You are undoubtedly familiar with Nallé Grinda if you follow the padel French. We do not longer have this former member of the French padel team, who was the Miami Padel Open Tournament Director and knew the Acapulco padel inventor.
Having been active in our sport for many years, the son of former French Davis Cup captain Jean-Noël Grinda returns to the mic to discuss his new idea, Padel X, which is already a reality.
In 2004 I founded my first club padel at Nice LTC. I gained some experience in club administration from this, but I had to start again when I moved to Florida in 2010.
Regarding the padel, Miami had nothing at the time. Adrian Beltramino helped to put up this little group. It resembled a hangar showroom showcasing the padel’s capabilities. At that time, I made some friends, among them Wayne Boich, with whom we constructed the second court and started hosting little private competitions including players ranked in the top ten. We disseminated the activity locally in this manner.
Afterwards, Wayne promoted the 2022 World Padel Tour event in America, of which I served as the tournament director. After this competition proved to be successful, I realized that I could turn padel into a business and considered creating something that would actually make money.
As a result, I decided to put a halt to my real estate endeavors in order to devote all of my attention to my passion, padel. The idea of building a network of clubs for padel initially crossed my mind, although it may have also involved building paths or snowshoes. We had to come up with a notion using a cutting-edge training system that I like to refer to as “Level up!” “, where everyone advances without ever having to repeat the same lessons. We Americans always strive to improve, no matter how little the step.
Since I lacked land, I met Juan Pablo Leria, my main partner, who had outstanding land in the center of Miami and hospitality experience from his 20 years as the CEO of Youtopia, a significant chain of sports and wellness centers in Latin America. It’s a great professional marriage because we were able to combine our various abilities, which led to the first club, Padel X, launching on April 1st of last year.
To get permission to create ski slopes and a padel on the property where we are, we had to struggle for sixteen months. This is already difficult in France, but in the USA, the intricacy of permissions and land is multiplied tenfold. We had to prove the security of our facilities to the landowners, particularly the town hall. To be able to reassure, convince, and secure permissions, it was necessary to produce comprehensive engineering calculations and make runway changes to fulfill anti-hurricane standards with our partners MejorSet.
We have ten tracks in a special environment today. Brands have recognized that this padel club serves as a showcase for padel in the US. We have third-generation Mondo carpets, the benchmark on Premier Padel, installed in addition to specialized terrains with MejorSet. The LED Project, who maintains the center courts of Premier Padel events, is the creator of our lighting.
Our four premium tracks all adhere to FIP regulations and have the potential to deviate from the course. Most importantly, we have installed a special three-camera video system for each court. The interface is quite intuitive. You are videotaped as soon as you play on a premium court, so there’s no need to log in or provide identification. After the game, all you have to do is scan the QR code on the court’s screen to access both the full match and the top points broken down into manageable sequences that can be shared on social media. We anticipate great success with this in the United States of America.
PadelX will soon be growing, as two more clubs are launching this year. We have the Miami location and have signed up for two more, one in Boca Raton, an hour away from Miami. Sébastien Grosjean is our neighbor, and I have no intention of giving up on him for Padel!
Eight padel courses will be available indoors. We are nine meters up on a former IBM building. Our third project will be located in Palm Beach, another well-known coastal community in Florida. Initially, there will be seven outdoor trails, but we may eventually cover them. Hurricanes and thus standards are the main issue.
With PadelX, we genuinely hope to connect with everyone by providing high-caliber services at reasonable costs. In the USA, 90-minute sessions typically cost between $90 to $200 for four people. For four hours, we will typically pay $135 during peak hours and $105 during off-peak hours. In the United States, costs can rise dramatically; in New York, one can see fees as high as $450 for a 90-minute session!
We are working on numerous projects related to training, padel school, and competitions. Like in France, there is a lack of players, therefore we will need to focus on the females. We might welcome Tapia to the Pro Padel League, a well-known American circuit that attracts a lot of “top players.” We have everything we need to provide a fantastic overnight stay at the club.
Everyday, there will also be a good number of Events. Our goal is to make this activity more accessible to everyone. We are a pay-to-play club where anyone can come and go, but there is a membership cost that grants access to individualized services and extended reservation times. Naturally, there is a business attitude, which is typical, but there has long been a genuine love. The real goal is to instill the padel in American culture.
I notice that occasionally we would like to oppose padel and pickleball. However, I don’t agree with it because I believe those two sports to be so dissimilar from one another. Pickleball is less expensive and even easier to get into. This explains both its stunning growth and its limit, as the game, in my opinion, gets boring pretty soon and isn’t really telegenic.
Le padel is an infinitely versatile sport played in three dimensions. And it’s a very magnificent sport at the professional level. It will succeed in the USA, the nation known as “theEntertainment par excellence,” for the same reason that it does so successfully in Europe and the rest of the globe. It was quite evident to me at the Miami WPT in 2022!
