Where the money goes
- The court itself, 18 to 30 thousand euros standard and 26 to 42 panoramic: steel structure, 10 or 12 mm tempered glass, artificial turf with sand, LED lighting, installation. The glass is the expensive part; panoramic courts have more of it and no steel posts at the back.
- The base, 8 to 15 thousand: a level concrete slab with drainage. Bad drainage is the most expensive mistake in padel; the turf floods and the glass frames rust from the bottom.
- The roof: nothing, a canopy (22 to 45 thousand per court) or a hall (65 to 130 thousand per court once the building is shared out). In northern Europe an open court sells eight months of the year; a canopy sells eleven; a hall sells all twelve and the evenings.
- Everything else: planning permission, land or lease, changing rooms, a desk and a coffee machine, the booking system, and the fencing round the site. Clubs that forget these spend the court budget twice.
How the sums work
A court booked six paid hours a day at 40 euros brings in about 80 thousand a year. A third of that goes on running it: power for the lights, turf brushing and sand, staff, marketing, the booking app's cut. What is left pays the build back in two to four years for an open court in a dry climate, and in four to six for a hall, which is why the halls are built by people with several courts and a bar. Two courts price better than one (the builder is already on site) and four better than two; that is in the calculator.
Thinking about it seriously? Get three quotes, ask each builder for a court you can visit that is more than three years old, and ask that club how many hours a day it really sells in February.