Marcos del Pilar, Pro Padel League
Padel Educator and Co-Founder
September 21, 2026
Marcos del Pilar left a successful life in Spain in 2017 to build padel as a business in the United States, where clubs, investors, and property owners kept telling him no. He had already built and run five tennis and padel venues in Spain. Since then he has helped bring the first Padel World Championship to U.S. soil, co-founded the Pro Padel League, led the USPA, and certified more than 1,500 padel coaches. People call him the Godfather of Padel in the U.S.
Key Takeaways
- Why Marcos says to build the business model before building the courts.
- Leaving Spain to create a category in a country that kept saying no to padel.
- Why courts are only the physical asset, and coaches, staff, and programming bring players back.
- The questions a tennis or pickleball club needs to answer before adding padel.
- His projection of 20,000 U.S. courts and 15 million players by 2030, and why padel cannot stay a luxury product.
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