Pickleball vs. Padel: What the Numbers Really Say About Growth

Padel is booming in America. But is it really overtaking pickleball? DUPR President and CEO Tito Machado says the numbers need some context.

Padel is having itself a moment.

Celebrities are playing it. Luxury brands are pouring in. New clubs are popping up. And this week, The Hollywood Reporter published a splashy feature on the sport’s rise, noting new SFIA data that shows padel growing 14.5%, compared with just 1.3% for pickleball.

There’s just one problem, according to DUPR President and CEO Tito Machado:

Percentage growth doesn’t tell you how big something actually is.

Machado, himself a padel player and believer in the sport’s future, took to LinkedIn to push back on the growing “fastest-growing sport in America” narrative.

“Padel may be producing one of the fastest growing percentages in sports, but it is growing from a very small base.”

And the difference in scale is enormous.

According to SFIA:

24.3 million Americans played pickleball in 2025, up from 4.2 million in 2020
Padel, which SFIA tracked nationally for the first time in 2025, recorded 1.073 million U.S. participants

That means pickleball currently has roughly 23 times as many U.S. participants.

The gap gets even wider when looking at frequent players. SFIA counted approximately 7.5 million core pickleball players, defined as those playing at least eight times per year, compared with 238,000 for padel.

Machado put it a little more colorfully:

“If you go from one player to ten, you have grown 900 percent. Incredible percentage. Still ten players.”

His point isn’t that padel’s growth is fake. Far from it.

It’s that growth rate and participation scale answer two very different questions.

Pickleball’s Not-So-Secret Weapon: Access

There’s another major distinction between the two sports: how easily someone can actually play them.

Padel requires a specialized enclosed court with glass walls. As of April, the U.S. had just over 1,000 padel courts across 31 states, according to USA Padel.

Pickleball can be dropped into parks, gyms, recreation centers, schools, converted tennis courts and, yes, suburban driveways.

For Machado, that difference matters enormously.

“Pickleball did not become a participation powerhouse because of a press release or a clever percentage. It grew because real people could actually play it.”

That accessibility helped pickleball go from 4.2 million U.S. participants in 2020 to 24.3 million in 2025 — growth of more than fivefold in five years.

Padel, meanwhile, is still building the infrastructure required to support its growing demand.

And Machado thinks that’s a good thing.

This Doesn’t Have to Be Pickleball vs. Padel

To be clear, Machado is rooting for padel.

He plays. He believes in it. And he sees plenty of room for both sports to grow.

There’s certainly momentum behind padel. Its U.S. governing body says club membership increased 51.5% in 2025, while its sanctioned tournament schedule has expanded rapidly. Globally, participation reached an estimated 35 million players by the end of 2025.

“Padel has tremendous potential, especially in major cities and premium club environments. I genuinely want to see it succeed. More racket sports, more facilities, and more people playing are good for the entire industry.”

His gripe is with the framing.

Padel can simultaneously be growing faster by percentage while remaining dramatically smaller by participation. Both statements can be true.

And after five consecutive years as SFIA’s fastest-growing sport, pickleball’s growth moderating to 1.3% hardly means the boom disappeared. There were already 24.3 million people in the pool before that new growth was added.

Which brings Machado back to one very simple request:

“Great marketing can win a headline... Love padel. Believe in its future. Just do not BS the data.”

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