Barcelona’s Padel World Summit expands, signaling sport’s global industry shift

Barcelona’s Padel World Summit is growing into something bigger than a busy trade fair. With 130 exhibitors, 56% of them international, and exhibition floor space up 35% from the 2025 edition, the third installment has become a clear sign that the city is moving from padel hotspot to padel boardroom.

The summit will run from May 26 to May 28 in Hall 6 of Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue, with a format built to serve the business side of the sport: an exhibition area, the Global Padel Conference, an Innovation Arena and a Business Lounge. Organized with the International Padel Cluster, the event is designed to bring together brands, manufacturers, court builders, coaches, federations, investors and specialist service providers that are chasing the sport’s next phase of growth.

That expansion reflects how padel is changing. Alex Ponseti, in a February 2026 interview, said the global padel business exceeds 2 billion euros a year and is growing at about 15% annually. He also pointed to Barcelona hosting both the Premier Padel Finals and the Padel World Summit as proof that the city has become an epicenter for the industry, not just a place where the sport is popular.

The numbers from the summit’s first Barcelona edition explain why the event is scaling up. The 2025 show, held from May 27 to May 29 after a 2024 edition in Málaga, drew 5,838 visitors. Forty percent came from abroad, and participants represented 80 countries, giving Barcelona an international footprint that went well beyond Spain’s domestic market. Fira said the 2025 format already included an exhibition area, congress, investor forum and on-court demonstrations, so the business emphasis was there from the start.

The broader market backdrop is just as strong. The FIP World Padel Report 2025 was built to track the sport’s global growth using federation data from five continents, and industry reporting tied to that report says global padel players now exceed 35 million. Spain remains the mature center of the market, with close to 900 million euros in volume, more than 4,500 clubs, 17,000 courts and over 111,000 registered players. But the next expansion frontier is increasingly international, with Italy, Argentina and the United States drawing attention from operators looking to export the model.

For Barcelona, that mix matters. The city is no longer only hosting a popular sport. It is hosting the deals, suppliers and expansion strategies that will decide where padel goes next.