Padel World Summit highlights the business potential of padel

Besides being a great sport, padel offers a wide range of career opportunities. This is the cornerstone of the second edition of the Padel World Summit (PWS) organised by Fira de Barcelona and the International Padel Cluster from 27 to 29 May with the aim of boosting business opportunities in the padel industry and accelerating its growth as a sport. To do so, the event will bring together over 120 national and international exhibitors at the Gran Via venue, and will feature a congress and an investor forum, as well as eight playing courts where there will be product demonstrations and various exhibition matches and clinics conducted by the best academies in the world.

With its arrival this year in one of the great world capitals of the sport such as Barcelona, PWS aims to establish itself as the leading international event for the expansion of padel and its business, as a sport that registering an unstoppable growth in recent years.

Mireia Álvarez, President of the International Padel Cluster and the event’s Advisory Committee, believes that “it is important to value padel not only as a successful sport but as an economic asset with enormous growth potential. In this sense, the event organised with Fira de Barcelona can be a great driver for our sport and all its professionals.”

Along these lines, Àlex Ponseti, Director of the Padel World Summit, points out that the show “brings together the entire ecosystem of the padel business in Barcelona so that professionals, companies, clubs and athletes can find business opportunities, open new markets, generate new connections and outline together the roadmap for the future of a sport with an unstoppable projection.”

Leading companies and professionals
As a reflection of this great stage, PWS will bring together more than 120 companies in its exhibition area, including Adidas, Babolat, greenset, Head, Joma, MejorSet, Mondo, Munich, Portico, Padel Galis or Playtomic, leaders in segments such as sports equipment, rackets, balls and footwear, as well as court installation, sport tech services or club and court management software, among others.

In addition to promoting professional business contacts, the Padel World Summit is also defined as the forum for debate and knowledge transfer to address the issues that mark the padel roadmap as a sport and as an industry. Under the theme ‘Building a Global Phenomenon from the Ground Up’, the Padel Global Conference will take place with more than 50 experts analysing issues such as the inclusion of padel in the programme of the 2032 Olympic Games, improvement of practical teaching of this sport in clubs and academies, or the challenge of making facilities more sustainable.

The panel of speakers features names such as Eric Babolat, CEO of Babolat, one of the most prestigious companies in the world specialising in the manufacture of padel rackets and tennis rackets; Sebastian Gordon, Cofounder of Rocket Padel, a company that has created several padel clubs in the United Kingdom such as Bristol, the largest in the country; Gabriel Pérez Krieb, President of Taktika Equity, the largest padel investment fund in the United States; or Ana Gómez, Marketing Director at AFP Group, an Adidas licensee for padel.

Also noteworthy is the participation of the Serbian player Bojana Jovanovic and the one considered the best padel player in history, the Argentinean Fernando Belasteguín (Bela), having won the highest number of titles on the World Padel Tour.

Tech startups
The event will also have an Innovation Arena, in which technology startups will showcase their innovative solutions such as the apps for organizing trips and booking courts Weebora, Padel iQ or Courtbrain; the SportAI application for training based on images analysed with artificial intelligence; or Ballify, an automatic system of ball throwing machines for training. A total of 45 speakers will take part in the sessions that take place in this space of the PWS.The B2B offer is completed with the Investor & Business Forum, an exclusive networking area that will connect investors, venture capital funds and entrepreneurs in search of business opportunities and financing in the field of padel.

In addition, in Hall 6 of the Gran Via venue, eight courts will be set up where games and product presentations will take place.

A booming sector
The ease of its practice and its undeniable social component make padel a sport accessible to all audiences and ages, promoting its exponential growth. The figures show the success of padel as a sport on a global scale.

According to data from the International Padel Federation (FIP), there are currently 30 million amateur players in the 130 countries where this sport is practiced. The FIP has a total of 87 affiliated national federations with 600,000 federated players worldwide. These figures are also reflected in a more economic perspective, as the ‘Global Padel Report 2024’ published by Playtomic and PwC’s, estimates that the global market for padel clubs will reach a value of 6,000 million euros in 2026. With a total of 16,000 of the almost 60,000 in the world, Spain is the country in the world with the highest number of courts built, ahead of Italy (8,340 courts), Argentina (7,000) and Sweden (4,200).

In this context, the Padel World Summit 2025 aims to help establish Barcelona—also home to the Premier Padel Finals—as the world capital of this sport and a key platform for professionals and investors focused on its economic aspects.

The event is expected to bring together nearly 6,000 visitors, including club members, retailers, distributors, investors, federations, professional players and coaches, official bodies, and tour operators, among other profiles.
Finally, within the framework of the PWS, various social and side events will be held, including one featuring participation from the most prominent figures in the sport worldwide.

Barcelona, May 19, 2025

Edu Pérez Moya
93 233 21 66
eperezm@firabarcelona.com