Argentina supermarkets rent space for padel courts as sales slump

Argentine supermarkets are leasing dead floor space to padel courts and gyms because too much retail space is no longer paying for itself. Under President Javier Milei, unsold products have doubled, supermarket sales have fallen 8% and wholesale sales 22%, and mass consumption was still down 5.4% year-on-year in March and 8.6% in the first quarter of 2025.

This is not a simple leisure boom. It is recession-era real estate reuse, driven by inflation, tariff increases and weakened wage purchasing power that have pushed households toward basic services. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says Argentina has entered an ambitious reform process and inflation has fallen sharply, but it also says further fiscal and tax reforms are still needed if growth is going to hold.

Padel happens to be the right tenant for that kind of market because Argentina already has the infrastructure and the appetite. The first courts were installed at the Ocean Club in Mar del Plata, and the sport became a social phenomenon in 1982. Today, the International Padel Federation estimates Argentina has about 7,000 courts, more than 3,000 clubs and roughly 1.5 million players.

Those numbers matter because they turn padel into something more durable than a passing fitness trend. Retail landlords are not betting on an abstract idea of recreation. They are betting on a sport with a built-in base, enough volume to fill courts, and enough cultural familiarity to make commercial co-location work. In a country where consumer demand has tightened, that makes padel a practical tenant.

The strongest proof came at Parque Roca, where the 2025 Buenos Aires Premier Padel P1 drew a record 16,156 spectators. Buenos Aires was also on the 2026 calendar, with another P1 event slated for 10-17 May 2026. That level of turnout tells landlords that padel can still draw crowds in a market where supermarkets are struggling to move product.

The commercial logic is now spreading beyond temporary court leases. Fernando Belasteguín has announced a US$5 million Bela Padel Center in Canning, Buenos Aires, planned to open on 19 May 2027 inside a mixed-use complex that includes a supermarket. In other words, the sport is no longer just taking space next to retail. In Argentina, it is becoming part of the retail survival plan.