How Padel Became Founders’ Favorite Sport

Entrepreneurs are flocking to tennis’s cooler cousin—for competitive socializing and business opportunities on and off the court.

BY ALI DONALDSON, STAFF REPORTER @ALICDONALDSON

Two years ago, Jon Krieger had never played padel. Today, the 45-year-old typically hits for three hours a day, five or six days a week, and keeps an extra pair of gym shorts and his crisp white On tennis shoes in his office — ready to jump onto a court and fill in if someone’s foursome comes up short. That’s the job when you’re also the founder and CEO of a rapidly growing padel club.

During the pandemic, Krieger, uprooted his family from their Manhattan apartment and landed in Tenafly, New Jersey. With two kids and a new suburb to figure out, he also had a familiar itch to find the next big thing.

Often compared to pickleball, padel is more of a spiritual cousin to tennis and squash. Points produce a series of lower-octave thumps, rather than the high-pitched pings that have driven neighborhoods with pickleball courts to the brink of insurgency. Because padel cannot be played on any public tennis court or parking lot, it creates a better business opportunity for entrepreneurs like Krieger. 

Krieger decided to open Padel United Sports Club in Tenafly, New Jersey before he ever picked up one of the sport’s perforated rackets. The serial entrepreneur, who has spent more than two decades building brick-and-mortar consumer businesses and co-founded the Australian-inspired coffee chain Bluestone Lane, was that bullish from the data alone. 

Like the points, which ricochet off the back walls, the sport has moved fast. Once relegated to regional pockets of popularity in Mexico, Spain, and other corners of Europe and South America, padel has exploded in the United States. In the past three years, membership in the United States Padel Association has spiked 600 percent, jumping from less than 500 people in 2022 to nearly 3,000 in 2025. Hundreds of courts have sprung up across the country in major cities, such Phoenix, and midsized markets, such as Richmond, Virginia. Nationwide, more than 112,800 people are estimated to be playing at more than 260 clubs, according to Patricio Misitrano, who founded Sports Haus in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Misitrano Consulting, a firm that advises pickleball and padel businesses. In the second quarter of last year, Mistrano, who also serves as CEO of Racket Social Club, a hybrid pickleball padel club with locations in Denver, Atlanta, and Houston, counted 688 courts in the U.S. In less than a year, that number has climbed to nearly 1,000.

It wasn’t until a conference trip to Miami in 2024, a few months into planning for his hometown club, that Krieger stepped onto one of the caged-in courts. After just a few points, he understood what the data had only suggested.

“It’s so addictive,” he says. “I played tennis for 30 years, pretty avidly. I haven’t played in a year and a half. I don’t think I will again.”

Krieger raised roughly $3 million from high-net-worth individuals and members of the local community and opened the $4 million suburban facility in January 2025. Within the first year, the business generated $3.5 million in revenue and reached profitability, and that pace has not slowed. The club is still growing 30 percent month-over-month. 

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