World’s biggest padel club: Rowland eyes mega project after taking racket sport public
British entrepreneur Jonathan Rowland has stepped up plans to build the world’s biggest padel venue by creating the first listed investment vehicle focused on niche racket sports.
Rowland today announced a deal to use Aquis-listed VVV Sports to acquire his R3 Sport, which operates tournaments, manages players, and has retail and distribution partnerships in padel.
Upon completion, the £30m company will represent what is thought to be the only public pure-play vehicle for investing in padel, pickleball and other niche sports properties.
“We’re positioning ourselves now as a sports and media business with really niche sports at the core of what we do,” Rowland told City PM.
“That obviously incorporates padel, and that’s probably our most visible business, but we are about to do something very big in pickleball and we’ve created a production company around racket sports. But the main rationale is to bring R3 and VVV together to create a more powerful, financially stable and opportunistic vehicle.
“Bringing these two companies together gives us more access to capital, more visibility, and brings new ideas and new people into the business to create something that doesn’t really exist, which is a pure play on this sort of investment. Everywhere you look now there is investment into sport and it’s becoming a real asset class which is unstoppable at the moment.”
Abu Dhabi mega venue to be global padel hub
Rowland, the founder of Redwood Bank and son of renowned financier David Rowland, launched R3 last year. It staged four tournaments this year, including second-tier international events in London and Bristol, and manages the careers of leading British players including Catherine Rose and Christian Medina Murphy.
Among its most ambitious plans is a proposal to build a £100m padel venue in Abu Dhabi, comprising 25 courts, accommodation for visiting elite players, catering, physio services and facilities for pickleball.
He added: “There’s an opportunity, which I am progressing at speed now, to create the largest padel venue in the world in conjunction with Abu Dhabi Inc, which will have satellites in Spain, the UK and USA, but UAE being the the hub of it in Abu Dhabi. And from that, we intend to create our own global tournament for professional players.
“We’ve done a feasibility study. We spent over half a million dollars on it. It will be the whole package for professional athletes to come and use from a global perspective. So we are looking to attract, other than the pay-to-play people on the ground in the UAE, national teams to come and train there for a week.”
Abu Dhabi is already home to globally recognised sports venues including the Yas Marina racetrack, Zayed Sports City Stadium, Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi Golf Club and Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium.