Welcome to Padel Smash Academy.
We are Old Things Padel.
Thanks, Ryan.
Thanks for coming on, uh, uh, the Padel Smash Academy.
And why don't you talk to
us a little bit about how you were introduced to Padel?
Yeah.
So, um, you know, I, I grew up in a tennis family.
I played tennis.
I coached tennis, um, all aspects of it from juniors, colleges, pros.
Um, and, uh, I, in 2020, I got out of coaching, um, kind of fully as a full
time career and I entered the nonprofit.
space and I became the CEO of Youth Tennis San Diego.
It's a big uh organization started in the 50s and um it has
a large outreach component to it to grow the game of tennis.
It also operates and owns the Barnes Tennis Center which is a
very big facility in San Diego.
So, I oversee the facility and um in 2020 when I got the job um I had a
coach, his name is Ascon Luderoth, who's one of the partners of Tactica.
Um, he said to me, Ryan, you know, there's some space here at Barnes that
we think would be great for some Padel.
And, and I said, okay, great, what is that?
And, um, uh, he goes, oh, you don't know what it is?
Yes, it's massive sports, you know, all over the country.
It's like, okay, well, I, I, I'm open to it.
You know, let me know, give me a presentation.
You know, bring something to the office.
And so, he came to my office.
He showed me some videos.
Kind of gave me like a one pager.
And I said, that looks really cool.
I love doubles, right?
I think I was probably a better doubles player.
Um, Padel is doubles.
And I said, I'm interested, but, you know, I mean, look at this
court, you know, what is this?
And he said, okay, well a friend of mine has a court in his backyard.
Um, you want to go and play, can I bring you up?
Um, sure enough, it was Gabriel Perez Crib, who's our chairman
and co founder of Tactica.
So I go to the house, I walk down the steps, he's got some
amazing players there playing, you know, and it's just beautiful.
And I was like, okay, I got to play, you know, I'm, I'm a competitor.
And um, anyways, I got to play and they gave me a, uh, you know,
they pitched a, uh, a presentation and a potential partnership.
And here we are.
Wow, that's exciting.
Yeah, that's how it started.
So now, was there any other Padel clubs at that time?
Well, nothing during COVID, right?
So everything was shut down.
All clubs were shut down.
Um, There, So there were two courts at a YMCA.
Wow.
In San Diego.
Uh, I didn't play on them.
I didn't know about them.
But they had been shut down.
But I, you know, there was a community that was started.
So when we opened the, the, when we opened Tactica at the Barnes Tennis
Center, um, we started with three courts.
We're very close to the border, right?
So Padel, you know, we, we had a, probably a little bit of a headstart
than our club in Los Angeles or Northern California because
people already knew about Padel.
Um, so we put three courts in, booked all day.
Wow.
You know, I couldn't, I couldn't get a court.
I was literally, you know, inviting.
My, my friends that I could play with at six 30 in the morning, seven
before we would even open the club so I could have a court to play.
You were hooked.
I was hooked.
Yeah.
I mean, I've been playing tournaments now and um, and so then we put four courts.
Now we have seven courts, so, wow.
So you have seven courts?
Seven courts in total.
Now at, at Tika.
Tika, San Diego.
We have seven courts.
Uh.
In Los Angeles, we have four courts and in Northern California
right now, we have four courts.
I wanted to ask you about that because I'm part of the project that we're
putting some courts up in San Francisco and I know you guys are doing something
in the Pacifica University, right?
Yeah, yeah, so we have University of the Pacific.
Yeah, University of the Pacific, yeah.
Yeah, we're doing, uh, we have four Padel courts that should be open in
The next couple of weeks, hopefully, just waiting on the, on the permit.
Fantastic.
Eight pickleball courts there, and then we just signed an agreement with
Lifetime Activities, and we will put 40 courts in across the Bay Area with, uh,
the six tennis clubs that they have.
Beautiful.
And, and let me know in, in LA I know you guys did, uh, you make up an agreement
with the UCLA or one of the universities.
Is that possible that you put some courts?
No.
I wish that would be a, that would be a dream.
No.
Um, we are partnered with, uh, a EG, dignity Health Sports Park.
It's at the, the Major League soccer team, the LA Galaxy site.
I got it.
Good.
Excellent.
I mean, that, that's super exciting.
I mean, having entrepreneurs like you making Padel growth
here in the United States.
So where do you see, my background is very similar to yours, you know, it's tennis
and then I moved to Padel and all that.
Where do you see Padel going from here now?
I mean, now you're, you're in the, in the thick of everything.
Where do I see it growing and going?
Um, so I think it's going to be, um, you know, I, I think we're going to
have a ton of courts here in the United States within the next five years.
Um, I think it's going to, um.
It's going to require, you know, a lot of capital, a lot of investment
groups coming in to be able to do this.
I'm, you know, I'm speaking to the choir.
You guys are a part of this because it's not an easy thing to do.
While constructing a court is easy, it's a process, right?
It's not like pickleball.
Where you just go put a court down, paint some lines, you're done.
You gotta get a permit, you've gotta construct it.
You've gotta build awareness, right?
So, um, as you'll see in the, in the Bay area, maybe hope, maybe, hopefully
not, but in Los Angeles, in our in, there's not a lot of players right there.
Not many people know what it is.
There's a lot of traffic.
You've gotta, you've got a lot to do, do a lot of different things.
So I think it's gonna depend on the areas of the country, um, what you're gonna see.
Grow fast, grow slowly.
But regardless it's gonna grow because it's a social sport.
It's a spectator sport It's a participatory sport and it's a it's
one of the best sports in the world From from from the permitting point of
view in the West Coast or especially San Diego Is it difficult to if you
have the capital to open a court?
I mean that because here in Florida it takes forever, you know with the
hurricanes and all that Is it difficult in the west coast to get those permits going?
Yeah, it is difficult.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it's not easy.
You know, you have, if you're in San Diego or if you're near the coast,
you have the Coastal Commission.
Right?
So you have the city, you have the Coastal Commission, you have all of
the requirements that you have to do.
Uh, then you have general, you know, you have to have a general contractor.
You have to submit your designs and your drawings to the city.
And while we know you know, constructing courts, you don't need all this stuff.
Yes.
They're going to say, well, you need X, Y, and Z, which is ridiculous, right?
So there's, in my opinion, this is my opinion alone.
I don't want.
Some arrows in my back, but they want you to, you know, construct
a, uh, you know, apartment building for a slab of concrete with a cork.
You know, actually we just built three courts here and exactly that.
They made us make put 12, uh, 12 feet pilings in each court deep.
I mean, same thing that you will build a four story, you know,
apartment, uh, just for one court.
It's, it's just crazy, but hopefully eventually they will,
you know, come to their senses.
That's going to be the growth of the sport, right?
It's this growing the sports that people are playing.
It's the whole ecosystem, right?
So you go to a, you know, I'm going to town hall meetings to
talk about Padel so I can get it into parks and recreation groups.
Um, and you, you know, you have to go through that process.
It's not just about the sport and people actually playing.
It's the government level.
It's the political level.
It's everything to establish it in this country.
So.
It's going to take a lot of people.
It's going to take a lot of time and people like us that
are willing to go out and do it.
But yeah, it's, it's fun.
I think I made a comment, you know, probably not a, um, a smart comment
on one of my last city calls.
I said, so where's the escalator?
Where's the elevator?
Nobody said anything.
Um, I, so I got a question, who's your market down there in the West Coast?
Because here in the East Coast, uh, down here, Southeast, uh, in the Florida,
Miami, I mean, it's mostly, uh, first generation Europeans, uh, also first,
uh, second generation, first and second generation, uh, Latin Americans.
Uh, so who's your market down there in the West Coast?
I'm saying everybody and all, and, um, you know, for us with.
You know, partnering with tennis clubs and groups like that.
It's racket sports.
So our market is racket sports.
Um, but again, it's everybody.
So, um, you know, are the case study in San Diego is,
you know, it's kind of funny.
We know when the Kuwaitis are coming.
We know when the guys from Dubai are coming.
We know when the Scandinavians are coming because they all kind of book
together because it's a social sport.
Um, but now, you know, being in business for a couple of years,
You're, you're getting a lot of Americans and you're getting a lot
of locals starting to play the game.
Um, the more that they see it, you know, online, if they see it on
a documentary or, you know, now they're starting to try it for us.
We have 25 tennis courts and 19 pickleball courts as well.
So Eventually they see Padel and now, you know, it might not be right
when they see it, but over time they try it and then they get hooked.
So do you see, do you see a lot of, do you see a lot of traction
with multiple generation Americans, uh, now starting to play Padel?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, you see everybody now.
Yeah.
And the great thing is when we can go out and see seven courts full of people
we don't know, you know it's growing.
Yeah.
And, and, and you hit it, uh, on the nail in the head right there now.
And I see that in the Northeast where country clubs are taking
some tennis courts away and putting pickable and Padel, and now
they're becoming racket sports.
And then you get the crossover in between people playing tennis.
They see Padel, they want to try it out and then they get hooked on all that.
And I think what you guys are doing there, it's fantastic because now
you get all three different racket sports into one place and people
can try all different sports.
Time.
Really make the population of the Padel world grow faster.
I think that's key.
Yeah, that's the key.
I mean, that's fantastic.
Good, good idea.
So.
Tell us the, the, the, the, you know, the big white elephant on, on the room,
the, the, the PPL all star game coming up to, you know, next, next weekend, uh,
onto your club, tell us all about it.
How did it come out there and all that?
I mean, who, who was the one, how did you attract them to you?
Well, before we get into that, let's start with the stingrays, right?
Yes, exactly.
How did that come to be?
Um, how do you put together a franchise?
Um, and why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, so we have a great partnership.
group here in, in Tactica in San Diego.
So we have, you know, there's, there's several groups of our, there's a
group of us and, um, very connected with, um, Padel, the whole Padel
industry, whether that's in Europe, South America, uh, United States, every
aspect of Padel, we probably have our hands in or have relationships.
So we knew that this league It was a dream, you know, and I think,
uh, Gabriel Perez, our chairman and co founder was a part of that.
Those initial discussions from my understanding.
So we knew that it was coming out, um, this league and we were offered
an opportunity to buy a franchise.
Um, we said we are not going to be the first franchise,
uh, but we'll be the second.
So we knew what was going on, you know, well before it was out there in public.
Um, but, uh, you know, we just believe in it because not only just for the,
the professional, you know, and the opportunities and money and, uh, all
the great things professional sports do, but for us, it helps our ecosystem
of building and growing Padel, um, specifically in the West coast, right?
So I run, uh, I'm the tournament director of a WTA tournament of ATP tournament.
Really?
Why do you do those things other than wanting to make money?
You grow the game, right?
You have kids in the stands that say, I want to be Cocoa golf.
I want to be that.
So for us, that's a part of it as well.
And it's a part of that whole ecosystem of making sure Padel
is growing in the United States.
Um, and we can grow Tactica along with it.
So that, that's the, the, you know, the short version of why, why the stingray.
Great.
Now I looked at the PPL as a success.
And they gave the U.
S.
and international players a platform to compete in.
Um, are there any new changes in 2024 for the PPL?
Yeah, a lot of new changes.
Drastically different than 23.
So 23 was kind of a shotgun start.
Let's go.
How do we get this done?
Now we have a management group inside out.
Sports management is, is, is running the league.
Um, they were very successful with Major League Pickleball, very successful
in the tennis industry as well.
So we have some sophistication around the changes that we're making.
Uh, we're going to have a full calendar season.
So the season will start in April and in November.
Uh, with a lot of different activations, you know, around those things to
continue to to grow awareness and have enough, uh, collateral assets
to to build the sport in the league.
Um, as you see, we have internet, more international players joining the league.
So we have a different roster system.
Uh, San Diego alone, you know, we were able to bring on four of the some of
the best players, including others.
We're announcing now.
Um, I'm extremely excited about Lamperty coming.
I'm new to the sport, but whenever I would go on YouTube, I would always
look for him because his style, his, uh, yeah, he's with fans, his passion.
So I'm when we signed him, I was really pumped amongst the other players.
But, um, you know, so you see this talent come now to North America and us soil,
that's just going to grow the game.
Um, we have the PPL all star game this Saturday on tennis channel.
That's going to be huge.
Um, And so, yeah, I mean, there's so many things we could talk about that.
So you're saying you signed up Miguel Lamparty.
Uh, can you tell us who else you signed, uh, signed up before the draft?
You got Jacobo Blanco too, right?
Jacobo, yeah.
Yeah, Jacobo.
Yeah, we had Jacobo in 2023 along with Matias Almada.
Those two players were with the Stingrays.
We've re signed them.
Um, they didn't lose a match last year together as a team.
So excited about them.
Uh, Maxi Sanchez as well.
Oh, wow.
That's good.
I mean, you guys want to win.
You guys have big weapons, baby.
I like it.
Yeah.
Our women, Lucia and Carmen, you know, Lucia is foreign world.
Carmen is, is young, but, um, you know, she's the future.
Uh, we're really excited about our team, but the great thing is you see
the other teams who they are announcing.
Just as, you know, talented, just as good players, which is good,
which means that the league has got the best players in the world.
That's going to drive Americans to want to develop over time.
It's going to take some time.
That's going to drive Mexicans.
That's going to drive the rest of the world to say, Hey, you know, just like the
other sports, we want to be in the PPL.
Yeah.
So Ryan, let me tell you, uh, the format for, for 2024 is going to be the same
things where they just go to one place, all the teams and they just play it out.
Or how's it going to be?
Yeah, so it'll be different.
So with 12 franchises in 2024, we'll have a Western conference,
we'll have an Eastern conference.
So you'll have Western play, just like the NBA.
You'll have Eastern play.
They'll all duke it out over the course of the calendar.
Then we'll qualify for the conference championships.
That then qualify for the PPL Cup.
So, but they, they play home and away each other and then they
just, is that the way it works or?
No, not yet.
Not until we can get enough facilities.
So what we'll do is for the west and the east, they'll choose one location
to play these conference matches.
These, this, this round robin, if you'd call it.
Um, and in the east, they'll choose a location.
I, we don't have those locations yet.
We're obviously hoping it's San Diego.
Um, please, Miami.
Miami.
We'll beg you.
Miami.
Okay?
It makes sense.
I don't make those decisions, but with the, uh, the followers and the amount
of players, Miami would be awesome.
Um, but, uh, yeah, so that's, you're right.
They'll all come to one location for the West, one location for the East, etc.
Eventually, the dream is that every team has their own site.
Um, You know, a couple of the teams, a few of the teams now
do, but that's, that's the goal.
And, and that's, that's how many times, um, how many different sites is, is it
three per season or four or how many times they get together to play each other?
I don't know who they're going to choose for the, you know, which
location will be the PPL cup.
So, um, to give you an example for the PPL all stars, we're playing at Tactica.
We, we have a partnership with Padel Galiz.
So, we, we sell, install, own Padel Glees courts.
We have the exclusive rights here on the West Coast.
We have one of their World Padel Tour temporary courts.
So, we're constructing it on our stadium tennis court.
You could do that anywhere, right?
So, we can go in Madison Square Garden and put a court down.
You see what A1 did in New York City.
So, I don't know what locations the PPL Inside Out will choose, but, um,
you know, uh, hopefully they're in, in, uh, markets with a lot of, Um, and
we're gonna play a lot of, uh, Padel players and spectators and sports.
Great.
So now let's talk about the big white elephant, the All Stars games.
And how did it come out to you guys?
Who was the idea behind it?
And, and how did, you know, what's gonna happen?
So, um, Yeah, so how it came to us?
You know, I think that there's a bid process.
Um, so, okay, how do you bid for this?
Um, and, and also for the Western, I think there's a process that
we all have to bid through.
Um, the PPL and Inside Out, they're the ones that choose it.
Um, with us, uh, we, we run events.
We run lots of tournaments.
Uh, again, I'm the tournament director of, uh, uh, one of the biggest female Uh,
women's professional tennis tournaments in the United States in the world.
Um, so we have the experience of running events.
We have the, we have the amenities at our facilities.
Um, those all go in to be able to host an event like this.
Uh, West Coast, you know, knock on wood that we don't get rain.
We had rain yesterday.
Uh, but West Coast is a little different than the rest of the country in November.
Right, with weather.
Um.
And, uh, we do, we have a lot of players here in the market, so it
was just a, I think, a great idea to bring it to San Diego, um, for the
inaugural, you know, All Star game.
Now, who do you have participating, uh, on behalf of the Stingrays?
So, um, we, from four to six, we have an exhibition match.
So, uh, Juan Martin Diaz from New York is going to play with Lamperti,
so for us, which is awesome.
And then For the all star games, uh, the process was every team got to
vote for who they thought were the best in the West, who they thought
they were the best on the East.
Um, you can only vote for one player of your own, so you couldn't
just put your whole team down.
We got three players voted for from the Stingrays from the other ownership
group, which was really an honor.
So we have a Cobo Blanco.
He will play with Guga from Las Vegas.
Which is an amazing team, uh, Mati Almada was selected as the alternate
and, uh, Silvana Campos was elected from the women, um, as well.
So, uh, we've got some stingrays representing the all stars, which is cool.
Congratulations.
That's fantastic.
Awesome.
So, and the setup is going to be similar to, um, so for our viewers
and the listeners, uh, it's going to be similar to a tennis tournament
where you have stands, you have food trucks, or you have, uh, places to eat.
I mean, walk us through how the whole setup is going to be.
Yeah.
So our stadium court where we, we build, you know, for the WTA,
we construct a huge stadium.
This we're making it smaller because we don't need to go big, right?
First year, we're just trying to grow awareness.
We, we want, you know, butts and seats.
So we're gonna have this beautiful court.
Um, we have a VIP section with some stands.
Uh, VIP will have food and beverage, a bar, catering, all those kind of things.
I like it.
Yeah, yeah.
Then the, the, you know, about, I think we're at like 750 to a
thousand seats around the court.
Um, we have a cafe, a restaurant that the general public will be able to go and, you
know, buy sandwiches, coffees, smoothies.
Um, Um, Tennis Channel will, you know, we have a production company to film it.
It'll be streamed on, on T2, uh, from Tennis Channel.
Um, yeah, so that's going to be happening all Saturday afternoon.
The cool thing about it is we have two major tournaments going on around it.
Tennis tournaments.
So we have a ITF event as well as a junior, a local junior event.
So we're going to actually have hundreds of people that have no idea this is going
to go on that are going to come and watch.
So it's going Yeah.
That's a great, great idea.
Yeah.
That's how you grow.
That's how you grow the game.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, happen to walk up times and be like, Oh, what is this?
Yeah.
So tell us what time and where viewers can watch the all star games.
Um, so I don't have the schedule of tennis channel at the moment, but I
do know if you go to Pro Padel League and you go into the YouTube channel,
they will have it on there as well.
Okay.
So that's where viewers can go.
Uh, again, four o'clock, gates open, players can, uh, players will, the
exhibition players will start at four to six, five thirty, then the all stars
start, six o'clock, that's when the matches come out, so the two men will
play two, and then two women, and then if they split, the mixed doubles match.
That's awesome, that's incredible, I mean, so, so, Um, are you guys planning
to do it year after year in the same place or how's that process work?
So every year they, they voted for some other places.
Yeah, they're going to vote it, you know, hopefully, you know,
for us selfishly, it'd be great.
They think this is the best and oh, we got to come back to San
Diego for the all star game.
That would be great.
But, you know, realistically, we shouldn't do that.
Probably we need to move it around.
We need to grow the game.
We need to grow the markets.
So.
It would be great to have it in San Diego this year, East Coast next year, and
then hopefully Texas or in the Midwest.
So we need to put the All Star Games in different regions of the country.
Canada, Mexico, uh, everybody needs to host this thing.
So, um, again, it would be, you know, selfishly awesome.
Hey, we, we've, we've monopolized the All Star Game.
Not gonna happen.
So, Ryan, uh, Tica, let's go back to Tica.
How big is the expansion that you guys, are you guys trying to stay
only within the state of California?
You're planning to jump into other states and all that?
What is their vision?
So the, the vision is 200 courts in California before we venture
out of the, of California.
Okay.
And so far you are a what?
A 20 maybe?
Uh, let's see, seven.
Four.
And then.
In 24, we'll start with lifetime, so not near two, 200 . Um, but, um, you know,
we're gonna get up to, um, close to 50.
Yeah.
You know, by, by the end or beginning of 2025, mid 2025.
Um, with, with just the contracts we have now, my job as the
CEO is to go out and, and.
And hunt for the best partnerships.
So, you know, we, maybe we are at 200 or we have other partnerships.
That's my job to grow the grow tactics or grow the game.
Um, so we'll see.
But we are open to to other states and other ventures as long as
it's appropriate for tactics.
And it makes sense.
It makes sense for our business.
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