New Emerging Podcast Explores the Racquet Sports Business Boom

A brand-new podcast is aiming to be the business school of the racket-sports craze. Emerging, hosted by racquet industry figures Ben Nichols and Patricio Misitrano, launched its first episode on September 29, 2026, with new episodes arriving every other Tuesday. The show promises unscripted conversations with the founders, executives, and operators building the businesses behind padel, pickleball, and the wider racquet sports boom, according to Advanced Television.

The timing is no accident for the Emerging podcast. Racket sports are among the fastest-growing categories in world sport, and the money is following: equipment, apparel, technology, and real estate are all being built around them. "Every month, new operators, investors and brands enter the market," Nichols and Misitrano said in the launch announcement, describing a gold rush with few places to hear from people who have already built in the sector about what worked and what did not.

Why the Emerging podcast arrives at peak padel

The numbers behind the boom are striking. According to the newly released US Padel Report from Misitrano Consulting, American padel now counts 1,110 courts across 38 states, with active facilities climbing 65 percent to 296 in just one year. The report estimates roughly 460,000 active players nationwide, and demand has been so strong that median court pricing has not moved at all: indoor courts still run about a hundred dollars an hour at peak times. The consultancy's takeaway is blunt — growth is coming from new supply, not from operators discounting to fill courts.

The broader U.S. picture backs up the hype. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association's mid-year report found that padel participation rose 14.5 percent in the first half of 2026, making it the fastest-growing activity in the country, as reported by Sports Business Journal. Pickleball, meanwhile, has cooled dramatically: after five straight years as the nation's fastest-growing sport, it grew just 1.3 percent this half.

From London to Mumbai, the racket boom is global

The story the Emerging podcast wants to tell is not just an American one. In Britain, the Lawn Tennis Association said in May that padel players have multiplied from just 15,000 in 2019 to a million today, while a Guardian analysis found more than 2,200 courts nationwide, up from 382 in 2023, as Bodog's sports analysis reported. Star power has followed: Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Lily James, and Stormzy have all been spotted with a padel racket.

India may be the next frontier. A 2026 report from sports platform Hudle and CAA Portas estimates the country's padel market at 25 to 30 million dollars today and projects it could scale nearly tenfold by 2036, with participation growing roughly a hundredfold in three years. The engagement numbers are unusually strong: padel players on the platform averaged 9.2 games a year, with 12-month retention at 55 percent.

The counterpoint: booms have growing pains

Not everyone is sold on the smooth-ride narrative. Pickleball's explosive growth has triggered noise complaints and neighborhood battles across the country, and data reported by Axios showed new court growth across the 100 largest U.S. cities slowing to just 4 percent in 2026, down from double-digit rates the two previous years. Analysts have also questioned some of the industry's own numbers — one trade newsletter noted the player-count estimate in Misitrano's report leapt roughly fourfold on only about 62 percent more courts, and advised treating it as an estimate, not gospel.

Misitrano himself sounds the cautionary note the podcast seems built to explore: "the operators who show up with real numbers instead of good intentions are the ones who'll still be standing in five years," he said alongside the report, calling this era "the window is still open." That tension — between hype and fundamentals — is exactly the territory Nichols and Misitrano say the Emerging podcast will live in, recalling how "padel in the U.S. was mostly pitch decks and promises" when they started four years ago.

Why it matters for listeners

For anyone thinking about building, investing in, or simply playing the next big racket sport, the show offers a shortcut to hard lessons. Each biweekly episode sits down with the people on the front lines to challenge the loudest opinions in the sector. With upcoming guests spanning club builders to entertainment innovators, the Emerging podcast is betting that the racket-sports boom is still early — and that the business story is more interesting than the score.

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