How many people play padel in Spain?

How to get close to this number

Work from population and participation. The country has just under fifty million people, and a sport described as the second most played nationally would involve somewhere around a tenth of the population. A tenth of fifty million gives a figure in the millions, which is right.

The court statistic in the explanation is the structural reason: this country has more padel courts than the rest of the world combined. Participation in any sport is limited by facilities more than by interest, and a country that built the infrastructure first gets the participation — which is also why the sport is growing fastest in the countries now building courts.

The growth is worth watching rather than just noting. This is currently the fastest-growing racket sport globally, expanding from a national phenomenon into an international one, which means a figure describing one country today describes an early stage of something larger. Sports participation figures for a growing sport age faster than almost any other statistic here.