A photo of Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO, holding a padel racket was circulated by MARCA in late September. The Spanish outlet describes him as an occasional player and says he had previously spoken with Playtomic’s founders. No public detail links those conversations to an investment or commercial agreement.
The numbers for padel in the United States help put this renewed attention in perspective. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association counted 1,073,000 Americans who played padel in 2025, the first time the sport was measured nationally in its survey. The series does not document a comparable earlier decline, so measurable growth is a more accurate description than a rebound after a downturn.
The United States passed one million padel players in 2025
USA Padel says 835,000 people played between one and seven times in 2025, while 238,000 played at least eight times. By April 2026, the country already had more than 1,000 courts across 31 states.
The national governing body also recorded a 53.5% year-on-year increase in individual membership in 2025 and a 51.5% rise in member clubs. It sanctioned 104 open tournaments in 2025, while the 2026 calendar already listed 255 events when those figures were published.
USA Padel president Bill Ullman summed up the figures in the April 13, 2026 release:
Padel is here, and it’s growing fast.
Miami and New York account for part of the sport’s visibility
Reserve Padel operates five locations in Miami and New York, according to its official website: Miami Design District, SoLé Mia, Miami Seaplane, Hudson Yards and Upper East Side. The post below comes from the club’s official account.
New York is hosting the third edition of the US Open Padel Championships from October 2 to 4, 2026. The tournament is being played across several Padel Haus clubs and offers $40,000 in Division 1 prize money, the highest total in the event’s history. It is part of National Padel Month, organized in October by USA Padel.
Zuckerberg’s photo adds audience, not an investment project
Zuckerberg’s appearance on a padel court adds media exposure to a market that already had participation data, a denser national tournament calendar and new clubs. It is not evidence of a Meta strategy or of a personal investment by Zuckerberg in padel.
On October 3, the US Open continues in New York ahead of the October 4 finals. The most useful indicators for tracking American padel remain the number of repeat players, new court openings and the ability of national competitions to attract players and commercial partners over time.
