Nikhil Mohindra: The €4bn Industry vs €25k Prize Money: Can Padel Fix it's Pay Problem (Ep133)

0:00Nikhil Mohindra:Within 10 years, participation of paddle will be over tennis. I mean, in Spain, a few months ago, paddle was played more than football, because everyone can play paddle. I've been playing for Team GB for about six years, travelling the world, competing, having amazing opportunities, meeting the likes and coaching of Cristiano Ronaldo, John Terry, the Beckhams. If you told me this 10 years ago, I would have been like, I'm just a West Ham fan. I played with Mark Noble and I was over the moon, genuinely, he's my hero. In paddle, you're spending what you're earning because you've got to travel, you've got your coach, you've got your physio.

0:29Nikhil Mohindra:just like tennis. For winning the P1, you get €25 ,000 each. And where Sinner picks up€5.2 million, you've got number one's Tappi and Kuea picking up€25 ,000 each. Some coaches have literally just transitioned from tennis to paddle to charge more money. And I've seen some of the coaches, they can't coach paddle. They're just doing it because they can charge double. How do you get the call to go to Dubai and play paddle with Cristiano for a week?

0:55Hello and welcome to the Business of Sport, the show that takes you behind the scenes with the industry's leading owners operators and athletes it is paddle week 135 shows in and the most requested sport finally gets its day there couldn't be a better person to take us through the world of a sport that has exploded in popularity over the last 10 years than nikhil mahindra a team gb professional who is also building a paddle center running a foundation to bring paddle to those who haven't or can't access it creating content on his youtube channel and playing with the world's top athletes, Cristiano Ronaldo included.

1:28This is proper access to a world we haven't yet explored. I know we say behind the scenes a lot, but this really is behind the scenes. The question I'm most intrigued by is whether the demand for paddle at a participation level can create the same interest at an elite level. Let's find out as we welcome Nikhil to the Business of Sport. The Business of Sport is supported by Airwallex, the intelligent financial platform used by more than 200 ,000 modern businesses from SaaS and marketplaces to some of the most ambitious organisations in sport, including McLaren Racing, Arsenal and the San Francisco Giants.

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3:42nikhil welcome to the business of sport welcome paddle to the business of sport as well it's ridiculous uh that it has taken us 135 shows one of the most popular things demanded by the fans but now we're finally doing it and i couldn't think of a better person to do it with so thank

3:56Nikhil Mohindra:you so much for coming in and joining me oh thank you so much for having me charlie i mean i've always seen all your stuff on instagram youtube and i love it so when you when you dropped me the message i was like i've got to go on well i had first-hand experience of you having you You actually gave me a little bit of coaching with another business of sport alumni, Benjamin Kaiser. Yeah. I can very, very pleasingly say that it massively helped my game. Well, that's good. Which needed it. No, I don't know. You're getting better. You're getting a lot better. Low bar. Low bar. I mentioned to you that when we came in here, I did say it's one of the most requested topics that we have.

4:28You were surprised about it, but the demand for paddle is just off the chain. What's it like being in the heart of that?

4:35Nikhil Mohindra:Well, sometimes you don't actually get to see it because I'm in it. I'm so involved in it day to day, training a few hours a day, traveling. So I don't actually get to experience some of it. But I did for the first time at Olympia, the Premier Paddle, last week, which was an amazing event. You got to see the true fans, the people who are watching your content, the people who are dropping your Instagram messages, supporting you. So it was a phenomenal experience. And being able to see the world number one, obviously, compete in the heart of London is something, it's such a rarity to see. So it was amazing.

5:05That was one of the first major events.

5:07Nikhil Mohindra:That was the first in London, so it was a great experience. Why? Why has it taken so long? Well... Or has it taken so long? It has taken quite a while. I mean, you see the other European nations like Germany, Belgium, Holland, all having these events already, but that's because their infrastructure is so much far developed than ours. So we've just passed 1 ,500 courts, and all of those nations passed that a long time ago. One of that is due to the planning constraints. I mean, I'm building a club in Surrey at the moment, and that's taken almost six years just to start construction because of, I mean, here you've got animal ecological surveys, then you've got construction issues, then you've got to talk with the landlord about X, Y, and Z.

5:46Nikhil Mohindra:It's so ridiculous. Where I've competed in Sweden, there's no change of use for anything. You see a warehouse, you agree a deal, you get your courts in. It's a lot more straightforward. So this, I mean, some of the best clubs you've got in Canary Wharf in Raketeer North Acton they've been taking years just because of it's so many political things going on behind the scenes so we actually played in we in Raketeer probably what end of June hot it was it was literally the hottest day wasn't it yeah it was I remember all the windows were open doors were open but that's I mean guy if you haven't seen this by the way I mean it is incredible it is a huge I mean hangar type big warehouse it's the club to go to I mean they've done it very nicely but that takes them years to build oh yeah I mean I'm speaking with the owners It's like three years just to get the heads of terms all completely sorted because they had to make sure the old tenant had to leave.

6:38Nikhil Mohindra:I mean, besides that warehouse, Amazon are coming in for it and that just kicks out any paddle operator, right? So it was good to see that paddle is absolutely booming at the moment with all these amazing clubs and foreign investment coming in and it is just making the sport bigger and bigger. I'll come back to what you're doing in there because I think it's interesting and it's a huge part of the business of the sport. But first of all, let's just give anyone that doesn't know like give them a brief kind of overview of who you are and what you are really doing sure within the world of paddle sure so i've been playing paddle for about eight years now um i've been playing for team gb for about six years traveling the world competing alongside that i'm an ambassador for paddle india so traveling there to help grow the game and off the back of that i started something called the paddle foundation which is uh organization is a charity registered charity which helps people from underprivileged backgrounds get into sport because as you know paddle is super expensive and paddle is the most fun social accessible sport when it's not 100 quid in london so we approach schools from deprived areas and kids who've never had the opportunity we get them in get all of my best friends who are part of the team gb paddle as well it's very rare you've got the national team coaching kids for free and we sort them out food and everything like that and they have the best day ever and we make sure it's a reoccurring thing for them so that's been a big part of what i want to do and been achieving and then also the content side which i think is really cool so being in team chibi being having amazing opportunities meeting the likes and coaching of cristiano ronaldo john terry the beckhams it's i mean if you told me this 10 years ago i've been like i'm just a west ham fan like i mean I played with Mark Noble and I was over the moon like genuinely like he's my hero but then when I'm with these guys it's like wow I'm very fortunate so on the back of that as I said creating content copied what James Corden was doing when he was doing the carpool karaoke thing so I filmed quite a few of them already so very unique position paddle and uh very fortunate okay you've literally done the schedule for the show and that's brilliant let's let let's pick out the first thing you said before we get into all the rest of it which was you started playing paddle eight years ago how do you even begin to to play paddle sure so i left school at 17 um to go into the family business which was clothing and aging clothing and i figured after six months i was like oh i don't know if this is me i was always into sport and i had to stop playing football because i was severe asthmatic so anytime someone kind of barged me over i was having an asthma attack saying to the manager i need my inhaler nebulizer whatever i just need to start breathing again so at this point David Lloyd had just put in three courts out of nowhere and all the tennis people were just like oh this is terrible what is this what's going on and I was like I'm not very good at tennis I'll give this a go started playing with 60 70 80 year olds and I was loving it like playing every single day used to go to your family office come back and then just hit on the wall anyone that was free and all my friends were like what are you doing like this sport is just a rubbish tennis like just because you can't play tennis i was like yeah i can't really play tennis but this is fun as well fast forward a few years and courts start to grow etc and i start playing some local tournaments but these tournaments like the same 20 people enter so you know every single person and the reason i actually started playing was because my my friend in school moved to spain at 16 his name is sam jones and we're paddle partners now and i was That's why I first got into it.

10:10But it wasn't with an aim of going, I want to lock into this because you saw an opportunity to...

10:15Nikhil Mohindra:Especially, I'm from quite an Asian background, right? So it's very much you're going to study and then you're going to just get a secure job. And Paddle's by no means a secure job, even to today, to own money. We'll go on to that. The prize money and stuff like that is very low. But as soon as I started playing a bit more, I got recognised by some of the heads of the GB team. Got selected at 19, going on 20 years old, and very fortunate to now still be competing for them, travelling the world, Qatar, Dubai, Marbella. It's been amazing. It's tough. Very fortunate. Tough life. The business that you did touch on it, the life that comes from being a professional paddle player, is hard if you're just looking at it from a financial perspective.

11:01Nikhil Mohindra:100%. I mean, in paddle, you're spending what you're earning because you've got to travel, you've got your coach, you've got your physio, just like tennis. like in tennis if you're not in the top like 100 or whatever is i don't think you're making money that's why making that grand slam when you're making that 30 000 pounds first round is everything but in paddle first round of the p1 you get 1200 euros so it's a very different kind of ball game so so for winning the p1 you get 25 000 euros each and that's that's winning almost it's essentially a grand slam of tennis and where Cina picks up 5.2 million you got number one is Tappy and Kwayo picking up 25 ,000 euros each which is obviously not a lot of money when you're trying to fly everywhere train everywhere and pay for your coaches food and drink um so it's extremely tough but the money comes from the sponsorships I mean they're all the top 10 that will be on minimum like£800 ,000,£900 ,000 a year from Head, Adidas, all these brands, which is just blown up paddle now.

12:03Nikhil Mohindra:Like, for example, AP and Rolex are getting into the game by sponsoring the number ones. So it's definitely becoming a household sport. You said a P1 there. P1 is a tournament that you'd be playing in like an ATP 1000 because the slams, you have four slams. Same as paddle, yeah. Exactly the same as tennis. Then you have the P1s, am I right in saying that's the rest of the tournaments. So slams in paddler, they're called majors. So they're held in Mexico, Qatar, Rome and Italy. And then one under, like you said, the HP 1000s would be the P1s. And then under that is the P2s. So I can't even play in P2 yet, I don't have enough points.

12:40So I'm playing in the division under

12:41Nikhil Mohindra:which is, this is almost like the championship of football, it's called the FIP, bronze, silver, gold. So that's the championship. Then once you have enough points, you go into the Premier League which is P2, P1 and major. So Louis Harris, who's British number two, 272 in the world, he played a tournament in Portugal, a P2 tournament a few weeks ago. And the prize fund for the whole tournament was 10 ,000 euros for 32 players. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's nuts. And that's split like equally men and women. So yeah, so it's not a lot of money there at all. And yet we have all of this come back to the attention, the interest in the sport where you've got millions of people, the global industry that reportedly is worth about three to four billion pounds but that hasn't quite made its way down to the professional end yet no exactly it's still drip feeding right through i think it'll still take i think at least another generation to be honest i think it'll take quite a while because a lot of people who the money this is just going to the people who are going to be on tv right like sponsorships are great for the top end and for the bottom end is not that not that lucrative at all i mean um i've been approached by quite a few brands fortunately just because of my uh access to the celebrities and content it's not really for my playing level because if they want that they'll just go straight to spain or argentina it's a waiting game to be honest um for it to drip through to the bottom okay so how do you do it how do you make this a successful career for you so this is like a catch-22 right so the british number one his name is christian medina and i've always talked to to him about this right so he has just gone full mode pro like so he's spending every bit of money he's got to train and be the best and he is a phenomenal player and i've always looked at it as like this sport's very short right so every time i've kind of done well in a tournament i would try to get awareness for that on social media and build myself a club or something like that and get involved in a commercial venture somewhere so that kind of spins around but that also has a impact because once i'm doing these commercial things i'm not training for that week and so that's so christian's amazing on the playing side and playing fantastically well but then i'm doing uh better on the commercial side when i'm involved in the uk clubs so it's really a catch-22 and like how you do it for me sponsorships is a big thing and also very fortunate to have um a family that's backing me but a lot of the british players don't have that whereas they're coaching a lot of the time monday tuesday wednesday thursday they fly out to tournaments and they're back by the end of the weekend and it's just a cycle so that it's everyone's got a pretty different situation is it a problem for the sport when the commercial opportunity doesn't come from the professional angle to make money really and i said you you're not going to do it by focusing purely on your performance at a tournament every single week which means at some stage something has to give that's quite it's quite a unique opportunity right so i just played a tournament in belgium and the prize money to win it was 600 euros for the winning pair and i spent 400 euros getting there so you're making a loss so i think it's so it's so important to try and create something outside of that and you're seeing so many more players now vlog and video their journeys to these tournaments because then that's getting traction then sponsorships come in but and honestly unless you're the top i mean top 10 are making very good money i believe but unless you're in the top 80 in the world you're not making that that much money and to be honest because it's very saturated with spanish argentinian argentinian players you you've got to be top of that nation to earn that money if you're number 60 in the world and you're argentinian there's 50 people better than you from your country so you won't be getting the the big prize pot there so talk to me about this because this is fascinating right I always knew from going on the occasional holiday to Spain and seeing paddle courts long before I probably paid too much attention to what paddle courts were.

16:41Spanish dominance in this sport is ridiculous. I was having a look at the number of players at the event in Olympia in London a few weeks ago. Over half of the men's draw was Spanish. And I mean, literally, the women's draw, when I had a look, it was just Spanish flags everywhere. I looked at the official number. I think it was 42 of the 56 competitors were Spanish.

16:58Nikhil Mohindra:And that's because the British got wild cards as well. So if this was a tournament in Spain, the British players wouldn't be in it. It's crazy because this is actually quite good. A few years ago, it was even more saturated with the South Americans and the Spanish. So you're starting to see the Portuguese and the British and the Dutch and all these different countries come in. So now you're starting to see a bit of a change. But that's also one of the reasons for the Olympics. I'm pretty sure they don't want to have a sport in there that's so dominated by one country. so I think they're playing a waiting game a little bit as well to make it a bit more fair because there's no there's not really another sport where well I might be uh incorrect here but a country wins every Olympics right whereas Spain or Argentina they'd dominate the gold medals there so I think on the Olympic side that's what they're waiting for as well what has to change to make that happen is it infrastructure play and embedding it in a grassroots level making it available and accessible 100 % I mean it's in Spain it's how we treat football right I mean they're good at every sport in Spain but it's annoying but we we start football like anyone that plays tennis or paddle like we all can kick a ball pretty well but we started racquet sport so late and there they've got over 20 ,000 courts here we've got 1 ,500 and as I just touched on it's so hard to build a club here we've got such a fantastic federation in the LTA one of the richest in the world so it's just about getting them more involved in the sport and that's just only going to take time so can you tell us how that works with the lta have they got um a they have a program right which has been focused and geared towards the development of paddle how does it work from you the individual versus how it builds and supports the game as a whole in the country sure so it's been a huge positive the lta taking the sport so someone called tom murray he founded british paddle quite a few years ago and that's how i first got into it He then spoke with the LTA I'm not sure who approached who But the LTA then adopted it as an official sport in 2019 And there's so many benefits that happen with that Like it bypasses a lot of things Then when you're applying for planning for a club You get a letter of support from the LTA It carries a lot of weight And it accesses a lot of clubs for grants and funding To improve the infrastructure And for players Now it's a lot more professional like we get scheduled funding we get IDP to individual development plans and all these things which is fantastic but it's still so small LTA is huge I mean they get nearly I'm guessing nearly 70-80 million a year from Wimbledon and so if Paddle can unlock a bit more of that funding because honestly within 10 years participation of Paddle will be over tennis it's so much easier to play and it's just so much more fun i mean it's never going to have the rich heritage of tennis i mean i went to see jockovic play sinner in wimbledon yeah and the aura that they have is honestly second to none but the point's over so quickly and they spend 30 seconds getting the ball and so you spend that 30 seconds speaking to your to your friend that you've gone with and then you're watching for 10 seconds whereas paddle for me maybe i'm biased here but you see them running out the court you see them smashing jumping reaching it tapping it out the court for me i'm like what like tennis athletes are the best in the world alongside many other sports a lot more i think if you're a good tennis player you can be a good paddle player not necessarily the other way around because paddles are a lot easier than tennis i mean i'm very skinny right i'm not a very strong uh player or in any way but the reason i can be good at paddle is because of the technical and the tactical awareness of it.

20:43Nikhil Mohindra:But it's all about timing and just technique really. I mean you see Sinner, he's not very big but then as opposed to Nadal who was quite big, it's all about timing, technique and just training that up. What's the perfect physique would you say for a paddle player? Well I don't think there is to be honest because I mean for example you've got someone like Louis who's in the GB team and he isn't your traditional he's a very good friend of mine so he might be saying this You're about to say he's fat. Definitely not, because I'll end up on the floor if I say that. But he's not the traditional physique, but he's got one of the best smashes in the world, and technically he's amazing.

21:23Nikhil Mohindra:But then you've got someone like me, who's skinny, not much power, but I'm a lot faster around the court. So I don't think there's really a perfect kind of physique. Because also, I'm not sure if you know that one of the best players in the world, his name's Chingotto, right? He plays on the forehand. he's 5 '5 and he is phenomenal like he can't smash like anybody but the way he moves his fitness makes him the best defender in the world whereas on the other side you've got someone like Tapia who's the flair and he's tall, he's got strong shots but everyone has different advantages and disadvantages and that's why it's such a sport anyone can play I mean my dad's over 70 and me and him can have a rally every other day so it's good So in this country, what timeframes do you think are realistic?

22:12If you're looking at the professional end, for us to have international players capable of competing, because you are competing here with decades of heritage from South American countries and Spain, let's just say, versus people here who have picked it up within the last 10 years and are only really starting to understand, I would imagine even from the coaching perspective, what it takes to create top, top class professionals.

22:35Nikhil Mohindra:no absolutely I think the timeline would be I think then our generation that could be at the top are being born now to be honest so I think we're that far off like I reckon we've got some amazing juniors coming through but it's not just the physical ability it's the understanding of the sport and in Spain they get to train with their level every day like they're such high high level players right that's why everyone comes to the Premier League because all the saturation of good players are here we don't have that in in england yet for the paddle market but i think i think there's the the players that will be at the top of being born now to be honest is there an opportunity for you coming back more to the business side and the commercial side in being one of a few instead of one of many and what i mean by that is while spain may have all of these players that money that they're getting beyond the court that will find its way to the top as you said maybe the top five or ten of those players but for everyone else even though their top players and far higher rank than you they fall into the the rest category if you want from their attractiveness as businesses as commercial brands you may have a far lower ranking and you may not play in those top tournaments but as a top british player it's kind of back to that commercial element over the performance element absolutely i think being a top british player you'll definitely earn more uh economically than a much better spanish player but because it's so saturated they wouldn't earn as much right i think a good analogy is i think it happens in football it's like the british tax like a british player for some reason because of marketing they'll be earning more than someone who's more talented uh from another continent or nation right so a very fortunate position that the media and everything are very focused on the british market because it's growing so much now so my opportunities will be better than someone who's way better than me at paddle but from a different nation so yeah what's been apart from the uk what's been the uptake in other countries that don't have the history and heritage of it well i think a big nation that is booming at the moment and rich in sport is india obviously I visit there quite frequently to see the sport they're growing and the amount of just the mass people they've got 60 million racket sports players there's almost a population of ours like just racket sports players and so the market there is like gonna boom and I went there and one of my coaches there was like should we just put a coaching clinic on at the local club so we put it on at 8pm and by 8.15 48 slots have been gone so in the morning people were just there I mean courts are open 24 hours there there's just a sheer amount of people it's crazy so India's a massive market to boom but then you've also got upcoming nations like Germany who are alongside us in the growth structure and they've got major tournaments there as well but I think everyone else in Europe is quite far ahead of us in terms of infrastructure.

25:38Interesting you said the majors, sorry you said Mexico, Rome Qatar and

25:45Nikhil Mohindra:Italy, sorry France not one in Spain? no there's not actually one in Spain I think they did that on purpose to make it a more global sport to be honest they've obviously got other major tournaments like the Master Finals in Barcelona but I think that was purposely done to make sure they're trying to be seen at making it a global sport when you have these top tournaments and we have again I'm sorry we're just using the UK because there was the event so recently here what was it like from the spectator perspective how is the sport performing from that side of it? I think so many people went to me after the event.

26:19Nikhil Mohindra:I can't believe that's how fast they move, or I can't believe that it's so exciting to watch because they'd never seen it. They only watch it on Instagram or on YouTube, right? So them coming in, it's like Wimbledon, like an informal Wimbledon, right? Because nothing's ever going to be as classy as Wimbledon. But they come in and they're like, oh my God, this is like perfect because you don't need to dress up to go there. And you go on and you watch like people screaming, shouting, the Spanish screaming, in the British wild cards are cheering you've got a whole like crowd shouting like it's football but the just for a new and upcoming sport and that's what I think everyone was loving about it and the level is just insane to watch that at your doorstep an hour from home instead of flying to Spain and all that just feeling that there it's a feeling that I don't think anyone will feel that and you know we're obsessed obviously at the moment with um sports being more than just the sport having multiple kind of like concessions around it maybe music whatever what was done on the ground what is done on the ground at paddle events to draw in that audience beyond just the matches so that's something that i think the the organizers did very well so they had like mini paddle courts everyone could could join in on they had tests speed tests reaction tests everything there was interactive right um so everyone was kind of getting in the mood for it and everything they did was just fantastic it was an amazing event you could watch the qualifying courts you could just walk on like at Wimbledon if you have a ground pass you can just go in and watch the world class level on the qualifying courts but yeah they just absolutely smashed it that touches into the point of participation I think it's over a million players yeah in the UK I mean globally I'm not sure that there will be a huge huge number right I mean 2019 I saw a statistic it was five digit thousands there's clearly something about paddle which has captured people in ways that other sports could only dream of doing I think it's that it comes down to it's been so easy to play and obviously me being a player for Great Britain you want everyone to think oh it's so hard to get here but it's actually to pick up a sport like that it's fairly easy it's not like tennis where if you have a big serve you've won the point or football if you're so physically strong that gives you a massive itch this like a like a touch on my dad could play a competitive game with myself the racket is only it's much smaller than a tennis racket so it's like a small extension of your arm the hand eye coordination is very easy rallies are quick the ball doesn't go fly and if it comes off the glass you just pick it up underarm serve i mean it's so easy for anyone to play um i think that is a huge point and why participation has risen so quickly i mean in spain a few months ago a paddle was played more than football obviously far from popularity but because everyone can play paddle you don't have to have any experience and anyone can have a good game the challenge i have i'm sure a lot of people listening will have is getting access to a court i mean i'm convinced there are like bots on these sites because if they're releasing a week before you can play you go on i mean you could be on there literally one minute afterwards and all the slots after should we say 5pm.

29:26Nikhil Mohindra:It's weird you say that because at David Lloyd someone's actually made an auto booking app at 7.59am to go on and you see it all in the group chats. They book it and then they're like, okay, you want this? Okay, then you can buy me a drink afters if you want to play in this match and stuff like this. Secondary markets. It's crazy. Like you said the prime times, that's a real challenge to get a game in at that time and it's just about supply and demand. I mean, there's not that many courts in the moment. So is it 1 ,500 in the UK? Yes, 1 ,500 scattered everywhere. But I feel like in Spain, over 20 ,000, that's why they can charge a few euros per person.

30:06Nikhil Mohindra:But right now, the owners are thinking we can charge what we like. And a lot of clubs in London are turning over 100, 200, 300 ,000 pounds a month. And that's like out of nowhere, right? That will have to drop. And I hope that does happen because right now, you have so many people not affording to play. And that's why I started the foundation, of course. Courts in London can get up to 100 quid. I mean, literally for an hour, right? But I'm sure it's still hugely expensive across other places in the country compared to what other sports would be charging to get access to them. On the flip side of this, you're also looking, I mean, from the investment side of our company, we get pitched a huge amount of paddle businesses, right?

30:41But a lot of them are geared towards infrastructure. Is this a fine balance between there's a run on this, we've got to create the facilities to then make sure that you don't over supply? because there's significant investment going into this from the build side.

30:57Nikhil Mohindra:100%. And am I right? And maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, Sweden had a similar challenge. Sweden boomed so quickly and they had more courts than ever needed and they were paying high rental prices, etc. And then they all had to close down. So I have quite a few Swedish friends who had the chance to get out but they thought, no, we'll hang on for a bit longer and ended up losing it all. And I think a lot of British paddle clubs are making that mistake. They're such high rentals. At the moment, it's fine, but you've signed a 10-year lease. like you sign a 15 year lease and that will come into play when people find a new club down the road that the council have opened and they're charging 15 pounds or 30 pounds an hour as opposed to your 80 90 pounds which for me is ridiculous like it will come a point where they'll have to drop their prices and the landlords they're not changing their rent and then they're going to come knocking and the club will have to close down and that won't look good on paddle when all these clubs are closing down and all the planning authorities for the next club, like, well, actually, we've seen three paddle clubs closed down for this reason.

31:59How much money does it cost to build a court?

32:01Nikhil Mohindra:So it varies, of course, depending on where and if you want it indoor and outdoor. So a normal paddle court can range, a brand new court from£20 ,000 to£26 ,000. Then, depending on the groundworks, could range from£40 ,000 to£45 ,000. That's one singular court. then if you want to make it indoor a rule of thumb i use is an indoor court will cost you 70 000 pounds groundworks court and the roof 70 75 000 per court yeah so how many courts would you want really if you were building that kind of indoor facility minimum six yeah i would normally go for minimum four or five or six um depending obviously on the rent and stuff like that but that is enough to create a community be nice to have a little cafe retail area yeah um so let's say between four to five hundred thousand just on just on the build uh-huh and then you're talking about your rents your service charges your business rates all of that stuff so the challenge you've got is that and please go from the experiences you've you've had doing this a huge amount of loans or debt you'd be able to take out from the financing perspective if it's not at pure equity where you're just getting investors in will be dependent on you being able to bring enough people through the door knowing that there's this demand for people to play paddle which right now today is absolutely there yeah but as i said if you're now oversupplying courts there's there's a fine balance to strike between building a model that is purely dependent on people coming in and filling the courts versus how else can we build some value into the that business 100 i mean and people running out of ideas they're like what's our usp everyone's got courts everyone's got a sauna in their club now everyone's got a cafe and bar so that's why i've been approached they're like we want it to be like the gb headquarters because obviously me and my friends we play for GB.

33:45Nikhil Mohindra:So that's my USP for my club as well. But we've done it alongside the council. So that's why it's taken six years, because it's taken longer, but I'm not here to be stressed about the rent. Like I want to play sport, right? So I want to make sure that it's affordable to everyone. And if COVID happens again, I can still sleep at night and the rent's being paid, etc. So for me, I think striking that deal for low rent or even like a profit or revenue share, so if you're doing well landon's doing well then it's fair but a lot of clubs are just signing like 500 000 pound a year leases like for four or five courts i'm like oh my goodness like it's ridiculous in the uk it's like like nowhere else in the world and is it a balance between uh fresh businesses starting from scratch like a racketeer in a massive warehouse versus uh tennis clubs or racket clubs taking the opportunity to go and build courts on some of their existing land and infrastructure to try and kind of tap into this you probably have a mix right yeah exactly so you get a lot of tennis clubs who have disused courts and have run down the nets broken so they're just putting three paddle courts you can put three to a tennis court so really three to a tennis court yeah so that's why you can get 12 people playing like uh instead of the two or four on a tennis court right so a lot more people being active and that's an argument that all the paddle clubs are putting forward to the planning and sport england etc but i think yeah so you either have the new warehouse like a racketeer who absolutely smashed it they've got like 14 courts it'll be like a destination for paddle people to travel you've got they've they've done it like a proper like you've got a roastery you've got a gym you've got a sauna you've got everything and what under one roof so you can spend the day there really but then you've also got these tennis clubs who need that extra bit of revenue and some of them are doing really well like at the national tennis center when they adopted paddle they put three paddle courts in i don't know for a fact that's bringing them in a few hundred thousand pounds a year that one tennis court wasn't happening before.

35:47The price bit, as we touched on, can get very expensive. How do you really balance this out? Because the equipment's even expensive, right? Then the coaching costs, you have court hire, you have equipment. And as I think I said to you before we came on, I've always been quite surprised when we've covered tennis. A lot of comments around elitist and not open to the masses. for all of this incredible 1 million people participating in this country is it really something that we can get everyone involved in for me it's a matter of time i mean

36:21Nikhil Mohindra:like you said even the equipment's expensive right it's not like tennis where if your string breaks you just go and restring your racket here if the middle of the racket breaks you're throwing the racket away you can't use it i mean at the moment it is under that kind of umbrella of being elitist in my opinion and obviously I'd hate to say that but it's so expensive and for me it's a matter of time when it gets more awareness and more councils start to put it in and more people who aren't kind of big business enterprises and consortiums are coming just to try and turn over a couple million a year to show that EBITDA's through the roof whatever yeah but I think it's a matter of time to be honest I mean it's I've been playing I'm one of the best players in the country I don't mean to say that in an arrogant way but I've been playing about seven eight years I think another 10 years you'll get hopefully another 10 ,000 courts I mean I think it can reach the roof for me in my opinion will be about 12 ,000 courts so we're barely 10 % of the way there because you'll see more and more tennis disused tennis courts getting used but that's the only reason that's the only way we'll start to see the prices drop and more accessible to people because even a normal paddle lesson can charge you like 70 80 90 pounds and that's ridiculous like for me that's that's not accessible people can't get better like that some coaches have literally just transitioned from tennis yeah to paddle to to charge more money and i've seen some of the coaches and they can't coach paddle like they've got obviously amazing racket skills from tennis but you don't know what the technique of the back glass or how to hit a different kind of overhead but they're just doing because they can charge double.

37:58Nikhil Mohindra:So everyone's kind of on the bandwagon of trying to earn more money in paddle until I think there will be a point where it has to level out. And I just hope a lot of people aren't impacted like that because there'll be a lot of investors that get approached like, look at this paddle club, we're doing X million a year, invest and then we can do this. But unless you've got your rent sorted and you're sensible, there's no rush. People should not rush into investing into a paddle club for sure. I mean I have paddle clubs approaching me honestly five six seven a week because people are like come on board with us we want you we want your this expertise in this and I've said no to so many and then they get offended and I'm like but I don't want to put myself at risk because you haven't negotiated your contract properly but yeah.