Leading padel brand NOX Sport was turbo-boosted during the pandemic – and the family business is now flexing its muscles by running its own academy and growing its brand in the UK.
NOX (and the game of padel generally) benefited from Covid-19 lockdown laws in certain countries, notably Spain and Sweden, which allowed the public to play padel but prohibited many other leisure pursuits.
Demand for padel equipment soared almost overnight and NOX had to respond rapidly. It was an exhausting, extraordinary period. They doubled their revenues in a year. NOX Sport’s marketing director Alfonso Bastida tells The Padel Paper it was a “perfect storm.”
“We benefited hugely from the pandemic in a market that was already mature. Here in Spain, you could go running, ride a bike or play padel, that was it! Everybody wanted a racket and we had to work incredibly hard and create some magic to keep everybody happy.
“We are a big brand but a small team. That’s not a bad thing, because we can react faster than the multinational brands. We can make decisions today and implement tomorrow.”
Many emergency meetings were held with their partners in Asia and every link in the supply chain had to be strengthened to cope with the added pressure – at a time when Covid was making everything fraught and expensive. In 2021, NOX decided to build their own factory in Paraguay to take greater control of the manufacturing and supply process. It opened earlier this year.
This building of capacity and infrastructure has sustained the brand’s post-pandemic boom. Astonishingly, NOX’s sales have risen from roughly 3.5m euros in the year before lockdown to 28m euros last year. “In less than four years, we have multiplied by 10,” says Alfonso.
Founded by former swimmer Jesus Ballve in 2009, NOX shot to prominence with its first big player signing the following year; Miguel Lamperti. The charismatic Argentinian remains a NOX player to this day.
“He is the most beloved player in the world,” says Alfonso. “On many occasions I have stayed up until 1am as he signed autographs until the very last fan left the venue. I have never seen a better brand ambassador.”
Earlier this year, Ballve realised a long-held ambition by opening the NOX Futures Academy (NFA). Inspired by FC Barcelona’s famous La Masia and the Rafael Nadal Academy, the NFA is based at a mansion in Barcelona where up-and-coming padel talents are given all the support they need to become top-class professionals, with outdoor and indoor padel facilities, gym, physiotherapists and sports psychologists.
Kristina Clement, NOX’s export manager, says: “NOX’s slogan is ‘Makes you improve’ and that is the ethos behind the academy. There’s a whole team surrounding each player, not just on-court coaches. This is something our players appreciate – and a big reason they sign for us instead of other brands.”
Teenagers Leo Augsburger and Tino Libaak, who reached the final of the World Padel Tour La Rioja Open in March – ironically losing to NOX ambassador Agustin Tapia – are the stars of the current NFA residents.
In fact it was NOX’s signing of Tapia as a 17-year-old in 2017 that paved the way for the academy. The brand relocated Tapia, his coach and his coach’s wife from Argentina to Spain to make sure his training environment and lifestyle was optimal for the highest level of performance. The coach in question was Pablo Crosetti. Six years on, he is now head coach of the academy.
Last week, Crosetti spent several hours on court with NOX’s latest signing, British No.3 Louie Harris, who has just joined fellow Brit Tia Norton in the NOX stable.
NOX’s signing of young, talented British players is partly strategic, as Alfonso explains: “At the time we signed Tia, the market in the UK was not significant. But we saw their four million tennis players and if Spain’s story is repeated in the UK, they could in some years have more padel players than tennis players. It could be a very important country.
“We want to make sure we have the best local ambassadors; Tia is British No.1 and that is why we’ve signed Louie Harris as well. He is young, one of the best players in the UK and he fits with the brand image and message. It was a perfect match.”
Kristina, who is set to represent Germany at this summer’s European Games in Krakow, has known Tia for many years, since coaching her in Birmingham in 2017. “I saw her potential and after six months, she quit tennis to full dedicate to padel,” she remembers.
“We have always kept in touch because she’s my ‘padel baby!’ She is a great ambassador. For her age she is very mature, clever and so talented.”
As for NOX’s future, they remain a “family company” competing against multinational brands worldwide. “We need to do things better and smarter than our rivals in order to attract the attention of people who buy our rackets,” says Kristina.
NOX seem certain to keep punching above their weight and making players improve for many years to come.
