Sam McKibbin, Mike Hampson and Dorian Tranter have formed The Padel Team and are kickstarting their new empire of clubs by building communities and delivering the best possible playing experience.
Sam has managed We Are Padel in Derby for the last two years and is Vice President of the Padel Federation of Ireland. He has joined forces with prominent businessmen Mike Hampson and Dorian Tranter, who both add a wealth of experience to the project. The Padel Team enter the market with the aim of replicating the community-focused ethos that has been so successfully ingrained in Derby at their new venues.
Their first move will be rebranding and augmenting the facilities at the old We Are Padel club in Bristol, adding a gym, warm-up areas and work pods, amongst other new touches. The current team in Bristol will be retained and added to.
Once Bristol is up and running under its new moniker, The Padel Team is looking to open two further venues by spring 2025. But rather than make rash promises about expansion plans, they are very much focused on “quality over quantity” and firstly creating the same vibrant community that has been fostered at We Are Padel Derby.
“We would rather have 10 amazing clubs than have 50 clubs with no community or feeling,” he tells The Padel Paper. “In Bristol, our first task will be to assemble a team that emanates our values by building a community to mirror what we’ve achieved in Derby.
“We have no doubts that in 10 or 20 years the UK will be having the same problems as Sweden with a saturated market. For us it’s that added value that will win out, with people staying because of the relationships they have formed with us, the team and what we’ve offered, not because we’re 50p cheaper than the next club.
“We want to create an experience that is by players for players, as opposed to just serving the bottom line. We really want to focus on that sense of community in each venue that we build in. That epitomises padel as I know it from working at clubs in Spain. That’s our big focus.”
That added value comes firstly in the form of high-quality, well-maintained facilities, but also from rewarding players’ loyalty, building friendships within the clubs through activities and events and connecting with the local community.
The Padel Team are partnering with local charities and schools to open up access to Padel for people who otherwise might not get the opportunity to participate. In the last year, the club branched out into the community putting on free sessions for school children and has invited groups of deaf people, players with Down’s Syndrome and neurodivergent conditions through its doors by linking up with local support groups.
“Removing barriers to sport is really important to us,”. “It’s something that no-one else has tapped into. These demographics often get left behind because everyone thinks it’s too difficult.”
“Businesses often leave a scorch pattern behind them because they always want money and they never give anything back. For us it’s important that the scales are balanced – so as much as we’re obviously looking to take in finances, we’re also giving back to the community around us.
“There are so many people who’ve never experienced the joy of sport and they’re the ones who deserve it the most. It’s really important we create those connections and have that positive impact. There’s nothing more rewarding than giving the gift of smiles on faces.
The Padel Team is not worried by the tight financial margins of running large Scandinavian-style indoor clubs (as highlighted by Game4Padel co-founder Michael Gradon in a recent Padel Paper article). Nor are they fazed by the possibility of future saturation of the UK market, as has happened in Sweden.
He says: “When you look at the potential in the UK, the British racket sports tradition and the courts-to-population ratio in places like Spain, we still believe there’s space for 10-15,000 padel courts here – and we’re absolutely nowhere near that yet. Even when that point does come, we believe that we’ll stand out because of the value we offer and the connections we help to forge.”
