Padel club sponsorship is one of the newest opportunities in UK grassroots sport. Padel is one of the fastest-growing sports in the UK according to the LTA, with individual participation passing one million in 2026, up from 860,000 at the end of 2025 and only 400,000 at the end of 2024. This guide covers what a grassroots padel club sponsorship looks like, what businesses get from backing padel, and how Kit Funder handles the match.
Why padel and why now
The growth is rapid, but the “why now” is about timing. LTA data shows in 2019, just 15,000 people played padel. By the end of 2023 that had grown to 129,000, then more than tripled to 400,000 by the end of 2024. By the end of 2025 this figure had more than doubled to 860,000, and in 2026 it has already pushed the total past one million individual participants.
Infrastructure and awareness back up the participation statistics.There are now 1,825 padel courts across 551 venues in the UK, up from 1,553 courts at 559 venues at the end of 2025, with the LTA and the LTA Tennis Foundation putting more than £18m combined into new court construction. Awareness has moved just as fast, with figures at the end of 2025 showing that 57% of British adults, around 31 million people, now know what padel is, up from 38% a year earlier. Courts, money and recognition are all arriving at once to the game. The sport has just crossed the point where it needs explaining to most people but has not yet reached saturation, which is the exact window for impactful sponsorship.
Additionally, the “why padel” is also about who is playing. Around half of players have no previous racket sports background at all, creating new players through padel itself rather than converting from tennis or squash. The typical player is 25 to 45 and they are not playing for free. A standard off-peak court booking runs around £7 per person for a doubles game, positioning padel as an accessible but genuinely paid-for leisure activity rather than a free park kickabout hobby.
What padel club sponsorship looks like at grassroots level
Team Padel is usually played in pairs rather than as a full squad. Therefore, sponsorship tends to sponsor an overall club or the teams within a club. Sponsorship at club level commonly covers court branding (a sponsor's name or logo on court-side boards or netting), tournament sponsorship for a club's internal or local league events, coaching support for junior or beginner sessions, and kit for any club or venue running a competitive representative team.
A venue with several courts and a growing membership base offers more sponsorship surface than a single-court community setup, though both are viable for a business working at the right scale.
The three sponsor tiers
Kit Funder matches sponsors to padel clubs at three levels. A local independent business backs a single club or venue, gaining visibility with a compact, local membership. A regional brand spreads a budget across several venues in one area. A national business runs a wider sponsorship programme across multiple padel venues in one go, using the same registration and matching process as a single-club sponsor but on a wider scale.
What businesses get from sponsoring a padel club
Padel's audience skews toward players in their late twenties through mid-forties, many playing regularly and paying for court time each session, which gives a sponsor a captive, repeat-visit audience rather than a one-off crowd. As around one third of all padel players are new to racket sports (ltapadel.org.uk, May 2026)entirely, a sponsor reaches people building a new habit and a new social circle around the sport, rather than an audience already saturated with rival brand messages from a longer-established sport.
Community engagement then works the same way it does in any grassroots sponsorship. A business known for backing the local padel club becomes part of the club's own story, mentioned by members and visible every time the venue posts about a tournament or a new court opening, as well as whenever players take to the court.
How much padel sponsorship costs
Padelclub sponsorship is new enough in the UK for pricing to not have settled into the same fixed ranges seen in football, cricket, netball or rugby. Costs currently vary by venue size, court numbers, and whether the sponsorship covers a single club, a full venue, or a series of tournaments across a season. Kit Funder has a specific padel pricing structure as the sport's grassroots and club scene matures, and a business interested in padel sponsorship today registers the same way as for any other sport, with a bespoke match built around what the club needs.
How to sponsor a padel club through Kit Funder
Register as a business at kitfunder.ai, set a budget, location and select padel. The platform then finds padel clubs and venues fitting the criteria. Kit Funder runs across football, cricket, netball, rugby and padel from the same not-for-profit structure, with 5% of every invoice added on top and donated to a local mental health charity, at no extra cost to the club. My Club Group handles any kit or apparel production the sponsorship includes.
Ready to sponsor a padel club? Register your business free at kitfunder.ai. The AI matches you with padel clubs at whatever scale works for you, from a single-court community setup to a multi-court venue with a competition team.
Common questions about padel club sponsorship
What is padel and why is it growing so fast in the UK?
Padel is a racket sport played in doubles on an enclosed court roughly a third the size of a tennis court, combining elements of tennis and squash. UK participation passed one million players in 2026, driven by fast-growing court numbers (1,825 courts across 551 venues) and strong LTA and private investment in new venues.
How much does it cost to sponsor a grassroots padel club?
Padel sponsorship pricing has not yet settled into fixed ranges the way football or cricket sponsorship has, since the sport's grassroots scene is still young. Costs vary by venue size and whether the sponsorship covers court branding, a tournament, or a competitive team, and Kit Funder builds a bespoke match around what a specific club needs.
What do businesses get from sponsoring a padel team?
A sponsor gets visibility with an engaged, repeat-visit audience paying for court time regularly, community association with a fast-growing local venue, and access to an audience largely new to racket sports rather than one already saturated with rival sponsor messages.
How do I find a padel club to sponsor in the UK?
Kit Funder matches businesses with padel clubs and venues by budget, location and sponsorship type, in the same way it matches sponsors across football, cricket, netball and rugby. Registering at kitfunder.ai is free and takes a few minutes.
Is padel sponsorship tax deductible?
Sponsorship is generally treated as a deductible marketing expense by HMRC when a business receives a genuine promotional return, such as court branding or a mention at a tournament, and the spend meets the standard "wholly and exclusively" test applied to advertising costs. See is sports sponsorship tax deductible for the full HMRC treatment.
