Pro Padel League adds national TV deal for expanded 2026 season

The Pro Padel League is betting that national television can do more than put its logo on more screens. Its 2026 season will feature five events across North America, including the first City’s Cup Finals in Miami and the league’s first stop in Los Angeles, as it tries to push padel from a growing participation sport into a true spectator property.

The league, founded in 2023 as North America’s first professional padel circuit, now says it has 10 teams spread across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Four of the five 2026 events will be played in PPL team markets, a choice that keeps the schedule close to the league’s existing footprint and gives local clubs a better shot at building repeat audiences. Along with Miami and Los Angeles, the calendar also includes New York, Playa del Carmen and Guadalajara.

Mike Dorfman, the league’s CEO, said the schedule reflects the PPL’s “next phase” of growth. That next phase is about more than filling dates on a calendar. It is about making the sport legible to new viewers, giving them recognizable players and teams to follow, and building enough consistency that a TV audience understands the stakes from one event to the next. The league has already had a taste of that kind of exposure, with its inaugural finals airing on CBS Sports on June 22, 2023, and an exclusive broadcast on Padel Time TV in September 2024.

The broadcast push arrives with real money behind it. PPL closed a $10 million seed round in March 2025, then added a $15 million Series A in March 2026 led by Rick Schnall, the Charlotte Hornets co-chairman and governor. Dorfman said the capital will support team infrastructure, player development and world-class events across North America. The league also unveiled PPL II in 2026 as a player-development league, a sign that it understands a TV product needs a pipeline of new talent as much as it needs a bigger stage.

The investor list gives the league another layer of credibility, with Francis Tiafoe, Maarten Paes, Nacho Figueras and Edward Rogers among those tied to teams. PPL has also said some franchises have been valued at more than $10 million, an indicator that the market is starting to price in more than novelty. Dorfman has described padel as “a new type of golf” in terms of networking and business value, but the real test now is whether the league can turn broadcast visibility into repeat viewing, star power and a format casual fans can follow without a primer.