Is Padel Having Its Booking.com Moment?

Booking platforms make it easier for players to find an available court. For a club, they can open up a visibility channel, make bookings easier and reduce the administrative burden of handling payments. But when a significant share of activity goes through an intermediary, a question arises: who really controls the relationship with the player?

The comparison with Booking.com is useful for examining this tension. It does not mean that padel platforms have the same market power. Rather, it invites us to look at how intermediation works, and what clubs choose to delegate to these platforms.

A useful channel, with a cost to understand

Playtomic offers booking and payment features for activities provided by clubs. Its terms set out service fees that vary by country and situation: they may be charged to the player or, in some cases, paid by the club. In its documentation on one billing model, the platform says commissions are deducted from online payments and that the corresponding transactions are visible in the Stripe account associated with the club. A guide to its distribution model also explains that the amounts transferred to the club are reduced by the platform’s fees.

These arrangements do not mean that every club faces the same cost. The country, contract and model used all matter. They nevertheless remind us that a marketplace is not a neutral channel: in exchange for the services and visibility it provides, it may charge fees. For a club operator, the right comparison is to weigh that cost against the bookings generated, the time saved and the other ways available to attract players.

“Who owns the player?”: a question that needs clarifying

The phrase is striking, but it can be misleading. A player belongs neither to a club nor to a platform. However, several practical issues need to be distinguished: who has the information needed to manage bookings? Who can communicate with players, and under what conditions? Can the club retrieve its information and stay in touch if its main channel changes?

Playtomic says it processes certain account data as a data controller. That clarification alone does not determine who controls all the data related to a club’s activity, or who controls its commercial relationship with players. The answers may depend on the contracts, settings and categories of information involved. They should therefore be checked case by case, rather than inferred from a broad label such as “data ownership.”

Booking and Uber Eats: comparisons, not equivalents

The European Commission designated Booking.com as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act in May 2024. This documents the company’s status under that regulation, but does not prove that padel booking platforms have comparable market power.

Uber Eats’ US terms show, in another sector and a different legal context, that marketplace fees and rules on access to data and tools are part of the relationship between a platform and a merchant. This comparison helps frame the right questions; it does not establish that the same rules apply to padel. Nor do the available materials support a specific comparison with Deliveroo.

Keep several ways in

A marketplace can be a valuable channel without becoming the only way in. Clubs can seek a balance: benefit from the discovery and booking it makes easier, while retaining tools and practices that let them manage their activity and communicate directly with their players, in compliance with applicable rules.

The issue, then, is not choosing between a platform and a club. It is deciding where control lies. A model in which the club remains in control of its technology, while the marketplace remains one channel among others, is an option worth considering. Whether it is right will depend on each organisation’s needs, costs and specific circumstances.

The NextSet philosophy: technology in service of the club

The NextSet philosophy follows this approach: giving clubs tools to manage their operations and retain control of how they are organised, while allowing them to use different channels to promote their courts and make bookings easier. The marketplace can therefore remain one way in among others, rather than becoming the only point of contact with players.

To learn more about padel club management software, court bookings, or to request a demo, discover NextSet’s solutions.

AI-generated illustration · NextSet.