Pro Padel League partners with Unrivaled women's basketball, announces Season 2 schedule

New York Times

13-05-2025

The Pro Padel League (PPL), which is based in North America and uses a U.S.-style franchise model, is partnering with Unrivaled — the 3-on-3 professional women's basketball league founded by WNBA's Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier — to kick off the PPL's 2025 season in Miami.
Following its inaugural 2024 season with stops in Miami, San Diego and New York, the league is expanding its footprint across North America and into Europe. The 2025 season begins June 19 at Unrivaled's home, Wayfair Arena in Miami, and includes stops in San Sebastián (Spain) in July, Guadalajara (Mexico) and a PPL All-Star Festival in The Hamptons (New York) later in the summer.
Advertisement
The season concludes mid-October with the City's Cup in New York. The total prize purse — combined prize money and salaries — is $4 million. The tournament will have broadcast distribution on the Tennis Channel, FanDuel TV, Game+, Telemundo's Fast channel and its own YouTube channel. PPL shares a media production partner, MediaPro North America, with Unrivaled.
'Our opening event at Wayfair Arena will provide an epic in-arena experience for our fans, but equally important is the direct connection to women's sports as PPL is the epitome of a modern sports league,' PPL CEO Mike Dorfman told The Athletic. 'We are growing the sport of padel globally to the benefit of the best players in the world — regardless of gender — and will engage and inspire a new generation of fandom.'
The PPLs format features male and female duos — the male team competes first, followed by the female team — with team success tied to overall points accumulation. That emphasis on gender balance even led to a historic first in pro sports: a female-for-male player trade, with World No. 1 Ariana Sanchez from the Miami franchise traded for World No. 3 Fede Chingotto, who was playing for the New York Atlantics.
'PPL's model doesn't just talk about equality, it's built on it,' Dorfman said. 'Our model is designed to grow the game globally, benefit the best players in the world regardless of gender, and inspire and engage fans of the next generation.'
Launched in 2023 with seven teams, PPL quickly expanded to 10 franchises in North America and plans to grow to 12 by 2026. In the crowded world of pro racket sports, including pickleball and paddle tennis, PPL franchises initially sold for $200,000, and the league has recently raised $10 million in seed funding from investors, including Left Lane Capital, Kactus Capital, Gary Vaynerchuk and others.
Advertisement
PPL franchise ownership includes Puerto Rican reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, who backs the Flowrida Goats; EEP Capital (a venture capital firm backed by Swedish NHL players Filip Forsberg, Jacob Markström, Mattias Ekholm, Elias Lindholm and William Nylander) is invested in the Los Angeles Beat; former Serie A and MLS player Sebastian Giovinco has backed the Toronto Polar Bears; and former ATP world No.2 Tommy Haas has a stake in the San Diego Stingrays.
Padel is already wildly popular in Spain and across Latin America, but remains a rising sport in the U.S., where limited court access and high club costs remain key barriers. Unlike pickleball, padel is played within a 10-meter-by-20-meter court surrounded by a glass wall.
According to the International Padel Federation's 2024 report, the U.S. is home to 70 padel clubs and 500 courts — for comparison, Spain has more than 4,000 clubs and 16,000 courts. Dorfman believes the path to mainstream success runs through building free and publicly accessible padel courts in parks across U.S. cities and on college campuses.
A competing pro league, Premier Padel, is more established globally than the North American-based PPL. In February, Premier Padel earned a promotional bump when soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo streamed the finals of a tournament in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on his YouTube channel, which has 74.9 million subscribers.
'We think laying the foundation to build U.S. talent is critical for the success of the sport domestically,' Dorfman said. 'I think that will start with primary schools and universities partnering with local padel clubs, but eventually the hope is that schools have their own courts, teams and scholarship programs similar to what we see today with tennis and squash. We hope to play a big part in this community development.'