In Italy there are more than 10 thousand padel courts and beyond 2 million practitioners: numbers that make our country the second in the world for the diffusion of this sport, immediately after Spain and ahead of Argentina. Rome is the third city in the world in terms of number of courts, after Madrid and Barcelona, while Lombardy is the Italian region with the most indoor courts.
According to data from the 2025 report FIP Research and Data Analysis Departmentpadel is one of the sports that is currently experimenting fastest growth globally. Today in the world there are more 35 million fans (60% men), of which more than half play at least once a week. There are 850 thousand professional players, i.en growth of 42% compared to the previous year.
Even the structures I am sharply increasing: more than 77 thousand have been registered in the world (+15% in the last year alone), distributed in 150 nations and 20 dependent territories: this means that today it is possible to play padel in over three quarters of the countries in the world. THE’Europe is the continent where people play the mostconcentrating 61% of amateur practitioners and 66% of the world’s structures with more than 50 thousand fields. The growth that has occurred in recent years is impressive: in 2020, there were in fact only 18 thousand.
The leading country remains there Spain, where there are 17,300 fields and over 6 million players. Despite having originated in the 70s in Mexico, it was in fact in Spain that padel was converted into a real sport and began its true international diffusion. Here, in fact, Prince Hohanlohe had the first real pitch open to the public built in a hotel in Marbella, allowing tourists from all over the world to discover this sport.
Immediately after Spain we find theItaly (with further 10,200 fields, more than 2 million practitioners and 5 million interested in this sport) and theArgentina (about 7000 fields). Even in our peninsula, padel has experienced very rapid growth in recent years. There Italian Padel Game Federation it is indeed born in 1991but the sport was officially recognized by CONI only in 2008.
To date, the region with the most structures is the Lazio with 2014 fields (20% of all Italy). Followed by Lombardy (around 1400) and the Sicily (about 820). Furthermore, Lombardy, with over 1100 indoor courts, is the leading region in terms of indoor courts, ahead of Lazio (760).
Among Italian cities, Rome it is the true symbol of the padel boom. In fact, in the Italian capital there are over 250 thousand practitioners, including amateurs and competitive athletes and it is currently the third city in the world in terms of number of fields, preceded only by Madrid And Barcelona.
The success of padel has also had a significant economic impact. Assessing the exact economic weight is not easy, because in official data it is often combined with tennis. However, some estimates allow us to understand the order of magnitude. According to available data, tennis and padel together generate around 56 thousand jobs, of which almost 20% can be attributed to padel. Furthermore, the estimated social benefits for padel in Italy reach around 1.17 billion euros, according to Open Economics.
Numbers that show how this sport is not just a trend, but a real expanding economic sector.
