the sports and events sector working together, we can propel the likes of padel and pickleball to bigger and better stages; we can ensure the next generation of athletes have more opportunities to compete and fans have chances to see their favourite new sport first-hand over the coming years; and we can continue to see these less-established sports flourish, perhaps even landing themselves a spot on the most coveted schedule of all time: the Olympic Games line-up.

It remains to be seen whether these sports will ever experience the sort of popularity that the most well-established games do. Whether one day teenagers will have posters of the best pickleball players up on their walls rather than their footballing heroes. Whether friends will meet at a local bar to watch the televised final of a padel competition. But given it’s taken less than half a century for both pickleball and padel to achieve worldwide popularity, who knows what could happen over the next few decades. One thing’s for sure, we really are ushering in the era of new sports.

Simon is MD of sports events company CSE.