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The following is an automated transcript that has not been checked for accuracy.


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Mike Vittorio: : So we had some technical issues recording this podcast.

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Mike Vittorio: : In the beginning of the show, we have a pretty low quality recording, which improves at about the 25-minute mark.

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Mike Vittorio: : You’ll hear a warning in my voice to adjust your volume at the point where the audio track switches.

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Mike Vittorio: : We’ve already fixed the issue and will not be recurring in future episodes.

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Mike Vittorio: : We are sorry for this inconvenience.

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Mike Vittorio: : On this episode of the PadelCast, we get to hear the story of how the number one writer of US Padel News got his start, what he sees as the future for padel in the United States.

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Mike Vittorio: : His name is Austin Edwards, and he has quickly established himself as an authority on padel.

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Mike Vittorio: : He is founder and lead editor of thepadelstate.com, a leading news website of padel news in the United States.

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Mike Vittorio: You’ve obviously established yourself as pretty much the leader in written padel news for the United States.

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Mike Vittorio: Even just looking around online, you look up padel news in the US, padel state pops right up.

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Mike Vittorio: So, good news to you for building that.

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Mike Vittorio: That’s phenomenal.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, I appreciate it.

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Austin Edwards: And honestly, that’s sort of, I had no real design on getting into this space at all.

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<v SPEAKER_4>I just, a little over a year ago, a group of guys and I here in Charleston, South Carolina, where we still are interested in the padel club.

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Austin Edwards: And I started doing research or trying to do research.

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Austin Edwards: And it was just amazing how little info I could find about US padel news, anything in the US padel industry.

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Austin Edwards: There was obviously, I’m sure you come across the same stuff.

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Austin Edwards: There’s stuff that I guess is maybe ChatGPT written.

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Austin Edwards: There’s stuff that obviously is coming out of Europe that it’s just not, doesn’t really speak to the US audience.

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Austin Edwards: And so the one sort of site I found that did do some decent US content or better than decent, which is not that much, was The Padel Paper in the UK, which Mike Dale is their editor and all these organizations there, sort of the behind the scenes guy that runs that.

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Austin Edwards: And reach out to them and just kind of talking through, maybe writing some articles for them.

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Austin Edwards: Pretty quickly after talking to Ollie a couple of times, it was pretty obvious that there was enough going on in the US padel market and some background in writing and media that we could just launch our own thing.

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Austin Edwards: So we partnered on that.

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Austin Edwards: But yeah, again, it had just kind of fell into my lap and there’s just a little bit of a backing for that kind of information.

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Austin Edwards: So it sort of took off from there.

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Austin Edwards: It’s been cool.

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Mike Vittorio: So you started The Padel State when?

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Austin Edwards: Roughly like mid October of last year.

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Austin Edwards: So I guess we’re pushing nine, ten months.

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Austin Edwards: There was a little planning ahead of time.

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Austin Edwards: We wanted to try to stand up enough content before we launched so that it wasn’t just an empty site.

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Austin Edwards: So probably started talking about it maybe early to mid September.

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Austin Edwards: And then, yeah, I think our sort of official launch, if you want to call it that, was probably mid October.

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Mike Vittorio: And you picked up, what was your introduction to Padel?

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Austin Edwards: So kind of a funny story.

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Austin Edwards: Of all places, Padel first came onto my radar in probably around 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana, of all places where I was living at the time.

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Austin Edwards: Played a bunch of squash there and was in, you know, I was probably in the best shape of my life, playing what I thought was really good squash at the time.

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Austin Edwards: And it was just sort of at an open gym at a hotel.

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Austin Edwards: They had a couple of squash courts and a couple of guys.

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Austin Edwards: And one day I’m playing and I turn around and there’s this, I’ve told this story before, of a dude that looks like he stepped out of like a Calvin Klein underwear ad or something, just like dashingly handsome spanger guy.

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Austin Edwards: And I turn around and I like, my girl is staring at this guy, every other lady in the whole gym is staring at this guy.

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Austin Edwards: And he’s just sitting there staring at us on the squash court.

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Austin Edwards: And I was kind of like, what’s, what’s going on here?

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Austin Edwards: And I finally got the, he spoke very little English at that point, but got the idea that he wanted to come out and play squash.

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Austin Edwards: And I said, well, you play squash.

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Austin Edwards: And he said, no, I’m padel pro.

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Austin Edwards: And I was like, what does that mean?

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Austin Edwards: And go out on the squash court, he beat the hell out of me.

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Austin Edwards: I mean, he’s just an insane athlete, insane hands.

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Austin Edwards: And I was like, okay, Francis, next Francis.

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Austin Edwards: I was like, you’ve played a lot of squash.

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Austin Edwards: You’re like a really good squash player.

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Austin Edwards: And he’s like, no, I’m padel pro.

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Austin Edwards: I’m padel pro.

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Austin Edwards: And I was like, why does this guy keep saying, I am padel pro?

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Austin Edwards: Me, it’s good with rackets and so forth.

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Austin Edwards: Got to be friends with him.

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Austin Edwards: And I drew him, discovered that padel was a sport in Spain and other places around the world.

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Austin Edwards: And he was actually a top ranked, I don’t know if the World Padel Tour existed back then, but he was a top ranked pro at one point and then a club pro in Spain.

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Austin Edwards: And he was, at that point, there was only, I think only courts in probably Houston and Florida.

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Austin Edwards: And he tried to get a couple of other guys, squash guys to go with him to play Houston.

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Austin Edwards: And it just never happened.

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Austin Edwards: So I was at least aware that something called padel exists and what sort of what it was.

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Austin Edwards: And then like so many other people during the pandemic, our squash club here shut down for three, four months.

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Austin Edwards: We couldn’t do anything.

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Austin Edwards: We started playing pickleball.

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Austin Edwards: And then one of my squash buddies up in Philly called me.

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Austin Edwards: And he was like, well, if you’d ever want to hop on a plane, you’re all called Padel.

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Austin Edwards: And it just like kind of clicked for me all of a sudden.

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Austin Edwards: I was like, oh, this is what Francis used to play.

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Austin Edwards: This is what.

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Austin Edwards: So I think my, I think my buddy just sort of threw it out there.

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Austin Edwards: Like if you want to get on a plane, but me and two other guys got on a plane like the next week and went up there to play.

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Austin Edwards: And we’re just like, yeah, we’re like, this is it.

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Austin Edwards: This is the sport.

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Austin Edwards: And at that, that was at Philadelphia in Philadelphia on their original courts in Venice Island, which I guess one is still there.

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Austin Edwards: I could just kind of still play a lot of squash, love squash, but I could just sort of sense where this sport was going to go and where I started looking into it, where it already was on a global scale.

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Austin Edwards: And just kind of started finding any way and anywhere I could play basically.

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Austin Edwards: You caught the bug.

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Austin Edwards: We did.

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Austin Edwards: It truly is.

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Austin Edwards: And then the next step of that is we have a guy here in Columbia, one of my dear friends.

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Austin Edwards: Columbia is maybe two hours from Charleston.

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Austin Edwards: He owns maybe like five acres of land up there.

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Austin Edwards: And he built a squash court a number of years ago.

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Austin Edwards: And then during COVID, he built a pickleball court and a badminton court.

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Austin Edwards: And in like 2021, I guess, he told me he was thinking about putting in a second squash court up there.

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Austin Edwards: I was like, Harry, how many guys do you even have that are playing squash?

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Austin Edwards: You know, 10, 15, something like that.

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Austin Edwards: And I was like, before you go to the time and effort of putting in another squash court, I was like, let’s fly down to Florida, and I want to show you this other game.

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Austin Edwards: And I think you might be interested in it.

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Austin Edwards: So a group of squash guys, Harry, we flew down to Florida.

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Austin Edwards: We played at Kinetic, which is really just a squash club, but they did have one indoor padel court.

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Austin Edwards: But we were in our like maybe second or third game, and Harry just turned and looked at me and he said, he’s like, yeah, this is what we’re building.

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Austin Edwards: So we got together and built the first court in South Carolina in Columbia.

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Austin Edwards: But that just shows you how he had played for seven minutes and basically committed to that was going to be the sort of future of his club and it has been.

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Mike Vittorio: There’s not many sports that I can think of that people will play for the first time and they’re just hooked.

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Mike Vittorio: 30 minutes, 45, whatever it is, but it’s like, hey, we need to go play that more.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, I’ve thought of drugs and alcohol and too many things that are as sort of instantly addictive as the sport is.

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Austin Edwards: But no, you’re absolutely right.

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Austin Edwards: And I think it’s got a really interesting learning curve, where I think you go out the first couple of times and actually have fun and not be completely intimidated like you would in swash or tennis or some of the other sports, which is what’s great about it.

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Austin Edwards: It’s very approachable.

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Mike Vittorio: The club that you have up in Columbia, what’s the design of that?

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Mike Vittorio: Is it a metal type of building with high roofs?

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Mike Vittorio: Because that ceiling height is always an issue.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, that’s an interesting question.

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Austin Edwards: So the property that Harry bought, he worked as a CFO of a school district for years and years.

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Austin Edwards: And this is actually an old school that went into foreclosure.

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Austin Edwards: So he bought this school, and it was really all the buildings were pretty dilapidated, except the gymnasium.

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Austin Edwards: And that’s not in perfect shape, but good enough shape.

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Austin Edwards: So that’s where the squash court is.

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Austin Edwards: And we actually ended up building a padel court outside.

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Austin Edwards: So it’s an outdoor court.

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Austin Edwards: There has been talk about putting a second padel court inside, but the ceiling height is, I don’t know exactly.

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Austin Edwards: I’m going to guess that’s 30 feet, which is probably personally, I think, right on the sort of cusp of where you want to be in terms of.

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Austin Edwards: But yeah, they’re actively looking at that.

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Austin Edwards: But yeah, the ceiling height changes, as you know, really changes the game.

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Austin Edwards: But for now, up there, we can throw 50 foot lobs up in the air outside and not have it be an issue.

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Mike Vittorio: The Ballers in Philadelphia, the padel courts are going to be inside the Turban Room, and the Turban Room has like 70 something foot high ceilings.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, that’ll be a really, really cool project.

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Austin Edwards: And that’s, yeah, that’s, I can’t think of anywhere that would be even close to that indoors.

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Austin Edwards: I have seen what you may have seen too.

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Austin Edwards: It almost looks fake.

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Austin Edwards: I think it’s somewhere in the Netherlands, but it’s basically they ran like padel courts down the middle of like a four story shopping mall.

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Austin Edwards: You do have that crazy ceiling height, and people are sort of on mezzanine, like looking over at the people playing below.

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Austin Edwards: And again, it looks almost too good to be true.

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Austin Edwards: It almost looks like it’s an AI generated.

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Austin Edwards: If it’s real, it’s very cool.

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Mike Vittorio: Like a conceptual rendering maybe, like it’s not there yet.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, I guess that’s a good point.

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Austin Edwards: I guess it could be ceiling heights would definitely play an issue.

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Austin Edwards: I know I won’t call anywhere out by name, but I know people that have played places where that’s been a real issue and sort of a detriment to their enjoyment of the game.

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Mike Vittorio: And it’s interesting because you said it was in a mall, and I can think of a couple malls that they turned into pickleball courts.

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Mike Vittorio: Probably have like 20 of these courts in one spot.

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Mike Vittorio: And I wonder, because a lot of malls have that mezzanine like you were talking about, that’d be a great spot to put like a padel court with pickleball courts around it.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, 100%.

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Austin Edwards: And I know what you’re talking about.

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Austin Edwards: I think there’s an entire business just called Pickle Mall.

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Austin Edwards: Run down mall areas into pickleball courts, but certainly where you have a ceiling height, it would probably be better used for padel, I think.

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Mike Vittorio: So have you been playing more consistently?

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Austin Edwards: I have been able to play more because we do now have one court here in Charleston.

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Austin Edwards: There’s a big tennis facility here.

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Austin Edwards: That’s sort of private public, as weird as that sounds.

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Austin Edwards: There is a private membership component, but the public can also play, pay to play.

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Austin Edwards: And they do a huge LTP every April.

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Austin Edwards: It’s called, the facility is called LTP.

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Austin Edwards: And as part of that, I mean, they get the top, most of the top 20 women’s tennis players come for this because it’s now like a 500 level tournament.

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Austin Edwards: So this year, they decided to do padel exhibition court, which is a temporary court from Jubeau that they set up.

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Austin Edwards: And they got Juan Martin Diaz and a couple other guys that currently play on World Padel Tour, play in the DPL to come do an exhibition, which of course I was initially out of town for that.

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Austin Edwards: And really the plan was just to have the court there during the tournament, which is like a 10 day period.

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Austin Edwards: But they got enough traction that they’ve actually left the temporary court there and now they’re talking about making it permanent and adding maybe one or two more at this tennis facility.

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Austin Edwards: I think that’s still up in the air, but we at least have a place to play now in Charleston, which is a niche for everyone that has played me, that has caught the bug, and it seems like there are more people catching it by the day here.

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Mike Vittorio: And you’re able to book time on it?

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Mike Vittorio: It seems like as soon as the court goes up, you can’t book time for like a week.

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Austin Edwards: It’s getting challenging now, especially because I’m not sure, what part of the country are you in?

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Mike Vittorio: So I’m in Philly.

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Austin Edwards: Oh, you’re in Philly.

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Austin Edwards: So you guys, it gets hot up in Philly.

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Austin Edwards: But down here now, after about 10 a.m.

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Austin Edwards: or before about 6 p.m., it’s just true it might be too hot to play.

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Austin Edwards: So the sort of hookable hours are getting hard to book.

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Austin Edwards: Hopefully they do the…

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Austin Edwards: This is an outdoor court as well, with absolutely no shade in sight.

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Austin Edwards: Yeah, it is getting hard, and hopefully they’ll have other courts coming.

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Mike Vittorio: There’s a…

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Mike Vittorio: I can’t remember the name of the company, but they’re designing like a hurricane proof court.

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Mike Vittorio: Did you see I could withstand like 180 mile an hour winds?

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Austin Edwards: There’s actually a number.

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Austin Edwards: So Padel Lux, and which is involved with their partner with StatoReady Padel out of Italy.

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Austin Edwards: They’re actually one of our site sponsors.

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Austin Edwards: So I talked to those guys a lot.

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Austin Edwards: Joe Gross, Padel Lux, great guy, great company.

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Austin Edwards: And they’ve actually done a hurricane proof court as well that I could get back to you on the exact wind rating for the courts.

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Austin Edwards: You know, a Cat 5 Plus might…

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Austin Edwards: It might have a tough time, but it’s really designed for so much of their work.

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Austin Edwards: There is stuff in the Caribbean, Florida, even which I didn’t think about.

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Austin Edwards: A lot of their work is in the Hamptons as well, which I don’t really think of the Hamptons as being a big hurricane target, but it certainly could if it was on up that way.

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Austin Edwards: But I think that will be a huge business and a huge necessity, because so many of the places, I think, you padel for to get built are going to be in very hurricane prone areas, including Charleston.

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Mike Vittorio: It’s interesting to me, because I assume those would all be outdoor padel courts.

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Mike Vittorio: So I wonder if they’re also coming with some kind of canopy or some kind of coverage, if they’re designing some kind of hurricane proof coverage.

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Mike Vittorio: So I played a lot in Spain.

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Mike Vittorio: It’s where I picked it up.

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Mike Vittorio: And you can find a lot of courts where, in Spain, where I was, the winds would pick up greatly.

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Mike Vittorio: I mean, they’ll hit like 60, 70 mile an hour winds sustained.

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Mike Vittorio: And they would have these like almost tent type coverings that were probably a good 20 something feet high.

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Mike Vittorio: Like they were good enough for padel.

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Mike Vittorio: And I’m wondering if they’re adapting that for these hurricane proof or at least just other outdoor courts.

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Austin Edwards: I imagine somebody has to be doing that actively just because there’s going to be a little more hurricane for it.

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Austin Edwards: And they just expanded to six courts, and they’re looking to cover three of the Charlestown, it’s not like Charleston, it’s not going to get imminently directly hit with a hurricane.

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Austin Edwards: But even being there, the wind considerations are pretty serious, especially I think that stuff they’re looking at is 30 plus feet.

00:14:56.080 –> 00:15:03.220

Austin Edwards: But yeah, that’s a great point, because I think the canopies will become the hang this for people.

00:15:03.240 –> 00:15:18.720

Austin Edwards: You know, obviously in Philly, you probably have to have some indoor components, like lunchers and things, but down here, too hot for a couple months out of the year, but the rest of the time, people love being outside, and I can see that sort of indoor or outdoor optionality.

00:15:18.940 –> 00:15:23.480

Mike Vittorio: Something in the Northeast, which you also brought up, is the winters are too harsh for outdoor padel.

00:15:24.000 –> 00:15:26.500

Mike Vittorio: The padel would have to be inside in the Northeast.

00:15:26.520 –> 00:15:30.140

Mike Vittorio: Pretty much anything above, what would you say, Virginia, north of Virginia, pretty much.

00:15:31.120 –> 00:15:33.620

Mike Vittorio: Inside is the only marketable, you know, investment.

00:15:33.800 –> 00:15:40.140

Mike Vittorio: So I wonder, and my idea would be to bring these tents over and have a heating system incorporated.

00:15:40.160 –> 00:15:45.040

Mike Vittorio: I just, I wonder that it’s either been done before or probably about to be done soon.

00:15:45.520 –> 00:15:55.000

Austin Edwards: I was skiing at the Hilda Park in March and stopped at one of the Faberetti Club’s little town, but probably very similar to what you were talking about in Spain.

00:15:55.020 –> 00:15:58.600

Austin Edwards: And the sort of sides they had on them were really cool.

00:15:58.620 –> 00:16:00.720

Austin Edwards: It was almost like thick.

00:16:00.760 –> 00:16:01.800

Austin Edwards: It wasn’t drapes.

00:16:01.820 –> 00:16:03.060

Austin Edwards: I think it was like plastic.

00:16:03.080 –> 00:16:06.440

Austin Edwards: But on nice days, they’d kind of roll everything up.

00:16:06.460 –> 00:16:07.820

Austin Edwards: So it was basically outside.

00:16:07.840 –> 00:16:10.600

Austin Edwards: And then when it gets cold or rain, drop them down.

00:16:10.620 –> 00:16:15.520

Austin Edwards: And then they can also run AC and heat in there as well, which is really pretty neat.

00:16:15.680 –> 00:16:19.280

Austin Edwards: I haven’t seen and I can’t think of anything like that in the US right now.

00:16:19.420 –> 00:16:20.680

Austin Edwards: It was really just that one.

00:16:20.700 –> 00:16:24.520

Austin Edwards: And I know I’ve seen a couple in the UK that are like that as well.

00:16:25.380 –> 00:16:29.820

Austin Edwards: But it’s nice to be able to have the sort of HVAC option as well when you need it.

00:16:30.740 –> 00:16:40.480

Mike Vittorio: So one of the things and the reason I brought that up, one of the common items that gets brought up with my padel network that I have from Spain is it’s not going to take off.

00:16:40.480 –> 00:16:41.280

Mike Vittorio: This is their belief.

00:16:41.280 –> 00:16:45.040

Mike Vittorio: It’s not going to take off in the United States until the pricing comes down.

00:16:45.380 –> 00:16:51.720

Mike Vittorio: Because in Spain, we were paying about, get this, about $6 per person for an hour and a half.

00:16:52.980 –> 00:16:55.640

Mike Vittorio: I mean, it’s insanely cheap compared to the United States.

00:16:55.820 –> 00:16:59.480

Mike Vittorio: But you look at the location of all the clubs in the United States and they’re in inner cities.

00:16:59.480 –> 00:17:01.660

Mike Vittorio: They’re in these hot spot locations.

00:17:02.040 –> 00:17:06.120

Mike Vittorio: You know, I think once they move outside of those cities, you’ll start to see lower prices.

00:17:06.140 –> 00:17:07.660

Mike Vittorio: So I’m wondering what your thoughts on that are.

00:17:07.680 –> 00:17:09.760

Mike Vittorio: If you’ve come across that in your writings.

00:17:10.820 –> 00:17:20.120

Austin Edwards: It’s not a huge pushback at this point, but I have noticed on like several of the articles that you’ve probably seen in the New York Times and some of these, you know, padels getting more press.

00:17:20.120 –> 00:17:23.480

Austin Edwards: Granted, you should never read the comments on any online thing ever.

00:17:23.560 –> 00:17:30.620

Austin Edwards: There is a lot of sort of negative feeling, I think, towards the sport, just because it is seen as they’re like, well, this is great.

00:17:30.640 –> 00:17:35.820

Austin Edwards: If you can afford to pay $300 an hour for a port in New York City.

00:17:36.420 –> 00:17:44.320

Austin Edwards: And that’s been a huge impediment to the growth of squash in the US, too, is there’s so sort of few places to play it and the places that you can play it.

00:17:44.480 –> 00:17:46.540

Austin Edwards: I mean, Philly is a great example.

00:17:46.560 –> 00:17:51.660

Austin Edwards: It’s either these like sort of very old school country clubs where it’s very expensive to get port time.

00:17:51.680 –> 00:17:58.920

Austin Edwards: I think and hope that will not be an issue after another couple years for padel.

00:17:59.000 –> 00:18:01.940

Austin Edwards: I think it will start to spread more, like you said.

00:18:03.860 –> 00:18:09.300

Austin Edwards: It’s always going to be expensive in Manhattan and Brooklyn and probably downtown Miami.

00:18:09.420 –> 00:18:11.340

Austin Edwards: But I think it will become a little bit more.

00:18:11.720 –> 00:18:16.380

Austin Edwards: And I’m hoping too that you start to see more public courts.

00:18:16.580 –> 00:18:31.420

Austin Edwards: I had heard a rumor at one point that Stan Smith, the legendary tennis player was talking about doing or was involved somehow in a public facility in Hilton, South Carolina.

00:18:31.600 –> 00:18:35.560

Austin Edwards: I think once you start to get that sort of thing going, it may bring the cost down.

00:18:35.580 –> 00:18:38.100

Austin Edwards: And obviously right now, it’s a supply and demand issue.

00:18:39.660 –> 00:18:45.740

Austin Edwards: There’s a lot more demand than there is certainly like New York or Miami than there is supply.

00:18:46.060 –> 00:18:51.840

Austin Edwards: So I don’t know that we’ll ever get it down to $6 an hour.

00:18:53.080 –> 00:18:58.540

Austin Edwards: Hopefully cheaper than like right now in Charleston, not the end of the world, but it’s also not cheap.

00:18:58.560 –> 00:19:00.480

Austin Edwards: It is cost prohibitive for a lot of people.

00:19:00.500 –> 00:19:04.120

Austin Edwards: So we’ll have to find, as a sport, find ways around.

00:19:04.140 –> 00:19:07.640

Austin Edwards: Yeah, I think the price point will have to come down.

00:19:07.660 –> 00:19:14.220

Austin Edwards: I think also in the US, there’s a little bit of a shock value because everyone compares it so closely to pickleball.

00:19:14.380 –> 00:19:16.020

Austin Edwards: Pickleball is basically free.

00:19:16.800 –> 00:19:18.300

Mike Vittorio: Have you played a lot of pickleball?

00:19:18.600 –> 00:19:23.580

Austin Edwards: I did for a very brief amount of time during the pandemic when our squash club got shut down.

00:19:23.600 –> 00:19:25.500

Austin Edwards: And honestly, we started playing in my driveway.

00:19:25.520 –> 00:19:28.160

Austin Edwards: Because honestly, all the tennis courts and everything were locked up.

00:19:28.180 –> 00:19:29.200

Austin Edwards: We couldn’t even get on those.

00:19:29.220 –> 00:19:30.320

Austin Edwards: We just played in my driveway.

00:19:30.340 –> 00:19:32.160

Austin Edwards: And then all the squash guys.

00:19:32.180 –> 00:19:35.940

Austin Edwards: And I actually, I really enjoyed it when I played it.

00:19:36.980 –> 00:19:38.360

Austin Edwards: Partly just being outside.

00:19:38.380 –> 00:19:44.400

Austin Edwards: I mean, squash is what I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life and inside on nice days playing this sport.

00:19:45.080 –> 00:19:47.940

Austin Edwards: And on a gorgeous day, it was nice to be outside doing something.

00:19:48.340 –> 00:19:56.080

Austin Edwards: That being said, as soon as I played house for the first time and the squash court reopened, I played pickleball maybe three times since.

00:19:56.500 –> 00:19:58.200

Austin Edwards: I certainly don’t have anything against it.

00:19:58.220 –> 00:20:04.040

Austin Edwards: I have a ton of friends that love it and play it, and I think it has great value for a lot of people.

00:20:04.060 –> 00:20:09.480

Austin Edwards: But at the end of the day, I would choose to play it over other sports, necessarily.

00:20:09.500 –> 00:20:10.140

Austin Edwards: How about yourself?

00:20:10.660 –> 00:20:16.580

Mike Vittorio: So my little cohort, and maybe I’m brainwashed, but anytime pickleball comes up, forget about it.

00:20:16.620 –> 00:20:18.520

Mike Vittorio: I mean, it’s like saying a bad word in our group.

00:20:19.240 –> 00:20:23.260

Mike Vittorio: So I’ve never played a match.

00:20:23.680 –> 00:20:29.660

Austin Edwards: Yeah, I’m open to whatever, but I wouldn’t necessarily choose to play it if I had a choice.

00:20:30.200 –> 00:20:36.120

Austin Edwards: The Philadelphia guys, Scott Groat, and I played with them down at Rack and X, and got to know them a little bit.

00:20:36.560 –> 00:20:37.520

Austin Edwards: Super good guys.

00:20:38.360 –> 00:20:45.680

Austin Edwards: Scott Groat especially, he’s sort of behind the scenes a lot of time, but he’s truly one of the OGs of the US padel movement.

00:20:45.700 –> 00:20:51.460

Austin Edwards: He built some of the very first courts, largely responsible for Philadelphia opening the sports on Venice Island.

00:20:51.520 –> 00:20:53.020

Austin Edwards: So it’s a good scene up there.

00:20:54.380 –> 00:20:56.760

Mike Vittorio: So I would tell my dad, hey, we play padel here.

00:20:56.780 –> 00:20:57.840

Mike Vittorio: He’s like, you mean pickleball?

00:20:58.160 –> 00:20:59.260

Mike Vittorio: No, we’re playing padel.

00:20:59.680 –> 00:21:00.760

Mike Vittorio: I think you mean pickleball.

00:21:00.780 –> 00:21:02.160

Mike Vittorio: I’m like, dad, it’s not pickleball.

00:21:02.180 –> 00:21:05.220

Mike Vittorio: So it kind of has this pickleball adjacent brand to it.

00:21:05.500 –> 00:21:11.280

Mike Vittorio: But it’s really, it’s not pickleball, and it’s not tennis, and it’s not, like, it’s very much its own sport.

00:21:11.920 –> 00:21:18.180

Austin Edwards: And I think one big thing that’s going to happen is to see it on a mainstream TV show or in a commercial.

00:21:18.220 –> 00:21:22.640

Austin Edwards: I don’t watch the Netflix F1 show, but I heard the F1 guys are always playing it.

00:21:23.220 –> 00:21:33.100

Austin Edwards: But I think you’re going to have, even though I’m so tuned out, I don’t know what a popular TV show is, but something that’s really popular, people are going to see it and be like, whoa, what is that?

00:21:33.220 –> 00:21:35.280

Austin Edwards: And it’s going to just spread like wildfire.

00:21:35.300 –> 00:21:50.700

Austin Edwards: Because right now, I mean, I feel like two out of five, say, commercials I see on TV, there’s people in the background playing pickleball, or there’s Gronkowski is carrying his pickleball stuff for a USA commercial.

00:21:51.260 –> 00:21:56.180

Austin Edwards: And it’s got that sort of cultural, where it’s everywhere in culture.

00:21:56.200 –> 00:22:00.120

Austin Edwards: And I think it’ll break through, I think padel will break through in that way somewhere along the lines.

00:22:00.600 –> 00:22:04.440

Austin Edwards: And I think that will be a big uptake and interest.

00:22:04.460 –> 00:22:13.820

Austin Edwards: Because obviously so much of it right now is just being driven by YouTube videos, Instagram videos, TikTok, people just seeing it.

00:22:13.840 –> 00:22:24.880

Austin Edwards: I mean, I know people, I’m sure you do too, that have never played, but they watch hours and hours of videos, but have not actually bothered to try to find anywhere to play.

00:22:24.900 –> 00:22:26.700

Austin Edwards: They’re just mesmerized by watching it.

00:22:27.340 –> 00:22:32.860

Mike Vittorio: We get a lot of traction on videos about like the terminology, because everything is in Spanish.

00:22:32.900 –> 00:22:41.280

Mike Vittorio: So people don’t really understand what a dejada is or what, you know, dejada or bahada or viva, like kind of like, why are we calling it this?

00:22:41.300 –> 00:22:41.940

Mike Vittorio: How do you spell it?

00:22:41.960 –> 00:22:42.600

Mike Vittorio: How do you say it?

00:22:42.620 –> 00:22:43.420

Mike Vittorio: What shot is it?

00:22:43.860 –> 00:22:46.740

Mike Vittorio: So it’s very much a Spanish cultural game, too.

00:22:46.760 –> 00:22:49.240

Mike Vittorio: You know, that’s just being brought in, which is fun.

00:22:49.780 –> 00:22:50.880

Austin Edwards: Which was interesting to me.

00:22:50.900 –> 00:22:55.880

Austin Edwards: And, you know, Miami, I think, it’s always going to be its own sort of environment.

00:22:55.900 –> 00:23:09.680

Austin Edwards: I don’t think there’s anything bad, maybe Houston, but I don’t think there’s going to be anywhere in the US that is like that padel-wise, just because they do have, you know, so many people that have already played such a sort of melting pot for Latin cultures.

00:23:09.840 –> 00:23:19.160

Austin Edwards: But when I was with the Absolute Padel Guys from affiliate Rackadex, we went to Ultra, as they had just started their expansion there.

00:23:19.800 –> 00:23:25.380

Austin Edwards: And we got there, and at that point they probably had like 19 courts open, something like that.

00:23:25.800 –> 00:23:29.800

Austin Edwards: We got there at maybe like three in the afternoon, and we were like the only people there.

00:23:30.120 –> 00:23:36.880

Austin Edwards: And I was like, man, I don’t know how a 29-court expansion is going to work out if we’re the only people there.

00:23:37.700 –> 00:23:41.880

Austin Edwards: But by about five o’clock, every single court was full of people waiting.

00:23:41.900 –> 00:23:43.140

Austin Edwards: I mean, it was just a zoo.

00:23:43.480 –> 00:23:48.100

Austin Edwards: Julian from Pile Smash Academy, he’s the CPO at Ultra now.

00:23:48.660 –> 00:23:50.280

Austin Edwards: He was nice enough to…

00:23:50.300 –> 00:24:00.760

Austin Edwards: He was super busy getting ready for their PPL event, but he was nice enough to give us a tour of the expansion facility, and we’re walking around, and I don’t think I’d spoken or heard any English being spoken.

00:24:00.980 –> 00:24:04.040

Austin Edwards: It was just Argentine, Senes-Waylands.

00:24:04.700 –> 00:24:12.520

Austin Edwards: And you do get the sense, yeah, to your point, it’s got this very rich cultural heritage of Latin American countries, which is super cool.

00:24:12.540 –> 00:24:17.400

Austin Edwards: I think it will be a slight wake-up call for some people in other parts of the US.

00:24:17.500 –> 00:24:20.800

Austin Edwards: You’re not going to have that, necessarily, like you do in Miami.

00:24:20.820 –> 00:24:30.740

Austin Edwards: I think a lot of people point to Miami as this insane success story, but it is also pretty unique in its cultural heritage and ethnic background.

00:24:32.180 –> 00:24:34.260

Mike Vittorio: : This is the point where the audio volume changes.

00:24:34.420 –> 00:24:36.780

Mike Vittorio: : Please adjust your listening device accordingly.

00:24:38.700 –> 00:24:56.800

Austin Edwards: One thing I think is an interesting concept, kind of like they did at Park Padel in San Francisco and a few other places, is just try to get some temporary courts up somewhere, which they kind of have at the tennis facility I’m playing at, just to kind of build that you don’t have to have a huge upfront capital investment, not a ton of risk other than buying courts.

00:24:57.560 –> 00:25:03.340

Austin Edwards: But just get people on, because like you said, if you can get people on the court once, you’re pretty golden.

00:25:04.880 –> 00:25:08.080

Austin Edwards: So just building some visibility and so forth.

00:25:08.720 –> 00:25:14.500

Austin Edwards: But yeah, in terms of other padel projects, just a lot of stuff comes out of the woodwork.

00:25:14.580 –> 00:25:22.580

Austin Edwards: I just helped out a little bit with the World Global Padel Report that Playtomic is putting out in the next day or two eminently.

00:25:22.600 –> 00:25:28.660

Austin Edwards: So you just in right now, you’ll see, and you probably have seen this, it’s still a pretty small world, which is cool.

00:25:29.300 –> 00:25:33.820

Austin Edwards: So just a lot of opportunities to do different things pop up.

00:25:34.560 –> 00:25:38.640

Austin Edwards: I’ve had a couple retail brands reach out to me to do consulting stuff.

00:25:38.660 –> 00:25:44.800

Austin Edwards: They want to, you know, retail brands that want to move into the padel world, but aren’t really sure where to start or who to talk to.

00:25:45.840 –> 00:25:48.260

Austin Edwards: We’ll, I think we’ll lose that eventually.

00:25:48.480 –> 00:25:50.900

Austin Edwards: But right now it’s cool to just have this.

00:25:50.920 –> 00:25:55.220

Austin Edwards: We’re just truly, you know, we’re at the forefront of this big movement.

00:25:55.340 –> 00:25:58.140

Austin Edwards: And still at this point, everyone kind of knows each other.

00:25:58.160 –> 00:25:59.980

Austin Edwards: Everyone’s willing to help one another out.

00:26:00.000 –> 00:26:03.240

Austin Edwards: Everyone’s willing to connect one another, which that’s unusual.

00:26:03.260 –> 00:26:13.500

Austin Edwards: You don’t see that in many, I don’t think you’ll have too many experiences like that in your life where you’re kind of in the early days of, you know, where everyone’s working sort of towards a common goal.

00:26:13.600 –> 00:26:18.520

Austin Edwards: And there is competition, but in a very friendly, sort of supportive kind of way.

00:26:18.540 –> 00:26:23.400

Austin Edwards: And it will be big business, and it is big business already.

00:26:23.420 –> 00:26:42.280

Austin Edwards: But right now, it’s just sort of a tribe feeling, kind of a tribe of people that all believe in the same thing and are really excited about the sport and want to see it succeed and want to each kind of lend their hand to help it anyway, whether it’s podcasting or writing or court building or anything you can do.

00:26:43.480 –> 00:26:48.740

Mike Vittorio: I think it also leads to the, you know, Padel seems to be a very good community in general.

00:26:49.020 –> 00:26:54.300

Mike Vittorio: You know, like even in Spain, it was very much, we would be competing against people who were obviously better than us.

00:26:54.560 –> 00:26:57.520

Mike Vittorio: They would clean us up, but then they would just start coaching us.

00:26:57.660 –> 00:27:03.620

Mike Vittorio: And for whatever reason, we didn’t, when you’re getting coached by a competitor, you’re like, immediately you’re like, hey, I don’t need to listen to you.

00:27:03.800 –> 00:27:05.600

Mike Vittorio: But over there, you know, it was different.

00:27:05.620 –> 00:27:09.460

Mike Vittorio: It was, I recognize you’re better than me, and now he’s trying to help me.

00:27:09.640 –> 00:27:13.000

Mike Vittorio: It’s this very like, I’m up here, let me pull you up and bring you up here.

00:27:14.440 –> 00:27:15.160

Austin Edwards: Which is awesome.

00:27:15.480 –> 00:27:17.640

Austin Edwards: I played tennis for a long, grew up playing tennis.

00:27:17.660 –> 00:27:22.680

Austin Edwards: I don’t know, I don’t really feel like that’s true across the board in tennis.

00:27:22.700 –> 00:27:24.840

Austin Edwards: So yeah, that’s a good point.

00:27:24.860 –> 00:27:26.900

Austin Edwards: That is a very special sort of connection.

00:27:27.740 –> 00:27:32.400

Austin Edwards: And we have a guy here who actually found me through the site, or maybe our Instagram site.

00:27:32.400 –> 00:27:36.620

Austin Edwards: He’s from Buenos Aires and has played in Argentina for 10 years.

00:27:36.640 –> 00:27:38.520

Austin Edwards: He’s by far our best player in Charleston.

00:27:39.600 –> 00:27:41.000

Austin Edwards: Super nice, super nice guy.

00:27:41.020 –> 00:27:44.580

Austin Edwards: But I mean, he is so just light years above all of us.

00:27:45.360 –> 00:27:48.100

Austin Edwards: But like you said, he’s so happy to play with us.

00:27:48.160 –> 00:27:53.080

Austin Edwards: He’s coaching us in a very positive way, not like talking down to us.

00:27:53.100 –> 00:27:54.680

Austin Edwards: Just like, he’s like, you should really try this.

00:27:54.700 –> 00:27:55.660

Austin Edwards: You should really try that.

00:27:56.540 –> 00:28:02.360

Austin Edwards: Which is great to see because a lot of people of that skill level would go somewhere and just be like, I don’t have time for these people.

00:28:03.120 –> 00:28:04.980

Austin Edwards: But yeah, it’s truly, truly not like that.

00:28:06.180 –> 00:28:11.900

Mike Vittorio: What would you say is like the biggest problem with Padel in the United States right now, or biggest missing piece?

00:28:13.160 –> 00:28:17.440

Austin Edwards: I think it probably is, as we discussed earlier, the sort of access and the pricing.

00:28:18.200 –> 00:28:20.640

Austin Edwards: And that there’s nothing you can do about it.

00:28:21.260 –> 00:28:22.600

Austin Edwards: It’s not anybody’s fault.

00:28:22.620 –> 00:28:24.080

Austin Edwards: I think that’ll just take time.

00:28:24.600 –> 00:28:42.120

Austin Edwards: And I think to get sort of to a critical mass, it’s going to have to be maybe like two to three times as many clubs and courts as we have right now to kind of get it where it’s out there and everyone’s seen it and willing to try it, and it’s maybe cost effective enough for people to try it.

00:28:42.140 –> 00:28:44.180

Austin Edwards: Because you know, in a lot of…

00:28:45.020 –> 00:28:55.340

Austin Edwards: But like, for instance, if you live in Virginia, there’s like a padel plant is going to open in Richmond, and then eventually Epic is going to open some stuff in Northern Virginia.

00:28:55.360 –> 00:28:58.720

Austin Edwards: But for the rest of the state, if you’re interested in playing, what do you do?

00:28:58.740 –> 00:28:59.640

Austin Edwards: Do you drive to…

00:28:59.660 –> 00:29:01.500

Austin Edwards: Do you drive to Richmond?

00:29:01.520 –> 00:29:03.020

Austin Edwards: Do you drive to Northern Virginia?

00:29:03.040 –> 00:29:04.060

Austin Edwards: Do you fly up there?

00:29:04.080 –> 00:29:05.140

Austin Edwards: Do you just go to tournaments?

00:29:05.840 –> 00:29:07.500

Austin Edwards: But it’ll be tough until you get…

00:29:07.780 –> 00:29:16.280

Austin Edwards: You know, you start to get courts in Norfolk and Virginia Beach and Richmond, and then you can start to feel comfortable playing tournament.

00:29:16.300 –> 00:29:22.400

Austin Edwards: You’re like, well, I’ve played in my home, and now I do want to travel to Richmond one weekend to play a tournament.

00:29:22.620 –> 00:29:30.360

Austin Edwards: But you know, right now, it’s just sort of so spread out, and it is just the accessibility, but that’s just how it’s got to be.

00:29:32.060 –> 00:29:35.080

Austin Edwards: The sport can’t start with 10,000 courts, right?

00:29:35.080 –> 00:29:38.100

Austin Edwards: It’s got to start with one and grow to 10,000.

00:29:38.960 –> 00:29:46.780

Austin Edwards: But I think that’ll be the big thing, is just getting more courts out there, getting it in front of more people, basically.

00:29:47.260 –> 00:29:55.480

Mike Vittorio: I think there’s a huge opportunity for us to be, us smaller guys, to be outside of that institutional money and maybe aim for the crowd.

00:29:55.860 –> 00:29:59.880

Mike Vittorio: I do think Virginia Beach, to your point, is going to be a phenomenal place.

00:30:01.100 –> 00:30:03.980

Austin Edwards: It’s interesting you say that, because they’re really sort of not.

00:30:04.000 –> 00:30:18.080

Austin Edwards: I feel like he keeps sort of describing the epic concept as like the Chick-fil-A or the Five Guys of the padel world, meaning just very desirable, it’s good, you want to eat there, but it’s not high bread, it’s not high dollar.

00:30:18.980 –> 00:30:24.660

Austin Edwards: And they are targeting a lot of sort of mid-markets, like I would think of Virginia Beach, which I think is great.

00:30:24.680 –> 00:30:38.440

Austin Edwards: I mean, that’s going to be huge to really growing the sport, because if all you have all the time is, you know, reserve opening another club, or not that that’s not awesome, or even, you know, padel house, that’s just a different stratosphere.

00:30:38.460 –> 00:30:47.620

Austin Edwards: You’re only going to grow the sport to the whatever X percent of people that fit into that mold, and that’s not really growth.

00:30:47.660 –> 00:30:52.300

Austin Edwards: That’s just sort of filling out your niche market.

00:30:53.340 –> 00:30:59.740

Austin Edwards: But it’ll take something like, I think what Tim is talking about with Epic, to really start to grow the sport.

00:30:59.800 –> 00:31:12.320

Austin Edwards: One thing he told me that they’re doing, which I think is an interesting concept, is, you know, they’re, he’s like, so many clubs are worried about their, you know, we want to open 20 clubs, we want to open this, we want this and that.

00:31:12.680 –> 00:31:19.360

Austin Edwards: And he’s said that his, their focus is really less on clubs than just courts.

00:31:20.240 –> 00:31:34.920

Austin Edwards: So he’s like, you know, if there’s a tennis facility that has some extra room, and they would let us build two padel courts with our brand on the padel courts, we don’t need to feel like we opened a new club, we just want to get the sport out there and we want our brand on it.

00:31:35.320 –> 00:31:51.080

Austin Edwards: Or if there’s a gym, you know, there’s a, I know the ceiling height is a concern, but if there’s a Gold’s Gym that has an extra, however many thousand square feet, we go in there and build three padel courts with our brand on them, which I think is a pretty interesting strategy.

00:31:51.700 –> 00:32:18.420

Austin Edwards: And another thing that’s interesting about that is you don’t, I’m sure there’s some permitting that goes into that, but that’s, you know, there are already zones to be a gym or to be a tennis facility, so you don’t have to worry about zoning, ostensibly the groundwork is more or less already done, like you’re not having to start from scratch with concrete or leveling or, because that was one thing we learned the hard way at our Columbia Court, which is not a for-profit thing at all.

00:32:18.440 –> 00:32:28.980

Austin Edwards: It’s just wanted to do it as the rate majority of our cost for that court was concrete work, leveling work, draining.

00:32:29.000 –> 00:32:30.740

Austin Edwards: It wasn’t really the court at all.

00:32:30.760 –> 00:32:37.000

Austin Edwards: The court was actually probably, percentage-wise, was actually a small percentage of what we ended up paying.

00:32:37.880 –> 00:32:48.020

Austin Edwards: But anyway, if you can go into existing facilities and take advantage of their infrastructure and the fact that they’ve already done permitting and they’ve already got a business license.

00:32:48.080 –> 00:33:05.200

Austin Edwards: Not that Brooklyn and Manhattan and places like that aren’t awesome spots, but I also think in smaller communities like Virginia Beach, you probably do get a much more tight-knit group of people that are going to be there for a while and have known each other for a while.

00:33:05.200 –> 00:33:16.080

Austin Edwards: And I think you can build stronger communities versus those other kind of places that are probably a little more transient and a little more, you know, what’s hot today, what’s less about trends and things.

00:33:17.100 –> 00:33:22.020

Austin Edwards: So yeah, I think there’s a lot of opportunity in that sort of mid-tier markets for sure.

00:33:23.080 –> 00:33:26.080

Mike Vittorio: : What’s the next step for your website?

00:33:26.100 –> 00:33:34.620

Austin Edwards: We’re actually, which is a very positive thing, getting quite a bit of interest from various groups to advertise and do sponsorship stuff.

00:33:35.900 –> 00:33:58.520

Austin Edwards: So start, you know, we do have our three launch sponsors, which are Knox and then the combination of Favoretti and Padellux, and then Matchi, the Swedish software company, who they’d probably be an interesting chat for you too, because they’re in a lot of new clubs in the US, and really interesting.

00:33:58.640 –> 00:34:07.220

Austin Edwards: I got to talk with them at Rack-A-Dex, and they’ve seen the sort of rise and fall that happened in Sweden.

00:34:07.240 –> 00:34:13.360

Austin Edwards: So I think they’re pretty savvy about how to kind of, you know, avoid that happening in the US.

00:34:14.080 –> 00:34:15.800

Austin Edwards: But sorry, back to your point.

00:34:15.860 –> 00:34:54.240

Austin Edwards: Yeah, just start to really build out, you know, partnerships, get some more advertising, monetize the site a little bit more, talk to with some content partnerships with various people to just kind of either co-brand content or sort of co-host content to just get a little bit more, you know, just more collaboration again, across content that’s coming out of the US quality content, like obviously what you’re doing and what Padel Smash Academy guys are doing, just to find ways that we can kind of work together to, you know, how I can help them reach a broader audience and vice versa, that kind of thing.

00:34:55.060 –> 00:34:56.500

Mike Vittorio: How many options of padels are there?

00:34:56.980 –> 00:34:59.720

Mike Vittorio: I mean, hundreds, hundreds.

00:34:59.720 –> 00:35:13.260

Austin Edwards: Yeah, Julian at the Padel Smash Academy, he told me that there’s now well over 300 different padel manufacturer, racket manufacturers, which is just insane.

00:35:13.280 –> 00:35:20.120

Austin Edwards: I mean, it’s truly tennis has maybe 10 to 15, squash has like five.

00:35:21.620 –> 00:35:37.840

Austin Edwards: Well, and somebody else too recently told me, and I don’t know if this is scientific or proven fact, but it doesn’t surprise me that even though you have those 300 different plus brands, there’s really only about five different manufacturing facilities that are making all of this.

00:35:38.160 –> 00:35:39.720

Austin Edwards: Everything’s just kind of white labeled.

00:35:40.180 –> 00:35:44.860

Austin Edwards: And it’s just you got to think of a cool brand and signature to slap on it.

00:35:44.980 –> 00:35:47.360

Austin Edwards: And so there’s really not that much difference.

00:35:47.380 –> 00:35:50.060

Austin Edwards: It’s just a massive sort of rush.

00:35:50.820 –> 00:36:02.160

Austin Edwards: And I think that’ll be consolidation or people that just kind of drop out because they sort of have to because they can’t compete with the big names and so forth.

00:36:02.180 –> 00:36:07.140

Austin Edwards: But that was truly one of my biggest takeaways from RacketX.

00:36:07.160 –> 00:36:12.820

Austin Edwards: I went in the first day of RacketX and I was like after walking around, I’m just kind of the booths or whatever.

00:36:13.240 –> 00:36:24.680

Austin Edwards: First thing I thought of, I was like, man, I’m glad I’m not in the racket business right now because I would be pretty nervous given how many different brands and how many people are doing the exact same thing.

00:36:24.700 –> 00:36:27.380

Austin Edwards: And so many of them look, I mean, they look cool.

00:36:27.620 –> 00:36:32.480

Austin Edwards: Like Osaka had all their stuff there that I haven’t played with it, but looks super cool.

00:36:32.500 –> 00:36:37.960

Austin Edwards: And then Slausinger had their stuff and I’m a big like sort of vintage old school tennis lover.

00:36:37.980 –> 00:36:39.400

Austin Edwards: So I was like, that’s awesome.

00:36:39.420 –> 00:36:46.320

Austin Edwards: But I wouldn’t want to be in that business trying to differentiate myself from 299 other competitors.

00:36:47.000 –> 00:36:48.620

Mike Vittorio: So I play this little game.

00:36:48.880 –> 00:36:50.660

Mike Vittorio: I call it Rosebud Thorn.

00:36:51.240 –> 00:36:55.980

Mike Vittorio: So Rose is something, something good that just happened.

00:36:56.620 –> 00:37:02.300

Austin Edwards: Well, I won an Americano tournament the other day, which was, which was nice.

00:37:02.320 –> 00:37:07.180

Austin Edwards: And it was largely because our, the Argentine I mentioned did not play for the first time.

00:37:07.200 –> 00:37:11.620

Austin Edwards: We do these almost weekly and he had some sort of lunch he had to attend.

00:37:11.660 –> 00:37:16.800

Austin Edwards: So I was able to finally win an Americano thanks to Gabby not being in attendance.

00:37:17.800 –> 00:37:19.500

Mike Vittorio: : Oh, so this is a padel, a padel tournament?

00:37:19.620 –> 00:37:20.620

Austin Edwards: Well, we just do it.

00:37:20.640 –> 00:37:25.900

Austin Edwards: There’s a group of us that play usually on Sundays, but we do it in like an, you know, an Americano format.

00:37:25.920 –> 00:37:27.580

Austin Edwards: Have you done that in Spain?

00:37:27.600 –> 00:37:28.340

Austin Edwards: No, I’m not familiar.

00:37:28.620 –> 00:37:30.880

Austin Edwards: So basically if you, we did it for the first time.

00:37:30.900 –> 00:37:33.360

Austin Edwards: We played in a sort of an official one in St.

00:37:33.380 –> 00:37:35.840

Austin Edwards: Louis, a couple at their padel and pickle in St.

00:37:35.860 –> 00:37:36.120

Austin Edwards: Louis.

00:37:36.140 –> 00:37:40.240

Austin Edwards: There was maybe 16 people, but there’s various apps you can buy.

00:37:40.300 –> 00:37:48.580

Austin Edwards: There’s one that you can pay 10 bucks for that I would highly, because some of them are free and they don’t really work, but there’s one that’s 10 bucks, one time payment, and that’s it.

00:37:49.280 –> 00:37:58.840

Austin Edwards: And you basically, you just put everyone’s name into it, and then it randomizes partners so that you play with every other person in the tournament once.

00:37:59.960 –> 00:38:02.260

Austin Edwards: And then you play 16 points.

00:38:02.540 –> 00:38:08.360

Austin Edwards: So you would serve for, your opponent would serve for, if I was your partner, I would serve for, they would serve for.

00:38:09.540 –> 00:38:11.680

Austin Edwards: If it ends eight all, you just end in a tie.

00:38:12.120 –> 00:38:15.520

Austin Edwards: And then the app keeps track of your individual points.

00:38:15.700 –> 00:38:20.180

Austin Edwards: And then at the end, you have a one person wins by virtue of having the most points.

00:38:20.300 –> 00:38:22.540

Austin Edwards: So, and that’s Americano.

00:38:22.560 –> 00:38:30.340

Austin Edwards: It’s a great format if you have more than four people, because you don’t, you never have to think about who’s on court next or what order you’re going to play in or anything.

00:38:30.360 –> 00:38:32.100

Austin Edwards: And it does everything for you.

00:38:32.120 –> 00:38:41.340

Austin Edwards: So yeah, I did one, I won my first Americano thanks to, again, just thanks to the best player not being there, but that’s all right.

00:38:41.600 –> 00:38:42.220

Mike Vittorio: That’s awesome.

00:38:42.280 –> 00:38:42.880

Austin Edwards: Congratulations.

00:38:42.900 –> 00:38:43.780

Austin Edwards: I’ll take what I can get.

00:38:44.800 –> 00:38:45.800

Mike Vittorio: Yeah, take it, man.

00:38:46.560 –> 00:38:47.460

Mike Vittorio: We did that.

00:38:47.480 –> 00:38:48.400

Mike Vittorio: We just didn’t know the name.

00:38:48.400 –> 00:38:51.280

Mike Vittorio: We would have eight guys and we didn’t know that’s what it was called.

00:38:51.960 –> 00:38:54.980

Mike Vittorio: So a bud is something that you’re excited about that’s coming up.

00:38:56.000 –> 00:38:58.760

Austin Edwards: One thing, I hope I can pull it off.

00:38:58.980 –> 00:39:08.460

Austin Edwards: Obviously, the second event of the PPL for this year is in San Diego from, I believe, I want to say August 18th, 25th, something like that.

00:39:08.480 –> 00:39:12.740

Austin Edwards: So I’m hoping to get out there and see PPL for the first time.

00:39:13.280 –> 00:39:15.700

Austin Edwards: I’ve played at Tactica in San Diego, but not.

00:39:15.720 –> 00:39:19.140

Austin Edwards: The first time I played there was way back before they did their expansion.

00:39:19.160 –> 00:39:20.460

Austin Edwards: So see their new facility.

00:39:21.020 –> 00:39:23.640

Austin Edwards: I’d love to have some friends that live up the coast a little bit.

00:39:23.660 –> 00:39:24.680

Austin Edwards: So I’d love to go see it.

00:39:24.700 –> 00:39:30.420

Austin Edwards: There’s a club in Oceanside, California, which is a little maybe 30 minutes north of San Diego called Padel California.

00:39:30.440 –> 00:39:31.820

Austin Edwards: It has a couple of courts.

00:39:31.840 –> 00:39:41.320

Austin Edwards: So I’m hoping to do a little California padel road trip in August, which would be, you know, besides padel, travel is one of my favorite things in the whole world.

00:39:41.320 –> 00:39:44.740

Austin Edwards: So getting to travel for padel and vice versa would be a lot of fun.

00:39:44.760 –> 00:39:45.680

Mike Vittorio: That’s amazing.

00:39:45.700 –> 00:39:47.060

Mike Vittorio: : You’re making a living out of a dream.

00:39:47.200 –> 00:39:47.920

Mike Vittorio: That’s so cool.

00:39:48.460 –> 00:39:55.240

Mike Vittorio: Then Thorn would be something that you kind of got a roadblock or speed bump you’re trying to get through.

00:39:55.700 –> 00:40:01.960

Austin Edwards: Honestly, on the site side of things, it’s just I have no skill for technology whatsoever.

00:40:01.960 –> 00:40:15.880

Austin Edwards: Tech and I do not get along, and I’m just having to fly by the seat of my pants and learn how to do, as you may be doing as well with the podcast, just every day I feel like three more things break on the tech side of things.

00:40:16.000 –> 00:40:19.460

Austin Edwards: But at the same time, it’s good because I’m learning new things all the time.

00:40:19.480 –> 00:40:24.000

Austin Edwards: I’m watching YouTube videos, figuring out how to do various things behind the scenes.

00:40:24.160 –> 00:40:30.420

Austin Edwards: And it gives me a lot of appreciation for people that work in this kind of world.

00:40:30.440 –> 00:40:35.900

Austin Edwards: Because when it works, it works, and you don’t even think about it, and you’re just like, it should work like that.

00:40:35.920 –> 00:40:41.480

Austin Edwards: But a lot of things can break, and it takes a lot of effort behind the scenes to make things like this work.

00:40:41.500 –> 00:40:45.440

Austin Edwards: So it’s a pain, but it’s a good learning experience.

00:40:45.440 –> 00:40:47.220

Austin Edwards: And that’d be my thorn.

00:40:47.460 –> 00:40:48.960

Austin Edwards: Tech is always the thorn in my side.

00:40:48.980 –> 00:40:49.640

Mike Vittorio: I get it.

00:40:49.640 –> 00:40:52.600

Mike Vittorio: I’ve learned like four new programs in the last week and a half.

00:40:53.520 –> 00:40:54.560

Mike Vittorio: I appreciate it, Austin.

00:40:54.620 –> 00:40:55.700

Mike Vittorio: : Thanks for taking the time.

00:40:56.360 –> 00:40:56.940

Austin Edwards: Absolutely.

00:40:56.960 –> 00:40:57.700

Austin Edwards: Thank you so much, Mike.

00:40:59.720 –> 00:41:02.240

Mike Vittorio: : Thanks for listening to this episode of The Padelcast.

00:41:02.680 –> 00:41:04.080

Mike Vittorio: : That wraps it up for today’s show.

00:41:04.080 –> 00:41:09.180

Mike Vittorio: : Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel where we post the best highlights from recent matches, as well as more padel media.

00:41:09.560 –> 00:41:14.800

Mike Vittorio: : If you’d like to follow Austin, check out thepadelstate.com or click the link in today’s show notes.

00:41:15.200 –> 00:41:18.280

Mike Vittorio: : Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review if you are so inclined.

00:41:18.600 –> 00:41:26.480

Mike Vittorio: : Subscribe to learn more about our next guest, Tim Baten, the CEO of Epic Padel, plans on being the biggest player in padel in the United States.