Padel: Can Digital Technology Become a Real Differentiator for Clubs?

As the number of padel clubs grows, the experience they offer is no longer limited to the court and booking. Digital technology can now support players before, during and after a match: helping them find partners, organise a game, follow the score, revisit the best rallies or analyse their play.

These uses are beginning to appear across different providers’ offerings, but with widely varying levels of maturity. For clubs, the challenge is no longer just to go digital, but to determine which technologies genuinely benefit players and can fit naturally into their day-to-day operations.

From connected scoring to highlights: understanding what is on offer

Features vary considerably from one solution to another.

In a press release published in 2024, PlaySight describes a service that automatically generates highlights after a match for players to view or share. Access depends, however, on clubs being equipped: the feature is therefore not available on every court.

BluePadel, for its part, offers some apps that let players enter the score on a watch and record data such as heart rate and calories. The company distinguishes these features from automatic camera-based score detection, which is still presented as experimental, and highlights, announced as a future development.

SKORZ is developing a broader approach combining score entry, video recording, highlights, live streaming and a digital scoreboard. Some features based on artificial intelligence or report generation appear on its 2026 roadmap, however, and should therefore be distinguished from services that are already available.

This distinction between a technology that is on the market, a pilot and an announced feature is essential when a club is evaluating a solution.

A richer experience… if it stays simple

These technologies open up interesting possibilities.

Rewatching a spectacular point a few minutes after a match, sharing a highlight on social media, keeping a record of the score or gradually gaining statistics about one’s game could extend the experience well beyond the 90 minutes spent on court.

But an innovation is valuable only if it is easy to use.

Video analysis, for example, depends heavily on the quality of the footage and the algorithms’ ability to correctly recognise players, rallies and match events. Video also raises questions about consent, footage retention and data protection.

The best system is therefore not necessarily the one with the most features, but the one that makes them almost invisible to the player.

The connected club extends beyond the court

The digital transformation of padel is also taking place off the court.

For example, Nettla offers a platform bringing together bookings, lessons, player levels, leagues and CRM, including a booking agent via WhatsApp.

This development reflects a broader trend: management tools and tools designed for players are gradually beginning to converge.

Bookings, finding partners, competitions, communications, scores, statistics and video content are not, ultimately, separate experiences. They are all part of the same player journey.

NextSet: building a complete digital experience around the player

It is precisely this convergence that NextSet is focused on.

Rather than adding another standalone app to a club’s ecosystem, NextSet is designed as a platform that can connect club management and the player experience.

Court schedules, bookings, matches, tournaments, player profiles, levels, results and score tracking can all belong to the same environment.

The value goes beyond simply making administration easier.

When a platform knows the player, the matches they take part in, their partners, opponents, results and activity at the club, it can gradually build the context needed to offer much more intelligent services.

Finding compatible partners, automatically organising matches, recommendations, personalised statistics or analysing certain sequences of play can then become natural extensions of the platform rather than separate services.

It is also with this in mind that NextSet is exploring the new possibilities offered by artificial intelligence and video analysis. The aim is not to add technology for its own sake, but to determine how it can concretely enrich the player experience and provide clubs with new services.

From booking software to a sports platform

The padel market could follow a pattern already seen in other industries: moving from an accumulation of specialised tools to platforms capable of connecting the entire experience.

For a club, the question will soon be more than simply whether it has software for booking a court.

It will be about knowing what happens before the booking, during the match and after the final point.

That is precisely NextSet’s ambition: to build a platform where digital technology can progressively support the entire player journey, while giving clubs the tools they need to manage their operations.

The next revolution in padel will probably not come from a camera, a watch or an algorithm on its own.

It will come from the ability to connect all these experiences around the player and the club.