How padel is opening new doors for Loughborough University
• 3 MINUTE READ
Padel is a buzz word across Britain's halls of residence as big-city clubs welcome local students through their doors where they connect, compete and socialise with other young people (and fill off-peak courts).
Introducing padel courts can significantly enhance a university’s sports facilities by offering a fun and inclusive sport that appeals to students of all ages and abilities – from complete beginners up to elite athletes. Not only does it help foster a vibrant and active environment for students and staff, but it also provides a chance for your venue to open up its facilities to the wider community and provide more sports opportunities for locals.
London, Bristol and Manchester are particular strongholds for student padel and the National Universities Padel League (NUPL) now provides a nationwide competition framework, as well as other student-targeted competitions from the likes of Golden Point Padel and UK Padel.
One university which has introduced padel on campus through an operator led approach is Loughborough University who launched a partnership with Soul Padel in March this year.
Soul Padel invested £150,000 to construct two state-of-the-art courts and a clubhouse as well as recruiting a team of students to run the facility and its programmes. In return, Loughborough gave the operator the campus site rent-free. If and when Soul Padel recover their costs, the two partners will enter into a revenue share agreement.
"The higher education sector has seriously woken up to the potential benefits of padel, but they've struggled with how to build and operate them," says Soul Padel founder Mark Hewlett. "We're looking to roll out our model with other universities soon.
"Universities are increasingly looking for new ways to enhance student experience, encourage participation in sport, and maximise the use of their facilities. Padel’s fast, social, and accessible nature makes it an ideal addition to university campuses, appealing to students of all abilities."
The advantage of Loughborough as a test bed for Soul Padel is its worldwide reputation as a specialist sports university. Their students are as 'sporty' as any other higher education establishment on the planet, so there was a captive audience from the start.
"The students have seen that if you're a talented racket sports enthusiast already, padel is a 'white space' you can move into," says Hewlett. "With a competitive programme and coaching, they can move quite quickly into a ranked position. They've seen that opportunity and seized it, we've just helped to facilitate that.
"We started with the usual programmes like Intro to Padel, guided beginners' games and social padel, but what we found very, very quickly - and this shouldn't have been a surprise - was that everybody was phenomenally competitive!
"They wanted more tournaments and the societies started to run their own mini tournaments too. There's been much more of that type of activity than what we've seen at our community padel clubs. More generally, it's enabled us to penetrate the psychology of Gen Z and understand what they want from padel. That has been really eye-opening."
Loughborough are set to enter a team into the new Midlands league of the NUPL for 2025/26 and are looking at entering the iPadel League as well.
It's fair to say the courts have gone down well. In the first four months, there were only two unoccupied hours between 7am-11pm, so court utilisation is at just a fraction under 100%.
Soul Padel has also tapped into the sport-loving student population for its staffing of the courts. The site is essentially operated by students for students. "There's no hierarchy, no manager, it's a very flat, autonomous structure," reveals Hewlett.
"We've given students quite a lot of flexibility to put on their own tournaments, create their own social media content and engage with the other committees on campus. They know the campus better than we do, so we've leaned on them to help us to engage with the student population and find out what they want."
The operator has also connected up with the university's pre-existing internal booking system, rather than using an off-the-shelf product such as Playtomic or Matchi. They have also honoured the Gold, Silver and Bronze student membership levels which offer various discounts.
The engagement levels are sky high not just within the student population but with the locals that live close by, too. Community use is particularly strong in the morning, when - to risk a generalisation - students tend to be replenishing the energy tanks horizontally!
The university holidays have seen high court utilisation from the internal uni staff and from the national governing bodies and other tenants that are based on campus, such as the England and Wales Cricket Board, British Athletics, British Swimming, England Netball and the Youth Sport Trust. "It'll be great to see world-class athletes using the facility to decompress, socialise and exercise over the summer," Hewlett says.
Soul Padel's next varsity projects are at the University of Salford and University of Central Lancashire and they are in discussions with 20 other universities.
"It's a privilege to be at one of the world’s leading institution for sports-related subjects and we've already seen significant interest from other universities as a result," says Hewlett. "The project helps get our brand into the wider higher education ecosystem.
"Although higher education is going through a lean period, they remain asset-rich. They've got great locations, but not necessarily the cash to develop their own padel facilities, even though students are crying out for it.
"That's where Soul Padel can come in. We’re creating opportunities for universities to embed padel into their culture, and our partnership with Loughborough University sets a powerful example of what’s possible."
The operator model is just one of several ways that universities are developing thriving padel venues on campus. Find out more about the different options for padel facility development with everything you need to know about requirements, installation and expected revenues in our detailed guide below.
