The students of both groups – English spoken and Spanish - of the Master's Degree in Sports Marketing attended the World Padel Tour, held in Madrid every year since 2013. The commercial director of the WPT, Juan Eich del Pino, welcomed the students and explained how important the tournament is globally.
World Padel Tour is the most important professional padel circuit in the world, not just because of the organisation level but also because it attracts the participation of the best international players. The tournaments of the World Padel Tour have been organized by a group of padel professionals, the Professional association of Padel Players (AJPP) and the Spanish Female Padel Association (AFEP).
Padel is mainly played in Spain, Brazil and Mexico. It is very easy to play, cheap and it has a huge potential for development and expansion, with over 4 million players in Spain, against the 300k registered golf players. This means that big brands such as Adidas and Asics are starting to create specific padel products.
The World Padel Tour wants to reach other countries and expand the sport to an international level. As a business, there are a lot of opportunities. In Spain there are over 1,800 padel clubs and all the public leisure centres are adding padel courts to their facilities, thanks to the low building cost and maintenance.
The director of the masters, Ricardo García-Viana, asked the students to think of the event from a business perspective: the event objectives, the added value to the sponsors, who is padel’s main target, in which other cities this event could be held etc.