RacquetX, Miami Convention Center, March 24-26, 2024

If you’re reading this, you have undoubtedly noticed that pickleball has entrenched itself within popular culture here in the U.S. almost overnight. Similarly, you may be aware of the surging popularity of Padel. Both pickleball and padel are relatively new, having originated in 1965 and 1969, respectively. Pickleball began life as a game in the state of Washington. Padel was birthed in Acapulco, Mexico. In the Post-Covid era, these two sports have embraced social engagement and have untapped the secret energies groups experience when they embed themselves into a sport religiously.

Pickleball: Mass Adoption

For pickleball, it all began with being easy to play, especially for seniors. The initial argument for attempting the sport was that it was easy. Just prior to Covid, seniors were playing it in huge, swelling numbers. After Covid, pickleball came out swinging. And so did sports club entrepreneurs and manufacturers, who began essentially reflecting the energies of the young professionals toiling around what was a true, niche sport. Pickleball grew to 8.9 million in three years. It’s a snap to engage and is proving culturally flexibile. So much so, it’s sparks fanaticism. I recently heard an NPR broadcast that was talking about National Parks like Yosemite and how they were getting complaint calls regarding aggravation with the lack of pickleball courts. Seriously.

Pickleball is not just for warm weather landscapes with open sprawling court facilities or themed restaurants. Urban landscapes are openly reflecting the hype. New York City is a prime example. NYC has over 2000 public handball courts along with large swaths of usable basketball courts and concrete softball fields that are now crawling with people communicating through apps. Players communicate who’s playing where, weather conditions, which nearby apartment building the nets are stored at, or to find out which dedicated groups are playing at what available gym, and how much that’s going cost at the door and of course, promoting tons of local tournaments.

Wynwood Padel Club. Wynwood, Miami is popular for its heavy artist and tech presence.

The Padel Pop-Up

Padel begins with “easy and fun to play”. Even though it is considerably more athletically rigorous than pickleball, most people can start hitting and enjoying it almost immediately, and experience the visceral rewards the viral videos promise. Here in the U.S. it’s relatively new. Similarly played sports like Pop Tennis and Platform Tennis have been played here for decades, existing in very limited, niched groups.

I spent a few months living in South Florida considering a move, and can say, the area is rife with the sport. It fits well the international flavors of wealth the City of Miami flows easily with. Here in NYC, padel fell right on the gentrification line beautifully. There are no public courts and the new clubs seem prohibitively expensive for a good number of people who would want to play the game. Pragmatically, the set ups are an attractive deal for serious enthusiasts. Additionally, padel’s international growth represents the biggest threat to squash clubs across the pond, even though pickleball is such an easier add-on when converting space. 25 million players world-wide? Is that a real number? Crazy.

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The RacquetX Convention

The hype surrounding this growth has sparked the RacquetX racket sports conference, dropping at the Miami Convention Center in March, 2024. Billed as a conference to connect business in the overall racquet world space, it seems clearly focused on trending futures. Pickleball dwarfs all others in the land grabbing here in the U.S. There is a market for just about anything now in that space. The initial layout at the convention center shows Tennis getting one court, while padel and pickle will both have 4 court spaces for demos and the like. Of course additional spaces could be made available for any other groups to drop a court, but who would those be? Technically, all of them I guess. They have sections for media set ups and podcasts. This event may prove invaluably sobering, if only in the sense of some sports realizing just how far behind they are in terms of engagement opportunity.

Noting the speakers the RacquetX website is initially highlighting, tennis and padel are being represented by officials of established organizations. The key speaker of distinction for pickleball is a social presence entrepreneur. This alone speaks volumes to me. Tennis and padel both represent bigger requirements of investment by club owner-entrepreneurs, who represent the most important market for this event in my view. Pickleball doesn’t actually need this event, yet, it will be the elephant in the room in all of this cultural engagement hype.

All the sports will have opportunity to share and learn new engagement tools in this setting. Padel and Pickleball are indeed the newer games that have obviously sparked the play in this space. No doubt he other sports will be playing for third place in the attention bracket. Pop Tennis, previously called paddle tennis, was invented in 1898. Badminton, organized in the 1870s and its history is a rabbit hole. Honestly, I didn’t want to look up table tennis and tennis is as old as grass.

I won’t pretend. This event intrigues me. There is so much space to act on behaviors with these sporting groups, there is plenty of opportunity for creative investment. I understand the incidental opportunities for retailers, racquets, paddles, sneakers, fashion and kitchy embellishment, as well as the double down on the destination spot rush. For me, the technology side is the unknown here. Software developers who aggregate players, tournaments and information are sure to get a run for their money here, maybe even over saturation with specialty. But sports betting seems an untapped future for racquet sports. How will this opportunity play out with these hyper-niched groups. I think handball here. It’s in my personal DNA. This is a group where gambling is just a normal part of everyday play, makes me ask, who’s doing what in that space? There is an intrinsic attraction on many levels for this event.

The event is to be held over the course of three days and is boasting to have over 100 companies presenting with over 5000 attendees and over 150 leading speakers in their respective sports.

Sports encouraged to play in this environment…

•Tennis •Badminton •Padel •Pickleball •Squash •Racquetball •Table Tennis •Beach Tennis •Crossminton •VR-Gaming

International Racquetball Tour players Ben Croft (USA) and Daniel De La Rosa (Mexico) have both professionally transitioned to pickleball.

American Racquetball

Racquetball and paddleball have been the sports in my personal wheelhouse and an obvious interest for me in this context. Like pickleball and padel, American racquetball is a respectively young sport. (Racquetball is essentially a historic extension of paddleball.) Racquetball experienced similar growth patterns in the 1970s and early 1980s. I would jokingly reference aerobics as the onset of its decline, because club owners were finding easier ways to monetize space. Today, post-Covid, it feels more like racquetball is toiling in obscurity mostly because of stagnant and complacent thinking, very bad decisions and historically, divisive internal discourse. That isn’t to say, that there isn’t some resurging energy operating in hope. (Related: A Sport With No Home.) I point this out as a reminder that stagnation in any sport is bad, the term “playing a dying sport” shouldn’t be a part of the culture.

Remarkably for racquetball, the game has proven successfully adopted in Mexico and South America, proving culturally meaningful in those markets. Pro racquetball players walk around like rock stars in some cases. Ironically, they remain reliant on the U.S. based tours who operate in stagnation here in the states. If there are any would-be entrepreneurs who could possibly see value in taking advantage of racquetball’s current inability to properly aggregate this market, RacquetX should have them walking through the Miami Convention Center. Unfortunately, there won’t be a true scratch and sniff opportunity.

Stagnation is the opposite of what this event promises and recognizes success in cross-sport interest. Like tennis and other racquet sports, racquetball players have eyed transitioning to pickleball and are finding success, in various ways. Manufacturers that have established themselves within racquetball are also finding success with the same disruptive philosophy in the pickleball space. The swelling interest in these sports is sparking R&D and rolling with advancements at the same speed popular culture happens to be. Connecting like-minded entities is an aspect this event hopes to highlight with the promise of their AI-driven, tinder-styled app connecting participants with similar goals and business objectives. Read SquashMad’s take on the event’s increased interest in Squash after its Olympic inclusion.

Timmy Brownell (USA) with Mohamed Elshorbagy (ENG) at the 2023 U.S. Open Squash Championships

Squash Growth In The U.S.

Squash is deeply engaged in what I like to refer to as subversive growth. The U.S. is eyed for opportunity for young squash professionals, globally. Facilitated by the energy coming from elite educational institutions, the growth through social impact programs and the rise in stand-alone, high- performance training and stand-alone squash centers over the last decade, promises professional viability here. (Related: Sustaining Eden.) Squash, in some sense, has an unspoken/spoken wish to shed the exclusive, historically collegial, tennis-infused health club stigma. What’s new is not just a (finally) successful drive for the Olympics by the sport as a whole, but the rise of the young, aspiring American professional. Even as these young athletes may not be immune to the appeal of possibly finding a future in pickleball, squash is finding shine. More U.S. college players are setting their sites on professional squash. They’re also attracting the demographic that the sport has been cultivating since the late 1990’s. Everyone is paying attention. Squash is making its more of its own and feeling fresh.

It may be slow growth but it’s steady with a healthy stride of self-sustainment. The Olympic inclusion is a hallmark opportunity, better to be careful to take cues from tennis on this one. Stay on strategy, don’t get tripped up by Olympic qualifications and maybe integrate trends that fit with what could work to improve engagement experiences.

Does Squash Need RacquetX Now?

Pickleball and padel are progressively engaging today’s culture successfully. Pickleball promises easy fun and social acceptance, while offering entrepreneurs an expanding land grab for all things pickleball. Padel, from here, feels set to grab a more affluent market and would like to convince more club operators and entrepreneurs that the fun quotient will monetize spaces. All other sports seem to have fallen a few steps behind and face demographic marginalization if they can’t grow in this environment and strategically cultivate enthusiasts.

I see two possible points of view on squash participating in this new and promising event. No doubt the event would love squash to have a bigger presence at the table with the olympics in play. Yet, there are no signs that anyone will be willing to spend big money here. Either way, squash is in a great position to utilize applicable industry advances and develop momentum heading into LA28.

Attending. The obvious would be gaining knowledge about what sporting contemporaries are doing to facilitate and activate their explosive growth. Think technology, celebrity and effervescent adornment driving the feel of this event.

Presenting. I’m of the mind that if you can’t do it right, don’t do it. My idea of right is a beautiful glass court, teched out with the interactive jazz, and Olympic stickers… and a bigger ball (and maybe a racquetball racquet,) for callouts of players from other sports.

But, that’s just me.

Take the meat. Leave the bones.

Does Squash Need To Participate In The Hype?

Steel Firsts

Steel Landing