When researching the growing interest in padel and pickleball across North America, it is important to look beyond the growing popularity, as thoughtful planning must come into play.
One of the most important factors to consider is the population of a community, as both sports appeal to different demographics.
Pickleball has a low barrier to entry and a modest level of physical demand, intern the popularity has grown among older adults, recreational players, and individuals new to racquet sports.
Padel is popular among younger and more athletically inclined participants along with communities that are familiar with tennis or squash, especially in multicultural neighborhoods with European and Latin American roots.
Furthermore, another consideration that needs to be made is space availability. This is important as it will determine whether one sport is more feasible to develop.
With standard pickleball courts being relatively small and inexpensive to build, they can be added to other courts such as tennis or badminton. This in turn makes this development adaptable for public spaces such as parks, schools and community centres looking to have multiple forms of racket sports played on a single court.
On the contrary, padel has a different set of requirements, making it a little more expensive to build. These courts need to be enclosed on all sides, as this is an important component of the play but limits the adaptability for additional sports to be played on these courts. In turn, padel courts will require more specialized development to ensure the integrity of the sport is maintained.
At the community scale, choosing one or the other should be based on the demographic of the area.
While pickleball is easily accessible and accepts a wide variety of players no matter the skill level, padel should be considered if there is a higher European population within an area.
This decision can be best made when looking at the immigration pattern of an area and better deciding which court is more suited for the community.
