Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP437 Pickle, Padel and the LTA: Natural Home or NGB Landgrab?
There’s a row going on over who should run the nascent and potentially commercially valuable sports of padel and pickleball.
This issue has a universal application across many sports, as NGBs seek to wrap their arms around what they might call strategic adjacencies. So, what are pros and cons of the LTA owning Padel and Pickleball.
Is the NGB model the right one? Do we want or need every version of a sport to have its own governing body, or is the LTA just the best compromise solution when it comes to allocating money. Does the attribution incentive outlined above crowd out privately run Padel or Pickleball businesses or is the LTA helping to build a market for them?
Our guests are Karen Mitchell and Alex Inglot.
Karen is chair of Pickleball England, a former American Express executive who sits on the World Pickleball Federation’s Board of Directors. Alex is a former Board member of the ATP Tennis Tour, an investor in padel projects in the UK and beyond, and founder of the All The Angles podcast covering the business of padel.
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis Today's topic is rocket sports and the politics, the money, and the arguments that are going on behind the scenes in the UK about the future ownership and the running of pickleball. Should it be pickleball England, or should it be the lawn tennis association? The LTA. And is there anything to learn from the experience of paddle, which for five years or so has been under the umbrella of the LTA? Are there any lessons there for pickle balls, future? What is the commercial marketplace for both of these sports? And what does it say about the way we allocate money to sport in the UK? Our two guests are Karen Mitchell and Alex Inglot. Karen is chair of pickleball, England, a former American express executive who sits. On the world, pickleball Federation's board of directors and Alex is a former board member of the ATP tennis tour and investor in paddle projects in the UK and beyond and founder of the excellent all the angles podcast. Covering the business of pedal.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And I was half an hour in and I hadn't pressed it,
Alex Inglot:You got, you got carried away by the conversation.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:did, I did. And then suddenly realized all I had to do was press a button and I hadn't, I'd failed,
Alex Inglot:So how did you broach that with the group? Did you say, guys, can we just rewind a little bit? And they're like, well, just one, one or two minutes. You're like, how about 30 minutes?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I think there's sort of, I think I quietly just let, let it drop and no one ever said anything. So it was, you know, but anyway, so lovely to have you both on and thank you for coming on. There's a bit of context to it, which is about, obviously, we're going to talk about pickleball. We're going to talk about Padel. Is it Padel or Paddle?
Alex Inglot:I think it doesn't really matter in America. They call it Padel because they have paddled tennis already, but
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right.
Alex Inglot:we call it both
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. I've said this before, but I'm terrible at languages so I overpronounce when I get to a foreign like croissant. So if there's an opportunity for me to, you know, overpronounce or appear intellectual amongst a foreign audience, I'm all over that. So I'm calling it Padel. No, I'll call it Padel. and we've got this question about Pickleball at the moment and Karen, you're in charge of Pickleball England and we've got this question about the LTA. Should Pickleball be within, under the umbrella of the LTA or should it not? So let's just kick off and we'll, we'll add context as we go through. But just from a starting point, where are we in the process?
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:Okay, so for Pickleball Pickleball England submitted its full application in April of 2023. So we had previously gone through the pre approval and got that approval to proceed to the next step. that was submitted in 2023
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So is that, sorry, is that approval to be the national governing body of Pickleball?
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:no, it's approval to go to the next step to submit a full application to be in the National Governing Body. In fact, actually, Can I just rewind a little bit?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, of course.
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:I've had a, you know, a number of conversations with Sport England and they're at great pains to point out that they don't anoint a national governing body. What they do is they identify the NGB they want to work with, to collaborate with, and that is what the application process is that we're going through right now. So, you know, they accept that we've got the, players and the clubs behind us. what they want to now look at is who do they work with from a Pickleball perspective. Now, From our perspective, we see them as, as uh, tied up in one because if we don't get recognized by Sport England, then you know, that has implications on the international level, but it also has implication of confidence, uh, for future sponsors, partners, even for future clubs and players. So, although Sport England do not anoint. the, uh, or crown the winner. Uh, they do actually identify who they want to work with, and we sincerely want them to work with us.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So, as I understand it, and I've been talking to the LTA, and we should explain, and I'll explain this in the introduction a bit, but I, I, we wanted, I wanted them to come on to the, to this podcast, but they, the timing, from their point of view, they said, well, we're keen to talk about at the right time, given that we feel that there are very compelling reasons why and how the LTA could offer the support that Pickleball requires to fulfil its potential in Britain. However, as you are aware, we are currently awaiting the decision of the Home Country Sports Councils as to whether they will recognise the LTA and our members, Tennis Scotland and Tennis Wales, as the respective national Governing bodies in each nation. We expect this to be communicated soon and whilst we are awaiting the decision, we think it's the right thing to do to respect the process that the sports councils are going through. So, and as a result, we think it's probably better to wait until after a decision is made. And I've said, well, we'll get them on once the decision is made and we'll, you know, I can, we can talk about them. So, but in this conversation, I'm looking at, well, what are the arguments? For and against, etc. And Sport England obviously are key and I, as I understand it, it's, it's moved through Sport England. It's now with Scotland and Wales and we'll get to a, whatever the answer is and that will be announced. Let's get to then the key Sort of opposition, your, your points against being under that sort of LTA umbrella.
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:So, before I say that though, both the LTA, the LTA are asking for adding Pickleball to their remit, whereas we're looking to be recognized as being the you know, by, by Sport England to work with them. Now, We started Pickable England in 2019, uh, there were probably around 94 places to play at that point. Actually no, it was probably about 60, because it ended up the year in 94. There's now sort of like 650 odd places to play, and there's around 35, 000 to 40, 000 players as well. That hasn't changed. You know, just been organic without any effort. There's been an awful lot of effort to get to that point. Now, you know, when we put our full application in, we probably had somewhere around 5, 000 members. And there were probably about 20, 000 players and The LTA did not put Pickable on their website until August of that year. So, you know, I think it's fair to say that Pickable England has developed the footprint. of Pickable in this country and has, you know, given those COVID in between has been largely very successful at doing that. I have no doubt that if COVID hadn't intervened that we would have hit our goal of 25, 000 members by 2025. As it is, you know, there are, as I said, Over 35, 000 players and we've, we've got over 10, 000 members. So, you know, we're doing very well with that. And that's with a purely volunteer organization and, you know, with very little money. It's all been self funded by us. So, tennis think that the benefit of us going under there is that they've got big resources and they've got infrastructure in place that would help us. The problem is that tennis is only one component of what we're looking at. You know, at this moment in time, there are 24, 000 tennis courts in England, but there's the same number of badminton courts. And only 300 of those tennis courts are indoors. Whereas, Pickleball is largely played indoors. So, you know, we're not just interested in being able to play pickleball on tennis courts. We're interested in being able to play pickleball anywhere, including in new places that get built with pickleball in the future. So, I don't see the benefit of going under tennis in that regard. In terms of their infrastructure, Yes, they do, but that infrastructure is dedicated to growing tennis and presumably to doing some things with Paddle. Although, I would contend, and I'm sure Alex will talk further about this, that it's taken quite a long time to integrate Paddle, and I'm not really sure how many resources it's got dedicated to it. So, given that we've got a massive volunteer, base already. Why fix what's not broken?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay. So Alex, let's just bring you in there. Cause obviously paddle has been within the LTA for what, five years?
Alex Inglot:more or less.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So are there any lessons? Are you just further down the road than Karen in terms of, you know, in terms of the development of the sport, what have you learnt? About how this process might pan out.
Alex Inglot:Yeah, I'm not overly familiar with pickleball's journey, but I think paddle has been around since 1969 as a sport and it's been growing outside of its, shall we say, Latin speaking, Hispanic speaking heartlands for quite a while since probably around for the last 10 plus years. Like the Middle East picked it up around 2014, uh, Scandinavia picked it up around that same period of time. I'm sure there were the initial courts were happening around the middle of the last decade as well in the UK. And, uh, there was a Paddle GB organization which was run by an individual called Tom Murray. And in 2019, He basically decided that he felt it was best if the LTA took control or governance of the sport of padel or paddle in the UK from that point forward. So we've been, uh, part of the LTA or under the governance of the LTA since 2019. So that's five years. And I think pertinently for this conversation, the question is what has happened in those five years? Thanks. And I think Paddle, globally speaking, has exploded in terms of consciousness, in terms of participation, in terms of profile. I think COVID had a lot to do with that where it somehow managed to kind of create or find a loophole where it was allowed to be played. Uh, when a lot of sports were not allowed to be played under legislation and regulations surrounding COVID and safe distancing. So a lot of people who had a lot of free time and who wanted to be active and who wanted to be social, found this niche sport that had come out of Mexico decades ago, but hadn't really been on many people's radar. And in a lot of countries, you see that COVID led to this spike in interest in sports. For me, I think to come to the origin, to the pertinent question, which is what have those five years been like? I think, I think that while paddle has grown in the UK and the LTA have done, have contributed somewhat. I think they have not done anywhere near enough to allow the sport to grow and optimize at the rate that it should have. I could give you stats and figures for a long time, whether you look at participation numbers, whether you look at court building, whether you look at quality of the top players in this country, whether you look at the number of coaches that are coming through the pipeline in the UK, all of those numbers, to categorize it. They all started really low. They all are incredibly, even more low if you look at it as a per, as a ratio towards the population compared to other countries. And the ambitions that the LTA have recently set out in their strategy that they launched in the last month or two. have been, having spoken to a lot of stakeholders in this space, incredibly underwhelming. And so don't show any sign of closing the gap with other rival countries. Indeed, quite the opposite. They look to be widening the gap. And that for me as a paddle enthusiast and a follower of the sport globally is incredibly concerning. And I think for Karen should be incredibly concerning as well, as she thinks about the future of pickleball, uh, as it may end up under the auspices of the LTA.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So is the problem. I can see. So one framing of this is that looking at it from Sport England, who are the sort of the distributor of government money, essentially, and then the LTA. Are they looking for simplicity in that process? So more government, if every sport has its own governing body, the more lines of communication you have running into Sport England. So I can see that from their perspective and you know, we can get them on and talk about it, but is it about having just fewer lines of communication? money being distributed. So it's a simpler process. I can, I can see an appeal there, Karen.
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:So yes, I do think that they want fewer relationships because relationships are complicated and there's lots to be done, right? I would like to make the point though that Sport England told us Right back when we started this pre approval process back in 2021, that there is no additional funding for new sports. So they said that, you know, Pickleball will not get funding. So we never expected to get any funding and that's not the reason for getting the recognition. If we get the recognition, we believe that we can get commercial funding and things like that to help us grow anyway. And, by the way, we're We're fully funding ourselves already and, you know, our turnover is growing significantly. So, you know, I don't think funding is one of the things that we need. Our clubs and the people who play it would like access to pockets of funding, which currently are not available to them. And by having Pickleball recognised, that would become available to them. So, you know, even if we, Pickleball England, are not recognised, but the sport is. Then clubs and players can tap into that.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So the, the LTAs and Alex, I'm going to push this onto you because the LTAs would present that as an argument in favor of them being in charge because actually, because they have a greater access to money because money's coming into tennis. Some of it has gone to paddle without actually any designation. from Sport England for that to be the case. Is that, is that true? Is that right?
Alex Inglot:I think you've touched on a really important point, Rich. I think if you kind of zoom out in order to zoom back into your question, I think the big issue here is conflict of interest. The reality is the LTA is a tennis organization. The name, you know, it does what it says on the tin. It's the Lawn Tennis Association. Now, some, some other tennis federations have. Brought pickle or, or paddle under their under their auspices. But they've changed their names. They've, like, the Italian is now the Federation, the Italian Federation of Paddle and Tennis. Now it's not just about, you know, naming right. Naming is part of it, but it does, it does resonate with what your intentions are. And I think what you've got is that conflict of interest then has a. It has an impact on status. So in the LTA's last annual report, there was a reference from the chairman when he said the popularity and profile paddle has also increased significantly providing a gateway into tennis. It is seen as a gateway into tennis. That should be incredibly troubling for paddle and for pickleball. And I think what, and then we get really to the, we get, we go down one extra layer. And the point is that paddle is designated officially as a discipline of tennis. Now, what does that mean? That means that you enter into the, what I call the The world of co mingling, which is a real, real problem, because you cannot differentiate what money is coming in that is paddle designated or paddle specific or paddle ring fenced. You cannot designate what is paddle specific on the way out in terms of how you spend, because When money comes in, it came in for tennis purposes. And when it came out, it came for tennis purposes. That includes paddle. How much? I don't know. What proportion? What proportion should it be? In what ratio is it? Is it ratio to participation numbers? It's completely intransparent as a system, which makes it incredible, incredibly difficult for someone like me as a paddle observer, or for Karen to be able to ring fence and clearly go, this is the money that came in for Pickleball. Maybe from, for example, Lexus. Lexus create, signed a deal with LTA. Did they want any of that to be ascribed to paddle? Did they say so? Is it going to be spent on paddle? Does Lexus want that to be spent on paddle? How much of it is being spent on paddle? It just gets lost in this co mingling because we are butter discipline of tennis.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And you might be the beneficiary of that money. You might get, be getting more money than would be the case if you wanted it delineated. It's like, you know, my, I want my tax to go to filling these road, the holes in the road. The system's not agile enough to attribute that. And therefore it might be that paddle and pickleball are over rewarded by the
Alex Inglot:I would, there is a, well, yeah, I can't tell you categorically that that is not happening, but the evidence that I've seen is that it's the opposite, right? So LTA makes about 110 million dollars, 110 million pounds of revenue. 50 million of that is Wimbledon surplus. I'm not sure Wimbledon would be overly excited about any of that going towards Paddle because of its heritage and its pedigree. But then also even if you, if you really pass through the wording of the LTA's report, you see a real disparity in the specificity of the language around tennis spend. and the vagueness of the language around paddle words. So for example, in 2023, the LTA spent 18. 3 million on park tennis courts. They got a grant from DCMS, which was about 17 million, they topped it up slightly, and it was specifically claimed for the refurbishing of 1, 500 tennis park courts. Simple, clear. But in the same period, they quote unquote supported the The addition of 130 paddle courts. That supported is doing a lot of heavy lifting because I know they didn't pay for it. They didn't, a lot of the loans aren't even available for private investors who are driving the majority of court building in this country. By definition, if you look, it's not, it's not allowed to go to companies that are limited by shares. So it can't go to private investors. So it can't even go to David Lloyd's. It can't go to private clubs. So, so what does supported mean? Does it mean it's not financial? It's literally, we have some kind of workshops. We have some training online. We have some tips about how to create. So that's by their definition. That's how they supported the 350 courts that existed last year and how they look to support the future of the growth of paddle for me, supported is way too vague, doing way too much lifting. And so to your point, Richard, I think we're getting smaller pieces than we should receive rather than a larger piece
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:And I would just point out that that tennis court refurbishment program Given that the LTA had put Pickleball on their website, wouldn't it have been an ideal opportunity to have put Pickleball lines on at least one of the tennis courts in each of the areas, right? But no, they didn't. And in fact, when people asked for Pickleball court lines, lines to be put in they, they, they wouldn't do it. And councils either had to fund it directly themselves, or people had to do fundraising for it. So it feels like they're actually trying to be a barrier. Even though they're taking the stand that they want to be responsible for Pickleball, which Doesn't sit well with me.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I think when you drill down to it, it's about trust, isn't it? In terms of whether or not you trust the motives and the, and the incentive structure that's in place, the way in which sport is funded more generally. You've got this thing that, you know, the paddle and pickle are both more than just a tennis sport. A marketing funnel is, is basically what you're saying is that it's not just a gateway to tennis. That is actually, there is a an equality question there that they are separate sports and should be treated as such. I get that's, that's quite an interesting one. And I think there's a question here, which is about how, those numbers of new, Paddle and Pickle players. Where are they migrating? Are you cannibalizing tennis? Is it just a load of racket sport? There's a, there's a load of people who have played racket sport. You are taking tennis players away because frankly it's easier to play paddle and pickleball than it is to tennis. That's one of the arguments for it. And that's why it's been so successful. And if I'm the LTA, I'm worried about that. I'm worried that actually we're seeing a shift here. And if we allow this to go outside of the tent, That will be even more exposed. Do you think that's what's happening here?
Alex Inglot:from my point of view, and I don't have this is a bit more anecdotal than what I've mentioned what I've been talking about before, but that's my sense. I'm a tennis player. I grew up as a tennis player up till the age of 18. I played tennis five times a week. I stopped playing tennis, went into other sports and got back into paddle. There is no part of me. that wants to go into tennis now. And I think this concept that whether you're a young child who's picked up a paddle and is starting to get good at it, or an adult who's returned to paddle, or even an older person who's struggled with tennis and have gone to paddle, none of, none of those three groups are thinking, when I get good enough, I can't wait to start playing tennis. Like you don't graduate from pickleball and paddle to tennis. You get good at it, you get even better at it, you want to improve, your rating you want to improve, you're competing, you don't thinking, I've achieved a really good level at this, you know what, I want to take 10 steps back and try a different sport again, like, it just makes no sense. So, I think there is a significant cannibalization issue, because it's, as you said, it's more accessible, so kids and older people, pick it up much more easily. It's more sociable because it's always played in doubles and you're closer. The atmosphere is a lot more informal. You don't have the stuffy country club aspect. You have Latin music playing over the loudspeakers and, and paella and beer at the bar. Like it's just, it's just a different flavor. And so I think a lot of people resonate with it. Of course, there's an element of it that it's a bit of a, it's on trend. It's, you know, the footballers are playing it and the Formula One drivers are playing it. There's a buzz about it. I'm not disputing that, but I think, I just, I think it's a, it's a very different proposition. It's a different sport. It's not a discipline. And I think people are migrating or being having their curiosity peaked and if I'm the LTA if I can't stop that Then I either want the ability to stop it or I want the ability to share in the spoils and share in the success
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:From my perspective I think that people play more than one sport anyway, and you know, the pickleball players that I talk to, you know, they still play squash, they still play tennis, they still play badminton, you know, so, I think we've got different pockets of players, some that are multi sport players, some that, you know, don't play any other sport and in actual fact, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll you know, share my uh, interest level and that's in the grassroots and it's to getting to pockets of inactivity, which really is where the Sport England goals are to, you know, get into areas of deprivation and, you know, areas of inactivity, you know, ethnic minorities that don't get access to exercise and things like that. Pickleball is ideal for that, you don't have to have a specially built, you know, court for that or a big place either, you know, you can actually mark a court out on a car park if necessary. That's one of the great things about Pickleball, you can do it anywhere almost. So, you know, I, I agree with Alex that there is a degree of cannibalization, but I don't believe there has to be just cannibalization. I believe that, you know, there's an awful lot of growth, particularly for Pickleball. You know, in areas where people are not active right now and Sport England, you know, issued a report just recently about well being and, and how much value that has, the national health and other things. So, you know, I think it's vital that we do focus on things that can help get people active and that's where our motives come from.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:you touched on something there that I think is, there's a floor and this is a personal view. There's a question there about, which is bigger than this conversation, which is about the sort of incentive set that current of vertical putting your pitching sport against sport, essentially, because if the objective is the well being and the health of the nation, we want kids doing anything. Frankly, we want them to move around. It doesn't matter whether they're doing pickleball, paddle, tennis or high jump. Mhm. By allotting money on a vertical and national governing body basis, you are by definition, put it, you know, everyone who is doing paddle isn't doing tennis. You're starting to get that problem within this little world. And I think that's a flaw. And because actually it's not in society's interest because we need them to do as much as we can. So you've got that broader question. And there's another bit which talks more to do the business paddle and pickleball in terms of you've got these private sector vendors and, and suppliers building courts, trying to build businesses around this. And I wonder what your view on is in terms of the. There's a sort of public private aspect. Is the LTA and is, is the governing body structure crowding out? Is it building a market for those people or is it actually getting in the way of entrepreneurial of startups who want to build businesses in pickle and paddle? And actually the LTA is, or you, Pickle England are actually getting in the way of that marketplace. What do you think about that argument?
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:Well, at the moment, for Pickleball, there are very few Pickleball specific, uh, places, to play. There's, a couple, that are already up and operating. There are some Pickleball specific courts in different places. But, you know, I'd say that we haven't really, uh, Yet got the commercial infrastructure in place for Pickleball. There are plans. There's one that's going to go ahead in Farnham. There was going to be one in Kingston, but local council turned that down, which, you know, That's the other thing that is, is an issue that they turned it down for a building that was empty for three years. It doesn't make sense to me that someone would turn down something that would help get people healthy. But anyway, let's not go there. You know, so we've got a long way to go in the commercial. Uh, side of things, and I don't profess to be an expert in that. We will need to bring on more expertise in that regard if we want to grow uh, the commercial side of things. And we will also need to get people uh, in place that can help advise more. At the moment, it's our board that help and advise on people that are looking to get into that space. But I know Alex has got a lot more experience in this area.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, it might be more of a paddle question than a pickleball question, I guess.
Alex Inglot:Yeah, I think we come back to the the phrase supporting and what does supporting mean? Do I think the LTA is being crowded out? Not really. I don't think the LTA is crowding anybody out Because they're they're not Providing enough value into the ecosystem, in my opinion. I think they have some kind of services and, uh, paraphernalia on their websites that they could repurpose quite easily and rebrand as paddle workshops and paddle initiatives and paddle ideas at low cost, uh, and roll them out on a website. But in terms of, you know, serious funding, uh, they're, like I said, they're not funding projects. They're not providing loans to a majority of projects. They're not even giving access to Sport England funds for targeted drives that are trying to be initiated by private companies. I know private clubs are trying to, are making applications for ways of bringing more women in, more schools to have their games on paddle courts, for universities, for initiatives in the community. The LTA is not responding to those and not endorsing those. So. I think the reality is that the LTA is, is not, is not, it's not building it. There's not enough court building. There's not enough coach building. There's not enough talent building and there's not enough awareness and interest building in the sport for my liking. And so I think what's happened is that you've got a market where the private investors have seen an opportunity. They're nimble, they're entrepreneurial. They're going ahead. They would like the LTA to support in some way, shape or form. They're not really finding that to be the case. And so what you're seeing is this kind of divergence of interest and divergence of trust to suit to your original point where the investors are like the LTA seem to, as far as we can see, they do some coaching certification, LTA competition and international competition gatekeeping. But apart from that, they're not really helping us out. We can do it alone and we're probably going to have to.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I think the strongest argument on the governing body side is the, is the governance and the, uh, safeguarding and the bits that, that nobody else in the, in the marketplace wants to do. That takes money. It takes expertise. It takes people and experience. And I can see that that would be a key. You know, a significant advantage to being within a bigger governing body.
Alex Inglot:But for me, Richard, you talk about governance and you talk about safeguarding. So let's talk about those two quickly. Governance requires transparency. There is zero transparency. We talked about, I don't know money in, I don't know money out. I don't know how many people in the, in the LTA structure have got Paddle in their job description, in their KPIs, in their bonus incentives. There are currently two members of staff who have Paddle in their title. It used to be three, but two of them left in the last year. Read into that what you will, right? So the governance and the resourcing in Paddle is a big question. Next issue is safeguarding, and I've heard that argument a lot, which is the private investors are going ahead with all the sexy parts of Paddle, but no one wants to take care of the things that are really important. The hygiene, the safety, the security. All of those issues. The reality is from having conversations in recent months, safeguarding for me is not a strength of the LTA, it's an exposed flank. I know of multiple legal actions that are being concerned for various failures around protecting minors, failure to protect LGBTQ plus rights and protected statuses, data protection and privacy breaches, and So this area where we're meant to go, well, at least the LTA has got this sewn up and maybe we should kind of consider them the right option because they, they take care of this critically important area. I'm not sure that it's all it's cracked up to be. But it definitely needs to be done, don't get me wrong, and someone needs to take care of it, but I'm just not sure that this is, this is the ace up the sleeve that the LTA think it is.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I think, you know, I think whenever I talk to, and we have them quite a lot in terms of government, people who are running governing bodies, that's the bit that just consumes them, you know, in terms of consumes all of their time, it's, it's incredibly difficult and they probably would all say that none of them do it. As well as they would want to do it. It's just, it sucks up all of the time. We had, you know, Jack Buckner on who's just come in at UK athletics and he said, well, I could spend my whole job doing just that and say, you know, the safeguarding bit to it. And whenever I, I hear people talking about private investment coming into sport, they never want that bit. They always assume that that bit is going to get taken, taken care of by a public, publicly funded body, and then they can go and make the money out of the exciting bit and commercialize it and create tournaments and events and sell sponsorship and TV rights down the road. All of that is a, relatively straightforward business. I think the bit, the governing, that's where I do have, I'm, as you know, Alex, I'm someone who questions the NGB model quite often. But I do have sympathy for that bit of it. And I just don't know. So when I hear, so for example, Karen talking about it's a volunteer run organization, that's a red flag to me. I think, well, actually, if it's growing, it needs to professionalize quite quickly and how does that work?
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:I couldn't agree with you more. It does need to professionalize. But I will say that the, uh, board that we've got, whilst they're volunteers, they take their role of governance very, very seriously. And earlier this year, we actually commissioned a review. Of what we need to put in place a for our growth, but B to meet the new BSI standard that was for safeguarding that was announced. I think it's in February of this year and we're just about to review the output of that report to enable us to move. to that as we move our systems because we're actually at an inflection point right now with Pickleball. It's now got too big for our initial systems. We need to move to a much bigger system. We need to make sure we understand what our needs are for that system in order to make sure that it's fit for purpose for the future, right? So all of these things are being taken into consideration right now. And, you know, whilst we are volunteers, I had a career before Pickleball. You know, quite. Quite a decent career. And I have an understanding of what's needed for new product development and processes and marketing as well as technology, you know, and other things. And so do other members of our board. So, you know, yes, we are volunteers, but we're pretty savvy and, you know, switched on as well.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And I wasn't suggesting otherwise there's a, you know, it's a capacity question more than, more than anything there's a, and money.
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:I just come on to the money? Can I just come on? So Pickleball England have been in existence for five years now. And, you know, we haven't needed any funding from anybody else. And, you know, we've grown our numbers. We are, our tournaments are really successful. Uh, the English Open back in August had 2, 000 players from 45 countries. You know, there are no LTA uh, tournaments that I'm aware of that have anything like that number. It was efficiently run. And it was over seven days and, you know, we secured sponsors. We took over the whole of Telford International Center to do this. So it cost a lot of money to run as well. And, you know, we managed to come out with a minor surplus on that. Our nationals that is happening next week, we've got over a thousand players at that, and we're actually looking to make a much more of a profit with that one. And again, it'll be, it's over four days efficiently run and, you know, We can make money out of events as well as other activities. We've got a good curriculum now that we've started to put in place. But we're getting really good feedback from, uh, the people who have attended it and, you know, we've got no doubt that as we build on that, that that will actually start to, uh, grow an income for us as well as lots of other ideas that we have. So I don't think funding is going to be an issue for people in England. I really don't.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:so Alex, in terms of when I look at. There's an incredible amount of excitement about it in the, you know, in the bubble of the sports marketing industry, particularly, which we, you know, we both exist in to certain degrees and we all three of us. So what do you think about that in terms of the, just the reality of it in terms of the potential, its commercial potential? Cause I, you've only got, anyone's got to walk through London. I'm in, right. And you've gotten paddle places popping up. There's a general sense that this is a sport on the, you know, on the rapid incline, but what do you think have you seen any data about what we think the potential, the commercial potential of this sport could be?
Alex Inglot:I think that the reality is that the participation piece is growing tremendously, as you mentioned, you can, it's becoming increasingly difficult not to find paddle courts or hear about paddle courts popping up here, there, and everywhere. There is an issue, my asterisk for that is, again, because it's so dominated by the private You're getting these are fairly premium offerings with high costs of rental and so you're attracting or able to attract a certain demographic which is quite limiting.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And I made a facetious comment on your LinkedIn, your point. Yeah. And I said, well, paddle is, you were saying that the Sunday times are saying it's a great, you know, it's a posh event and it's great for networking. And I said, own it. I think they, you know, that's a market position. Everyone is worried about the earnings. And if paddle is posh, that's my, you know, prejudice coming into, into play. You then hit back and said, no, it's the game of the people in Spain and Mexico. And I get that, but I. It's expensive. Is it expensive? I don't know. I've never played.
Alex Inglot:Yeah. I think, look, broadly, I think it is expensive. I think the majority of facilities are, like I said, profit focused, uh, especially with private equity or VC funding, they've got targets and they need, you know, margins and, and high rental fees. That is why I was urging, The ether, for want of a better phrase, uh, to try and counterbalance that I have no problem with luxury and premium offerings. I just don't want it to be the vast majority of what's on offer because it doesn't allow the sport to become accessible. It doesn't allow kids to come in, uh, different demographic groups, minorities. Uh, people like that to come in because it becomes, uh, prohibitive. And I think also you effectively perpetuate a reputation that it becomes the squash of the 80s, you know, the 80s squash movement, the kind of modern golf movement. That's what you've become. And your argument was like, what's the problem with that? Golf does a fantastic business out of being exactly that. It's not trying to be the game of the people. Maybe it can't be the game of the people, but it's doing all right. And actually, the more and more people I speak to, it feels like that's how people are kind of resigning themselves to the direction that Paddle will go, and I, maybe I just want more for the sport because I just want it to be able to cover both bases rather than just one and so, to your point, I think, the big issue at the, for the commercial side, or for the, shall we call it the professional side, is is the transition has been so quick. Five years ago, 70 percent of the global world tour was in Spain. It was a Spanish sport. You had Argentinians who migrated to Spain, it was played basically in Spain, all the players spoke Spanish, all the agents, the whole infrastructure, the whole ecosystem at the Pro Scene was English. Suddenly, like almost overnight, since 2019, The prize money has tripled because now you've got the Middle East barging in. You've got America wants a piece. You've got Northern Europe wants a piece. It's now become a global sport, but the ecosystem at the professional scene, especially with the players, which are the heroes, the face of the sport, they haven't caught up. And so you don't have that cut through which you need through content and social media and all that stuff. And so, I think the big challenge for Paddle is to square that circle. And I think you've got Hexagon Cup who on the one hand have said, Right, if our players are not able to cut through, maybe our franchise owners can. And so we've, you know, we've got franchise owners like Andy Murray and Ghastly from Formula One and from we've got a Guro. We've got Levandowski, we've got ever Longoria. So they've, they're creating bridge influences. Yeah. I saw side men who put out a piece of content in the last two weeks, 6.6 million views with 15 minutes in the paddle club in, in, uh, Canary Wolf. Those are the kind of things that may start moving the needle in that broader potential audience, broader potential fan base. But at the moment, yeah, it's. There are obstacles, they are surmountable, they may take a bit of time, even with the best will in the world. But I think the potential is there because, you know, there is a real interest growing. The numbers are, I think the Platonic report said that 110 courts are being built worldwide every week. That is a serious piece of growth. And, and so the Cagar is meant to be 17 percent year on year in terms of court building when it stabilizes a little bit more. That's still a fast growing sport. So I do see potential, but yeah, there are a few tweaks and additions that need to be bolted on.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And there's a question about when we, at which you're at our event at Amazon, someone, you know, the, one of the panelists said, Oh, it's not a television sport. That's one of the questions in terms of how it migrates to being, is it something I want to watch on telly or is it something I'm going to just go along and play? There's a bit of me that's interested in your journey because you're a really good tennis player. Yeah. And my assumption was that the relationship was a little bit like, and this is my prejudice, sort of test cricket to 2020. One is sort of bish bash bosh and the other one is more sophisticated and long form and whatever. That's, you don't think that's the case. Obviously you don't, because you're saying I don't want to play tennis anymore. I thought tennis was a more, a more difficult and more sort of rewarding game than paddle, but
Alex Inglot:I'm I'm going to be a hundred percent Oris rich when I, a few years ago, two years ago I had tired of just going to the gym and doing lifting weights and doing nothing else. Having been a volleyball player in my 20s and a tennis player in my teen years, I wanted to find something else and I was about to sign up to do mixed martial arts. And my brother who had just retired from being a professional tennis player said, listen, I've been playing a lot of paddle. I really enjoy it. It tests parts of my tennis game that I never used to use when I was a professional tennis player. Cause he was a you know, six foot five serving monster. And he said, try it for a month. And I said, isn't it tennis for people who can't play tennis? That was my honest feeling. And he said, look, try it for a month. If you don't like it, you can go and get your elbows dislocated on an MMA mat. And I tried it for like a couple of weeks and I just never went back because I really enjoyed it. And yes, I 100 percent agree that I had a, I had a kind of, leg up because I had the tennis skills but it only gets you so far because then the walls come in and the bounce and it becomes there are things that you just can't shortcut even as a tennis player but it kind of it's as you said it's easy to pick up even easier if you're a tennis player hence we're back to the cannibalization point it's social it's fun there's a community spirit you can stay behind the beers the paella the music And I just enjoyed it. It ticked all the boxes of what I was looking for when I was trying to get into the MMA. And I think a lot of people feel the same way. So, but it is a different sport. I just got a leg up, but it is a different sport. And and I think the LTA are not being fully cognizant of that pathway. And I think it's quite a common pathway for older people, for people who've left tennis, for kids who, like, I remember being asked to coach volleyball when I was young, when I was a 20 year old, I was a volleyball player in the England squad. Someone said, do you want to do some youth volleyball coaching? I was like, absolutely no way. Cause it's one of those sports that is almost impossible to enjoy until you reach a certain level. Whereas paddle is the opposite and that is kind of part of it's really magic sauce.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Karen is the profile of. I don't know anything really about the pickleball audience or the players. Is it, does it come with the same connotations? Am I assuming the same thing in terms of it's a posh sport?
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:No, no, not at all. No, I'd say the opposite actually. So it's easy to learn and takes a long time to really uh, you know, get to, to be good at it. Right. So you can get some success from day one. But if you really want to get good at it, you've got to really practice and drill and stuff. So very accessible. In terms of profile over here, it started with much more of a bias towards 50 plus because that's when the leisure centers were had space on their badminton courts. So, you know, 50 plus groups started offering uh, pickable, but now. With you know, the evolution of competition and things like that, we're actually trending a lot further downwards, but I would say that the profile, and we don't actually have some re we don't have research on this, so it's based on, you know, our registrations for different events and things like that. The profile, I would say is not posh at all. There, there are pockets of posh, don't get me wrong, and actually the bit that I really love about Pickleball is everyone mingles together. You don't know what walk of life you're going to encounter at a Pickleball Court or a Pickleball event. You get along over this love, you bond over the love of the game. And then later on, you may find that someone was a CEO in a company or they were in the Metropolitan Police or, you know, they were a, A sports star in something else, you know, in their youth, you don't know until you get to know people and, and actually, like Alex was saying, it's a very social sport. So you do get to know people, you know, really rather well. And that's what makes it beautiful, actually.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, that's lovely. It's a lovely place to, to finish here. Thank you so much for your time, both of you. And as I say, this is a moving subject as in it's evolving quickly, and we will hear the results of what's going to happen from, the sport councils, but also from the LTA. Et cetera. And we'll no doubt revisit it at that point. But in the meantime, Karen Webb, thank you very much for your time.
Karen Mitchell, Pickleball England:Thank you.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And Alex Inglot, thank you very much for your time.
Alex Inglot:Thanks for inviting me, Rich.