Pro Padel League warns U.S. growth alone won't build pro future

The Pro Padel League says the U.S. has now passed 1,000 courts and 1 million players, a sharp rise from the near-zero base that existed when the league formed just a few years ago. In a CEO letter, Mike Dorfman argued that the numbers are encouraging but not enough on their own to secure a lasting professional future.

Dorfman’s point was blunt: padel has to be built differently if it wants to become a high-value pro property. The league says that means designing schedules, venues, player pathways and governance intentionally instead of borrowing a tennis, squash or pickleball model wholesale. The warning is rooted in a familiar pattern from racquet sports, where constant global travel and thinly connected tours can strain a product if the calendar and economics are not built around long-term stability.

The Pro Padel League has already been testing that theory in public. On May 13, 2025, it unveiled its season schedule and said it would expand events to Spain and Mexico. The league said its season-opening event would be staged at Wayfair Arena in Miami, and described itself as having 10 teams across the United States, Canada and Mexico. That mix of North American and international stops underscored the league’s effort to create a cross-border circuit while the U.S. market was still taking shape.

The participation data explains why the league believes the opportunity is real. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association included padel in its national participation study for the first time, and a USA Padel post said the 2026 SFIA Topline Participation Report showed more than 1.07 million Americans played padel in 2025. Mike Knowles, in a LinkedIn post, put the figure at 1,073,000 players and said there were just over 1,000 courts across 31 states. For investors and operators, those numbers suggest a sport with enough traction to justify serious capital, not just exhibition-level ambition.

That capital has already started to arrive. PPL previously said it raised a $10 million seed round led by Left Lane Capital, with Kactus Capital, Gary Vaynerchuk, Epic Padel and the family office of H.I.G. Capital founder Tony Tamer among the backers. In March 2026, CNBC said the league added another $15 million, while SportsPro put PPL’s fundraising at $25 million over 12 months. Pulse 2.0 said Rick Schnall led the Series A.

PPL’s 2026 tournament page says the league will return to Los Angeles for an event at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. That mix of domestic stops, international expansion and outside financing shows a league still defining what American padel should look like, and still trying to prove that participation growth can be translated into a durable professional business.