Rafael Vega’s new venture BY3 aims to bring the excitement of professional padel competitions to amateur players through corporate and private events, VIP experiences, hospitality and tournaments.
Rafael, who’s currently no.1 in the LTA padel rankings, officially launched BY3 on 10 April, two months after his successful maiden event during the week of this year’s Hexagon Cup in Madrid.
Speaking to The Padel Paper, Rafael outlined his plans for the future, and explained why he is using premium events to immerse amateur players in the world of padel.
“The amateurs are the ones who make the sport enthralling,” he said. “With BY3, we want to make amateur players feel like they are professionals, so that they are the stars of the show. If you are a company looking to do a team building event or an amateur player who wants to have a different experience, we have you covered.
“We want amateurs to feel what it’s like when you are about to play a big final, receive nice prizes and to have brand activations off court so they can be entertained when not playing. It will be set up so that people play many games then want to stay afterwards to enjoy a beer or a plate of paella.”
Before making the move into professional padel, Rafael earned a degree in Sports Science and an MBA in Sports Management in Madrid. He is a popular and well-respected name within the UK padel industry, having worked as Head of Padel at Rocks Lane and head padel pro at Queens Club and The Harbour Club. He plans to bring all this experience into operations at BY3.
“The main goal is that in every event we do, everybody involved has fun,” he says. “The experience that we had in Madrid with our first ever VIP event set the standard. Now we are talking with clubs to host more of these events. Some of them are confirmed and can be found on our website.”
The events that Rafa helped to host at the Hexagon Cup in Madrid showed him a blueprint for giving amateur padel players an unforgettable experience.
He explains: “It was pretty good because we had five days in Madrid playing padel with professionals, getting coaching sessions and match play every day, plus having the experience of playing a tournament with Spanish people. Every day we would have special moments, like meeting top pros such as Arturo Coello and Agustin Tapia at Hexagon or having wine tasting and typical food from the area. It was a good experience, a good first event at La Vida Padel and now we will start everything else from April.”
BY3 worked with Team Ad/vantage, co-owned by Andy Murray, Anthony Joshua and Arran Yentob. “Arran is a good friend and together we will be looking to do more things together here in the UK,” said Rafael. “In the future, we want to keep growing and be able to do collaborations with big brands that want to be involved on the sports events industry.”
On their partnership with BY3, Team Advantage said: “It has been a real pleasure working with BY3 – true partners, operating professionally, and importantly with a great sense of fun. We look forward to more in the future.”
