Kuwait’s obsession with padel reached meme-worthy levels, with courts popping up everywhere – even replacing car lots in the city despite there being a scarcity of parking. But, I noticed most of the courts are usually empty when I drive by them and just yesterday I saw one being taken down.
As someone who doesn’t care about padel, I get the impression the padel craze has died down and so a lot more courts will be closing down. I know one court closing doesn’t represent the padel scene as a whole, but I can’t imagine all these courts being profitable, there are just too many of them. Is padel finally dead?
16 replies on “Is Kuwait’s Padel Obsession Finally Over?”
there were 2 in Salmiya block 10 which were like 200 meters away from each other…one’s been disbanded now…so i guess the padel craze is coming down….
Quite possible that everybody was busy enjoying the outdoors due to the good weather we had in the last few months, most likely that when the temperatures rise again, the demand for padel will kick right back in, especially for the indoor courts.
There were three Padel courts being built in my area last year (2 outdoor, 1 indoor), and by new year, they were all taken down! I also once saw Padel rackets on sale at a Trolley branch that cost like KD70-KD100! Who’s bright idea was it to bring this sport to Kuwait? Is Tennis not good enough anymore?
Well A LOT more people play padel than tennis, it’s a lot faster and easier to get into which is why it blew up in popularity world wide, whoever’s bright idea to bring this sport to kuwait made a lot of money.
Wait till people here know about pickle ball
It was never going to be sustainable. Now bring back the football.
I have 2 comments/ questions on this –
1. If the ‘craze’ coming down is true, then its a sad thing because at the end of the day it was a sport/ physical activity and its better to have people kicked/ excited about it than couch potato activities.
2. I’m hoping that with the with decrease in demand and over supply, the rates would have come down. Can anyone comment if that is actually the case?
I think if they had public swimming pools around instead of Padel courts it would make more sense. The summers would be oh so sweet.
Don’t think it’s dead, but the market was saturated and only the well maintained and mostly indoor courts are the ones that will survive. Like any new hype eventually it reaches its maturity then decline.
Yes it did a lot for the community in terms of health, cardiovascular fitness since it’s a very active sport if played with the right players.
But like everything in Kuwait, there was an oversupply of a popular trend and demand did inevitably falter. Also majority of the courts have not been maintained, carpets haven’t been changed and they’re a waste of money to play on.
As for the prices, only the well maintained are still charging 25kd an hour while the others are down to like 14/15kd per hour (and still empty).
The sad fact is that some of the tennis courts in Kuwait were turned into Padel with exuberant rates for playing in them. You don’t introduce a new sport by killing another sport.
Thank GOD! it spoiled my gym’s roof….as it was converted to be a padel court by cancelling all other games which were already there.
No chance it’s dying.
More and more people are taking up the sport, and the only reason you are seeing empty courts is because they are probably in shitty locations, poorly maintained or just not viable places (ex next to a construction site etc )
It is the fastest growing sport worldwide, and the GCC is still going mental on it.
Not going anywhere.
OK Bro, hope you recover your losses
Ofc it’s gonna be dead if they’re gonna charge 30 kwd per hour that’s insane
Let’s just say that the padel hype looks like it died down a bit in Kuwait, but here in Bahrain, It’s going strong. I would say (like everybody has said here) it’s more to do with location and quality, those facilities (rushed and built to cash on the hype) are fade away.