A campaign for public padel courts in San Francisco
Padel is the fastest-growing sport in the world.
Let's give everyone in San Francisco a place to play.
All 21 padel courts in this city are private. A game for four runs $120 to $160 an hour. There is nowhere you can just show up and play.
Madrid, Barcelona and Mexico City put padel in their public parks. No American city has yet. San Francisco can be first — two courts, one neighborhood park, open to anyone.
Takes five seconds. Name, email, done.
Why padel
Almost nobody plays padel just once
Playtomic, which handles bookings for much of the world's padel, found that 92% of players come back after their first game. Regulars play about four times a month. Hardly any sport holds people like that.
The reason isn't complicated. It's doubles tennis in a glass box. The walls keep the ball alive, the serve is underhand, and the court is small. A beginner and a veteran can share a court and both enjoy it. Ask a tennis player how often that happens.
Never seen it played?
- Always doubles, on a court about 66 by 33 feet, walled in glass.
- Tennis scoring. 15, 30, 40, game.
- Underhand serve, after one bounce.
- The walls are in play. That's why rallies last.
- Simple gear. A short solid racquet, no strings, a slightly softer ball.
- 92%come back after their first game
- 4×a month for a typical regular
- 7,000+new courts built worldwide in a year
It's social by design. No singles padel, so every hour is four people talking between points. Racquet-sport players have a 47% lower risk of dying from any cause. And a court fits inside a single tennis court while serving twice the players, which counts for a lot in a 49-square-mile city.
San Francisco already knows it works. The courts at Embarcadero Plaza got busy enough that a third one followed.
Other cities
Everywhere padel took off, cities built courts
Padel isn't new anywhere else. It's the ordinary Tuesday-evening sport of a dozen countries, and the places that do it best all landed on the same answer.
17,300
Courts in Spain
Six million players, one in eight Spaniards. The fastest-growing slice is municipal — courts in city sports centres and public parks, from about €5 an hour.
$22
A court hour in Mexico City
Split four ways, that's pocket money. Courts sit in central neighbourhoods you can reach on the Metro.
58,000+
Courts worldwide
Six times the 2016 count. UK participation more than doubled in 2025 alone.
Spain didn't subsidise padel into being affordable. Cities treated a court as ordinary park equipment, like a basketball hoop, and put them where people already were. The private clubs kept growing alongside them.
America hasn't done this yet
Every city on that list is in Europe or Latin America. Here, padel has grown through private clubs and resorts, not public parks. The professional tour now runs 26 events across five continents with exactly one American stop, and cities are queuing up to host.
No major American city has made padel public yet. San Francisco is usually early to this sort of thing. We built public tennis courts a century ago and we're still using them. Being first this time costs about $150,000.
Have your say
Where should the first courts go?
Every site below already has racquet courts, so this is a conversion, not a construction project. Pick the one you'd actually play at.
Click a marker to read about a site and vote.
One vote per person. Results update live.
Sign
The petition
Five seconds. Name and email, that's it.
To the SF Recreation & Park Commission, General Manager, and Board of Supervisors:
Padel is the fastest-growing sport in the world and San Francisco has taken to it. The courts at Embarcadero Plaza filled up fast enough that another was added. What the city doesn't have is a public place to play.
We ask SF Recreation & Parks to build and operate public padel courts, starting with two courts on an underused tennis court in a neighbourhood chosen with residents. Run them like every other court: free or low-cost, booked through the system the department already uses.
Two courts on an existing pad costs roughly $150,000 to $250,000. Residents helped deliver the $27M Goldman Tennis Center. We're asking for about one percent of that.
No major American city has made padel a public amenity yet. San Francisco has led on parks before, and it can lead on this while the cost is still small.
Recent signatures
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How we get there
The plan
Embarcadero Plaza starts a $40M rebuild in late 2026, and the Community Opportunity Fund opens its next application window around February 2027.
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Phase 1
Show there's demand now → late 2026
2,500 signatures, a winning park from the public vote, and enough people on the list to fill a hearing room on two weeks' notice.
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Phase 2
Get it on the record late 2026 → January 2027
Public comment at the monthly Commission meeting, a meeting with the district supervisor, the department's court usage data, and a firm quote from a court builder.
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Phase 3
Apply to the Community Opportunity Fund ~February 2027
$6M set aside for capital improvements that residents themselves propose for their neighbourhood parks.
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Phase 4
Bring partners in 2027
The Goldman Tennis Center playbook: a fiscally sponsored nonprofit, a court builder who wants the first municipal install in the country, and local sponsors.
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Phase 5
Build it, then do it again 2027 → 2028
Open the courts, publish how much they get used, and use that to argue for the next four.
Questions
Things people ask us
I've never played. Is it hard?
No, and that's the appeal. Underhand serve, walls that keep the ball in play, a small court. Most people are having real rallies within fifteen minutes.
Why should San Francisco go first?
Because nobody in America has. Padel is enormous in Europe and Latin America, and here it has grown almost entirely through private clubs. The pro tour has one US stop. A city that builds public courts now gets the sport's growth, the events that follow it, and the credit for being early — at a cost that won't be this low again.
Why public courts when there are already clubs?
Same reason we have public tennis courts and private tennis clubs. Public courts are where you try a sport before committing to it, and where kids pick it up. Every city that's good at padel has both.
Would this take courts from tennis players?
We're looking at single-court tennis sites, which are the hardest to use. One match ties one up for ninety minutes. Put padel on that slab and four people rotate through all afternoon. At bigger complexes there's room to add rather than convert.
Is it noisy?
Less than you'd expect. A softer ball and a damped racquet make it sound closer to tennis, and glass walls contain sound rather than throw it around.
Can the city afford it?
Two courts on an existing pad runs about $150,000 to $250,000. The Community Opportunity Fund alone holds $6 million for projects residents propose.
What about upkeep?
Turf and tempered glass on a slab that's already there. Less work than a tennis court's surface and net, and booking runs through the system Rec & Park already uses.
Does anyone here actually play?
Enough that the Embarcadero courts justified adding a third, and the city's 21 or so courts stay booked.
Who's behind this?
Residents who love the sport and want more people to be able to try it. No affiliation with or funding from any padel club, operator or equipment company, or from SF Recreation & Parks. If that ever changes we'll say so here.
How can I help beyond signing?
Send one email, vote for a park, join the list. When a hearing gets scheduled we'll tell you the date and the room.
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