00:00 Speaker A
For viewers who maybe they’re not familiar with Padel, just explain the sport to us, Mike. Break it down, and how is it different than pickleball?
00:06 Mike
Yeah, so Padel is probably actually closer to a mix between tennis and squash. So it’s played with a ball that is very similar to a tennis ball. The pressure is a little bit different, but it looks and feels for all intents and purposes, like a tennis ball. Um and it’s got walls surrounding the entire court. So, um the angles off the glass, you have incredibly fast-paced, long rallies, um with the speed of tennis. uh but it is in a much smaller kind of close quarters, um more akin to a pickleball court. um but faster, dynamic, athletic. it’s it’s an amazing game.
00:46 Speaker A
The Journal, um says, Mike, entrepreneurs are now converting old warehouses, malls, industrial buildings into Padel clubs. They say public courts have grown from about 227 to around 1,000 now in just three years. What explains that? What what is driving that?
01:07 Mike
Yeah, I think Padel is a new type of golf for um a lot of young professionals right now where you can uh obviously with health and wellness trends, you can get an amazing workout, you can socialize. Padel’s always played in teams, so it’s a it’s a double sports. You get four people um sweating, running around, getting an amazing workout, becoming friends with each other. And yeah, when we started the Pro Padel League, I think we were sub 100 courts in the entire country. We’ve passed a thousand, there’s going to be many more thousands built over the near in the near future.
01:42 Speaker B
So Jeff, you know, we’re just talking about how, so you’re you’re the North American president of Citizen, but Citizen owns Frederick Constant, which is the the as Josh mentioned the sponsor, the big the big sponsor of of PPL and has will have an official watch coming out, right? For the for the sport. So talk to me about why um this is your first sport sponsorship, right? Frederick’s first sport sponsorship. Why Pedel or Padel now?
02:18 Jeff
Well, I think uh Mike said it all. It’s one of the fastest growing sports we see in this country. It’s becoming very modern. It’s very social, um and international. So it’s a great fit for for Frederick Constant. Um and it’s it’s authentic and that’s something that we think is very, very important to be part of an authentic sport. Something that uh we feel the official timekeeper would be perfect because it’s up our precision and um and all the things that go along with it. So be the to be the match uh timekeeper and things like that and this beautiful PPL watch we have coming out, it’s going to be awesome.