From Brain Haemorrhage to Padel Passion: Jonathan Rowland’s Inspiring Comeback (JOPS0304)

Jonathan Rowland, a padel aficionado since 2004, shares his journey from playing in a converted helicopter hangar in Argentina to founding R3 Sport, a multi-faceted padel business. He discusses the joy of padel as both a therapeutic activity and a growing sport in the UK. Rowland’s ventures include distributing Ball Padel equipment, sponsoring professional players, and organizing tournaments like the FIP Silver R3 Ball Padel Cup. He offers insights into the challenges of developing British padel talent and the sport’s potential for growth. The podcast explores the intersection of passion and business in padel, highlighting the sport’s social aspects and its appeal to celebrities and ex-footballers.

To find out more about Jonathan Rowland and R3:

• Find or follow on Instagram: @jonathan_rowland_1
• Find out more about R3 here

To listen to the show:

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Send in your questions or reactions:

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to review and/or rate it! ¡VAMOS!

Further resources for The Joy of Padel:

athlete management | Ball Padel Cup | British padel development | celebrity padel | FIP Silver | Jonathan Rowland | LTA partnership | padel business opportunities | Padel Coaching | padel community | padel Culture | padel federation | padel funding | padel future | padel growth | padel in UK | padel infrastructure | padel innovation | padel investment | padel player support | Padel Sponsorship | padel talent development | padel Tournaments | padel venues | R3 Sport

This transcription comes courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI service for podcasters.

Minter Dial: Jonathan Rowland: . Hey, it’s lovely to have you on the. On the pod as opposed to on the court. Although we have had time on the court together. Not as much recently for. We’re going to need to fix that one soon. But in your own words, Jonathan. Who is Jonathan Rowland: ?

Jonathan Rowland: Good question. So, I think my. My, sort of. My story relevant to this podcast is padel Fanatic been playing since 2004, 2005.

Minter Dial: Which is way earlier than most English people.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah. And I. I know my standard doesn’t look like I’ve been playing for 20 years, but I’ve been playing for 20 years. I was introduced to the game by a friend of mine in Argentina in a converted helicopter hangar.

Minter Dial: And was this in Argentina?

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, in Argentina. A friend of mine had a big estate there and he woke up one morning, said, have you ever played padel tennis? I said, I have not. He said, well, we’re going to go and play. He took me up to his helicopter hangar and he had built a sort of a padel court out of the walls and various other bits. And it wasn’t a padel court that you and I would understand today, but it was. It was padel tennis. So, that’s how it started. And the journey’s been sort of exciting ever since.

Minter Dial: So, at some level, you could say he had a helicopter pad. L. Yeah.

Jonathan Rowland: Yes, you could say that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was a very interesting sort of a day and I. I never looked back from the first time I played. I think everyone has the same sort of feeling, right, when soon as they play, they never look back, they want to play again. And I went on from there to various other places where this particular person had homes, where he had built padel courts. And he was English, by the way. He was an English guy playing pedal for. For a long time. And I went to some of his houses around the world and he always had a padel court. We played every day. And I just became hooked on it. And then by coincidence, I lived in Chelsea in London, and I was a member of the Harbour Club, and there was this sort of funny court in the middle of the upstairs. I don’t know if you remember that, Minter, but there’s a funny court in the middle of the upstairs tennis area, which I thought was a kids tennis court originally.

Minter Dial: Well, that was how they were using it too. Of course it was.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah. And then a couple of people said, you know, this is a game we should. We should try and play. And there was a few of us, four or five of us, who I remember in 2004, five started to play and we didn’t really know the rules. We were sort of making our own way through it and eventually people like you came along and told us the rules and how to play properly. And some of those people are still playing today and they’ve now built the three courts so it’s now a lot more accessible for, for us to play there.

Minter Dial: So, for most people, they won’t have any idea how that helicopter padel court was looking, but I’m guessing it had concrete walls and only three metres high.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Did it, did it have netting on the side or was it open?

Jonathan Rowland: There was, there was no, there was no mesh. There was some walls they’d built up which you can move. So, you had, you had the site, you had the sort of side wall of the, of the hangar, you had walls at the back. There was no glass, but it was like some of the old courts you found in the south of France with the, with the sort of cement, concrete sides and stuff. So, that’s what it looked like. The game wasn’t like it is now, but it was a way to start in a place where had been innovative with the space he had on, on his estate.

Minter Dial: Well, sounds somewhat similar to the Cora court. And, and of course the, that was the original court in Aapolco. And, and for those who are listening, I mean it also harks back to actually the fact and why Argentinian men have won. I, I can’t remember Exactly, I think 12 of the last 17 World Championships because padel was. Argentina was the hotbed of padel in the 1980s. 30,000 courts compared to the 22,000 you have in, in Spain today. But of course things changed, including the courts and the Argentinian economy. So, that changed very much. And so, why is it that you have kept this passion for 20 years? I mean, I think that’s one of the fundamental things. It’s. You end up having a long lasting puppy love.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, I mean it’s something that’s very relevant to you. So, you know, I learned to play in this hangar. I went on to play in various places around the world. I moved to Monaco in 2009 and I used to play with Nally, who I think you’re related to. My cousin Nally used to play with me and he used to give me some coaching. And then I also met with Robin Hiza, the French coach, the French woman’s coach. And he became a guy that I played with nearly every week. So, I built up all of these relationships with the likes of Nali and Robin and various others. And meanwhile I was always looking for an opportunity to invest in the sport, and it just never came round. You know, there was always people suggesting various things that made no economic sense to me. My main business being finance and investment, something I understood pretty well. The proposals were never quite sophisticated or mature enough. And I kept playing. I kept playing throughout the whole period. And eventually I started to see opportunities to invest. And the sort of first bits I got involved with were with Tom Murray, who’s the padel lead at the LTA, where I supported some of his projects through 2016, 17, 18. There was no financial return for me, but it was me helping the sport financially to support Tom and what he was doing and eventually try and make something of that. And then Covid came, everything sort of shut down again. I stopped playing for a bit. And then, you know, Covid allowed padel to be one of the only sports that could be played during that period. And that’s when it really took off and I saw the opportunity to get involved in a more serious way. During the back end of COVID I started to play a lot again. I bought, you know, bought all of those relationships I’ve made over 20 years, talked to people, and I said, okay, I’m going to create a business. And so, that sort of first game in 2004, five, and the love of playing and, you know, getting older and not being able to play football and the things I used to love, it was always the one sort of exercise that I continue to do constantly. And I then looked at it as a business opportunity where the reality was coming to. To the forefront of what we see today.

Minter Dial: So, two things in what you say, Jonathan. The first is that the passion comes from also the fact that it’s just an exercise that’s doable over the long term, even through Covid. And that was probably thanks to the outdoor courts as opposed to indoor courts. Right?

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, yeah.

Minter Dial: And then he talked about how a lot of the business proposals around padel were not senseful. And I’m guessing a lot of that was because it was sort of just out of passion that people were doing stuff out of ideals and out of, oh, I just love the game, got to do something. But it wasn’t really attached to reality.

Jonathan Rowland: No, I think no one really understood what it was either. Right. So, you and I knew about it because we played it, but most of the world outside of Spain and Argentina and a few other countries didn’t really know what it was. So, even if you had a great idea, you didn’t have the audience to then make it something Viable commercially. So, that was the problem.

Minter Dial: All right, so let’s talk about. Well, I just want to talk quickly just about. More about your game and then we’re going to get into R3. So, in your game, what is your favourite shot?

Jonathan Rowland: I sort of make my own shots up.

Minter Dial: Love it.

Jonathan Rowland: I’ve got. I’ve got. I’ve got a shot off the back. Off the back glass that goes. If I’m playing on the right and I’ve got a shot that comes off the back glass and goes right down the corner, almost like a bajada, but it’s sort of my own. My own. My own bajada, as it were. So, that’s my sort of favourite shot.

Minter Dial: Love it. Well, I mean, the fact that we can invent our own shots speaks legions to the fun of.

Jonathan Rowland: And actually, for all the people I play with regularly, I’ve got one shot that they all know and it’s that shot. Because it always. It’s always a winner. It doesn’t work all the time, but everyone knows me for that shot.

Minter Dial: Nice. It’s good to be known by a shot, too. I mean, there’s like the Paquito Cuchillo, that one, he just gets off the back wall. It just goes slicing down. What about in your game? What sort of style? How would you describe your game?

Jonathan Rowland: Pretty lazy. My game’s pretty lazy. No, listen, I don’t have any power. I. I’m more of a sort of placement guy, you know, find the space, find the space, find a space. We’ve played together. I find myself standing still too often, as we all do, watching my shots rather than following up and getting into position for the next one. So, my game is sort of a casual bursts of energy, occasionally bursts of concentration, but sometimes lack of concentration. So, it’s. It’s all over the place.

Minter Dial: Well, it is, in this regard, a difficult game because when you’re not playing, you’re not. You’re off the ball. And I talk a lot about that. It’s. How do you play off the ball? As we do in football, we talk about that. Or in other sports, when you’re not directly involved, you’re. There are ways to be much better and. And keeping. Keeping that in mind and the concentration piece, because you can have points that last a minute, two minutes, and to keep the concentration, you know, tight, even if you’re not playing all the balls. Of course you’re not playing all the balls, but when the ball finally comes to you, because maybe you. The 20 shots were on the other side, then all of A sudden it comes to you and, oh, my God, I’ve got to hit a ball. And are you there? Are you present for that moment? So, that makes it difficult.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, I find, like all the people of sort of my standard, you end up halfway through the point, thinking about what you’re going to have for dinner and things like that, and. And it becomes, you know, as you said, if you’re going to play this sport at a level that’s. That’s half decent, you have to be focused whether you’re on the ball or off the ball all the time. You always. You always have to be positioned and thinking about the next move. So, I try and do that, but I often find myself drifting back into daydreaming and things like that. So, it’s. It’s, you know, it’s difficult to keep focused all the time.

Minter Dial: All right, so this last. This last question about you and padel before we get into your R3, is what has padel taught you? And this can be about either life or business.

Jonathan Rowland: I think there’s a. Interesting question, maybe a difficult one to answer. I think what it’s taught me is that the padel is a fun game. And mentally, it’s. It’s. It’s stimulating, but it’s also always fun. It’s very social. It’s totally different from a game of tennis or a game of anything else. And I found that I’ve made so many friends through this sport who all have the same sort of passion and ideas, and. And we all seem to be a similar group of people. And I think that for me, it’s been, you know, I was. I don’t know if, you know, Minter. I was very ill in 2013. I had a massive brain haemorrhage. I did not know I was. I was technically dead. And it took me a long time to recover. And part of that recovery, because I had such a weak side from. From what was basically a big stroke, part of that recovery was padel. And it really helped me with my fitness, with my concentration and the continuing sort of graft. You have to give a serious injury like that, which was basically a brain injury that affected the whole body. So, it was very. For me, it was very, very sort of therapeutic. And. And it was good to have that sport that I’ve been playing. And I had those. Those group of people to help me back into that, and they really did. A couple of the guys, Raymond Curry, who, you know, you know, he called me up one day and said, come on, Jonathan, you’re getting better now. We’ve got to go and play again and we’ve got to get you back into this exercise and doing these things and coming out of what was a very difficult period for me and physically. So, I found that the game gave me a real opportunity to recover from something very serious in a very fun social way with people that really cared for me and I, and had a great sort of relationship with these people. So, that was the main point for me from padel. But now today, with the game growing as it is and the. The level getting higher, it just gives you the ability to be involved in something in its infancy in the UK and to have those relationships and those sort of passions all together, coming together. I think it’s very good for, For. For your mental state and your soul.

Minter Dial: I love that answer. Thank you so much for sharing that, Jonathan. It means a lot. Of course. I. It made me think of Martin Dinenno who’s a top 10 player, Argentinian, who had that huge car accident, lost his best friend and then took two years to be able to walk again, much less compete again. And he talked about how it was his lifeline. So, another story like that. All right, very cool. So, R3, you founded it. R3 Sport, you founded it in 2023. I am right, yep.

Jonathan Rowland: Yes.

Minter Dial: And it’s. It’s now blossomed into quite a repertoire of things. So, start us, talk us through the very beginning piece. How did you attach or attack this business of padel, which made sense to you?

Jonathan Rowland: So, as I said earlier, I was looking for the opportunity to enter the sport. And when I formed the company in 2023, it was after conversations with Tom Murray and Richard Brooks and some of the other guys, and I just said, you know what? Unless I just do this, I. I won’t do it, if that makes sense. So, of course I created the company. I had no game plan, I had no business plan. I had no game plan. I started many businesses outside of padel, so I knew how to do, how to start something. So, we didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have a plan. I always wanted to support the sport in the UK, and that goes back to the years when I sat on the border British padel with Tom Murray, and I did all of those things for the sport. In terms of sponsorship, my goal was always to help assist the business going forward and eventually find some sort of financial business that made sense. So, we started the business. The first thing that happened was Max Holloway, who was the Adidas rep, contacted me and said, I’ve got the. I knew Max for 10 years, he said, I got the opportunity to get the exclusive distribution of a Bullpadel in the UK and Ireland. Will you back me? And I said yes, without even thinking about it. And we did the transaction with Bullpadel in 2024, at the beginning or late 2023, and that’s been a huge success. So, Max runs that business. He’s the best in the business in the UK and we’ve gone from like number five or six in a certain type of bat to number one in the UK and it’s been a success and we’re partners and, and, and we funded that business for Max and he’s the operating partner and also shareholder. So, that’s gone very well. That then led to lots of other things, so we decided that we wanted to get involved in supporting the players and I. I’ll be careful what I say here, because the LTA gets a bit sensitive about. About these things.

Minter Dial: I was going to ask about the LTA, but go ahead now.

Jonathan Rowland: Now I’m so. You know, the LTA are obviously a large organisation where padel isn’t the focus, and, yes, the element of funding they have for professional players is relatively small. So, I took on that opportunity to basically support what is now 10 players, all GB team, either men, women or children. I think we’ve got eight. Eight men, one girl, female and two juniors. So, we’ve got 11, actually. And I put together sponsorship packages for all of them where I basically underwrote money so they could get on with their professional careers. They didn’t have to worry about me going to sponsors and trying to get sponsors. I underwrote that for them, a certain amount of capital, and then I went and found the sponsors afterwards, and that was something that the LTA didn’t have the ability to do to the extent that I was doing in terms of amounts. So, we’ve got now a team of 11, what we call the R3 family, or team, all professional guys trying to professionalise the sport a little bit through athlete management contracts, etc. And that’s in its sort of second year now, and we’ve actually been quite successful in raising sponsorship for some of those players. So, you know, we range from Christian Medina Murphy, who’s number one GB player who we look after, down to two twins in Guernsey called the Gomes twins, who are 17, who are just coming through their sort of learning phase of padel, and Catherine Rose, who’s the number two woman who’s been very successful recently. So, we’ve got a good cross section and that’s going really? Well, one of the main things that we were keen on was venues. Now, venues have been difficult because of several things. One being planning, second being competition. So, there’s a lot of people building courts and venues now and.

Minter Dial: Which is good news.

Jonathan Rowland: It’s great news for the sport, but it’s not great news for people who want to invest because the. I’m investing my own money here with couple of partners who are GB team players. Actually. I don’t chase things and I’m a business guy. I don’t chase. I don’t chase opportunities where money’s coming in all over the place and people are spending it not necessarily that well. So, we’ve been on a lot of venues, opportunities. We’ve got none of them because we’ve been outbid. I still have a. Still have a passion to create a venue, but it’s really gone to sort of the back of my, my portfolio of ideas now. So, the last thing is tournaments. So, as you’ll know, we just launched the R3 ball pedal cup. This was something that we were going to launch last year, but just felt it was too early for that. We’ve announced today, or we will be announcing today, that the first event will be a FIP Silver, which will be the first silver ever in the UK and it will be in April in Bristol at Rocket. Rocket Bristol. And it’ll be called the FIP Silver R3 Ball Pedal cup and it’s. It’s on the FIT website today. So, you know, we’re quite proud to say that we’re going to create the largest event in the UK there’s ever been in terms of prize money and in terms of level being a silver. And then we’ll have five or six rounds culminating in the finals at the end of the year, which will be for the Top sort of 16 ranking players within our own. Own cup. So, those are the four things we’re doing. Brands, players, venues and tournaments.

Minter Dial: Wow, what a. What a great mix. And an interesting story. Certainly the, the idea of clubs is something that’s a nightmare for most players and corresponds to. One of the big pain points for, for padel players like myself is finding a bloody court that’s indoor that we can play. And one of the things I, I particularly enjoy about Rocket is that they’ve gone for quality, quality courts, mostly panoramic and indoor. And so, hats off to Seb and, and the gang over there. And I’m really excited about Bristol. My. My daughter went to Bristol. I always talk to her, of course, about.

Jonathan Rowland: I had a Call with Seb just before this and they’ve, they’ve come through as a very, very helpful interested party to work with. So, we will partner with them hopefully on this one for sure but then hopefully more of our, our events they’re forward thinking, they’re flexible, they say how do we sort the problem out, let’s get on with it rather than think very negatively first. And there’s some of the, some of the providers out there are so been very happy with the relationship with them so far.

Minter Dial: Love that. I totally agree with you and I hear you shall we say Jonathan, I, I know the world out there what they do with Ilford celebs, the pro am’s and was. I was understanding so first of all there are three sport which is interesting. First of all what is R3 and why sport not padel? Is it something that has more in it?

Jonathan Rowland: Okay so I always have difficulty choosing names for companies.

Minter Dial: Ah brand. I’m a brand guy. Come to me next time.

Jonathan Rowland: Okay.

Minter Dial: So, I mean I’m not saying anything’s wrong with R3 sport. I’m just.

Jonathan Rowland: It started with there were three people involved at the beginning who had R in the name. They’re not involved anymore. I’m the only one left. I had a company called R8 and I had a company called R888 in the past and it was only called that because it was just easy because I, I hate to find names for things. It always takes a long time. So, I started many companies in my life and the name’s always been the biggest issue. Getting the trademark, getting the domain, whatever. So, R3 really has no relevance the.

Minter Dial: Sport except for the R of Rowland.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah it was never, it was never about that. But we can say if you want we then had a. I didn’t want to just restrict ourselves to padel. padel is the core of what we’re doing. But we’re just about to launch in Pickleball now. So, we’re about to launch in the UK and pickleball. We made an offer to buy the London Lions basketball team last year. We made an offer to buy a small football team in London last year. So, we’re looking at everything but padel is just the main focus at the moment.

Minter Dial: Well that makes total sense. I mean the end of the day the, you know, if you have a ambition for the future it does make sense to. If you can figure out the padel story and dominate that know how to.

Jonathan Rowland: It’s.

Minter Dial: It’s intricacies anyway. The network of sports is quite small and you’ll end up talking to all sorts of other sports people. So, it makes consummate sense to me.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah. So, I would like to create. I’ve always been in really financial services, banking, insurance, all sorts of things. This is my passion and I don’t restrict myself to something that’s just monoline. So, padel is great, but I think padel on its own isn’t going to change the world. So, I’d like to get involved in building a sports entertainment company and that’s what my next sort of plan is. And we starting with the. The building block of padel and pickleball to start and then we’ll go on to whatever comes.

Minter Dial: So, I’m imagining in your FIP, you’ve had quite a lot of conversations with the FIP and you have probably experienced Hexagon cup or at least know a lot about it, because you have also this idea of bringing celebrities into these tournaments or at least creating teams and all that with your. The R3 Bullpadel Cup, as I understand it. Is that correct?

Jonathan Rowland: So, we initially were looking at creating a super league similar to Hexagon Cup. I think the Hexagon Cup’s been a great success and well put together. Enrique, who was one of the founders I played with and I met with him and he asked me to enter a team last year with. With some friends of mine, which it was just too early. We discussed the opportunity that I would create some sort of super league here and have the ability to take the team that won that into the Hexagon Cup. That conversation sort of fell away. But we are planning to launch our super league at the end of this year, which will be a. A league, not a one-off tournament. And I think we would be more than happy to work with the Hexagon Cup. And I think when we get closer to sort of the mid, midpoint of this year, we’ll have a conversation with them to see what we can do. But all of the players I look after now are playing with celebrities weekly. So, all of the guys like Nikhil and Sam Jones and Catherine and all those guys, they’re all playing with these. These celebrities who are getting more and more involved in it. So, we have a ready made sort of platform to convert that into something that may be a supporting act for our professional tour or maybe its own thing. It’s still very early days. You know, if, if Hexagon Cup came to the UK, which I understand they’re going to, and they said we’re going to do this properly and there’s no room for us, then we take A view. Whether we join up with them or we do it, we’re very relaxed. So. But the plan was to create a franchise model where we sold teams to professional celebrity owners and had a professional event with a celebrity element to it. That’s still the plan. If it changes, it changes. I’m. You know, I’m, I’m. I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you have to change your direction or pivot or whatever.

Minter Dial: Different tack. Well, I, I’ve been writing some articles for the Bandeja Emma Kimber, about my observations of the Hexagon Cup, and one of them and, and is. Is that they ab. They absolutely lose the audience as to which teams are which. And, and the specific thing which I think they’re completely missing is uniforms. How is it that they have one colour on the bench and another colour on the court? And, and there. It’s just no, no rhyme or reason to how these teams are being created. They might have a small logo that I’m the X Team or something up here maybe, but it’s not visible to us in the stands and therefore we actually don’t even know whose side is which. And, and, and the whole idea was to have another reason to support the team. So, let’s say I love Eva Longoria. Okay, great. But which is her team? How do we know what their team is? It’s. It’s kind of a long stretch. They need to make that much easier to get more excited about the game itself.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, Yeah. I think the, the, the main complaint I’ve heard this year, and last year I didn’t go this year, I went last year, the main complaint was people didn’t know who was winning and what. The scoring. Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. If you’re, if you’re just a, A layman or a general fan, you don’t care. You just want to watch, you know, good battle, evil Longoria on the sidelines or just watch some padel game. But if you’re an enthusiast who cares about what’s going on, it was very hard to follow, as I understand it. And that’s been the main. That’s been the main complaint. But listen, from a standing start, they’ve done a great job. They’ve got. They’ve really bought the profile of the sport up. There’s been a lot of viewing figures for Hexagon Cup. I like Enrique. He’s. He’s a friend of mine. I’ve played with him many times.

Minter Dial: He’s been a show. He’s been a guest on the show.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, and we, and we, you know, we’ve been talking about how we can do what we’re doing and connect it with Hexagon somehow. So, good luck to them. I mean, they, they’re doing that. We’re all doing things and we don’t really know what the end game is and.

Minter Dial: Yeah, let’s enjoy, let’s enjoy the journey.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, let’s enjoy the journey. And we, we, you know, we never know where these things are going to end because it’s such an early, early days for this sport, especially in the UK. We have to take a leap of faith and, and back things and that’s what we’re all doing. And, and there’s no money in it yet for us, so we are very much taking a risk with capital and our time to hopefully make something work.

Minter Dial: Yeah. Taking the long view, as they say. So, speaking of the long view, I mean, you must have a really interesting or certainly a different perspective on what’s it going to take to get the Brits on the map and to compete with at least the top five, not to say the top two. We need to mention LTA.

Jonathan Rowland: Look, you know as well as I know that the only way to get to. First of all, it’s going to be very difficult. Right. It’s going to take time and we need kids, so we need these kids to come through now and start playing. And there’s a few around who are, who are looking good, especially if the.

Minter Dial: Last name is like Gomez or. Yeah. Alejandro or something, you know.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah. So, I mean, I think there’s, there’s, there’s some kids in the UK who have a chance for the Olympics if that comes, but nothing’s going to change until there’s money supporting this, this, this sport and courts and good coaches. So, you know, you know as well as I know that the Spanish and the Argentinian coaches are probably the best. People play padel from the moment they’re born. It’s in their DNA in Spain and Argentina to try and challenge. That’s going to be very difficult and it’s going to take money, infrastructure, time, and giving people the ability to play this game from a very early age. And it’s not naturally our sport. Right. We’re more football and whatever else. So, trying to get, you know, people like Jason Manford, who I played with, lost two weeks ago and doing a great job with kids and trying to get underprivileged kids and kids from state schools all around the UK playing things like this are very, very helpful to the end game. But to get a player into the top 100, you know, Catherine, Amy Gibson’s in the top 100 now. Catherine’s on the verge. Christian’s 120 even. To get from 120 to the 90s is a big, big challenge for these guys. Big, big challenge. So, I think it just needs a lot of support, a lot of time and a lot of focus on it.

Minter Dial: Yeah. I was talking to Brit Dubin, the American number one, how important it has been in her ascension to have trained in Madrid with Spanish and to see what it’s like day in, day out, look at what their process is to get to the type of levels that the Spanish in particular. Actually most Argentinians, you know, practise in Spain, or a lot of them do have to live there in order to have the surround sound system, great coaches and regular tournaments. You don’t have to travel to Dubai every time to have a tournament.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s the players, the players I look after, you know, they’re in Dubai this coming week, they’re in Portugal now. They’re. It’s all over the place. Right. And I think what, what a lot of people in this country don’t realise is the level of the Spanish game and the Argentinian game and the French game and the Italian game, when we come up against those guys anywhere, we don’t do very well. And I think that’s a big wake up call to, to the UK, because a lot of those sports through their federation have been funded properly, whether it’s France, Italy, Sweden, whatever. We haven’t done that. And we see that we’re left behind now. You know, we didn’t make the, the, the world champion. We got beaten by the Netherlands in the last game in Sardinia, which I was at. We shouldn’t have lost that game. And now we see that the Netherlands are ahead of us, Belgium are ahead of us, so we’re really falling behind. And that’s all to do with funding. Now, I understand that, you know, the LTA wasn’t set up to fund padel, but there’s a, there’s, there’s definitely, there’s definitely the opportunity to create a joint venture with the LTA to actually fund this quicker. And that’s something that me and Tom have discussed a little bit, because as it is, it’s going to be a very slow road to, to funding this sport to the extent it needs it.

Minter Dial: Well, without trying to be too provocative, when a separate independent padel federation, I mean, France succeeded. Italy has its own right, but France has It combined, so it can work, but it needs a different type of mentality, I think, probably from the board itself, as opposed to Tom’s particularly. But there’s a. There. I. I feel like the way it’s going is too slow, and if we’re just. If that’s the intention, then it’ll stay that way. And. And so, it feels like we do need not just have external people like you stimulating and working with the LTA, but, you know, maybe down the road we need them actually consider a. Another reality.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Ah, such a. That’s a whole steamy topic. N’est-ce pas?

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, I’m going to. I’ll be careful because last comment I made, I got a phone call from Tom immediately saying. Did you actually say this to the. To the journalist? I said, no, he’s miss. He’s misquoted me. But. So, I’m a bit more careful now with my. With my words. But look, they. They support the. They support the sport. They’re expanding the team there. They’re expanding the budget. They’re doing it at a pace that suits them. It is beneficial to the sport. But I think with other people around like Aaron Yen, Top advantage, Hexagon Cup, there’s plenty of us with capital to support this. This sport, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t all do that together. And I think that’s what we’re doing. But, you know, we are all now looking for. For partnerships to come together to just really turbocharges a little bit quicker than it is at the moment.

Minter Dial: Well, I am certainly still optimistic on Padel in general, and I still get a kick out of playing and occasionally playing with some of your gang from the R3. Last question for you is how do you choose or how does it work when you choose to sponsor a player? I mean, obviously you want to look at their talent, but what are the. What are the factors that go into your selection of the players to sponsor?

Jonathan Rowland: So, first of all, my. My focus was UK only, so anyone who is eligible for Great Britain team, there’s not many people. So, that’s the first point. The second point was people that we thought could be interesting to sponsors. So, Christian’s obviously number one, Catherine’s a female. Nikhil has Indian heritage.

Minter Dial: We have and been on my podcast.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, we have the number one Scottish player. We have some twins that are 17 years old. So, they all have elements of uniqueness. So, that’s the way we’ve really looked at it. Who could we sell to the. To the sponsorship market now, without doubt, the sponsors are more interested in female and kids. The men don’t get a great looking, which is quite interesting. So, we found that people like Catherine have been very easy to sell to the market and the younger guys very easy to sell to the market, whereas the Christians of the world are a bit more difficult because I guess the, the, the element of being able to sell the number two Great Britain female player and she’s a female, is a lot easier than trying to sell the number one Great Britain player man who’s 120 in the world and is getting lost in various different tournaments where he’s not, he’s not in the top 100. So, it’s really been GB focused. Who can we sell and who fits our culture? You know, we have a culture in this. We’re a team, we’re a family, we go on trips together, we go on training trips together, we go on, have dinners together, we’re a real family. And there’s more of an element of supporting those players financially, but also just supporting them with life. And that’s what some of the older players and myself are doing, which I think is very beneficial for them, as well as just the financial side of it.

Minter Dial: Well, that resonates with some of the comments I’ve had. My friend Juan Guterrez is the trainer of the Spanish national men’s team. He and others Seb Nerone I’ve talked about how on the padel court, the relationship, big R relationship that you have with your partner on and specifically off the court, is 50% of the success, your ability to enjoy the partner because you’re travelling with them in economy, typically to the event, you’re sleeping in the same room, you’re training together, you’re eating together and if you don’t have that going for you, like you say, in the family, and that’s sort of cats and dogs and, you know, inner fighting or jealousies or other things, it just can’t compass you well on the court.

Jonathan Rowland: That’s a team sport, right? It’s a team sport and you know, we have young players, we have older players and they all support each other in some way and that’s important. And anyone who doesn’t do that isn’t right for the culture of what we do. It’s like any business mentor, when you have employees who have all the same culture in all the same way, it’s no different. You’re going to succeed, you’re not going to succeed if you have people who are causing trouble in the ranks.

Minter Dial: Well, I mean, and since I have A podcast on business. And the idea of culture, the challenge is defining that culture because a word like family means a lot of different things, a lot of different people. As Tolstoy said, all families, all happy families are the same, but no unhappy family is alike. And so, it is about defining that culture and people you want. But the last comment I had was it’s ironic at some level because if you imagine those three categories, men’s, women’s and children, the, the one that typically garners the more attention, most attention is the men’s, whatever sport, you know when. And I’m not making any judgement, that’s just how it is in the public. And I was sort of surprised how you said it was about selling them to public sponsors as opposed to selling them to media. That’s what I would have thought would have been the key, key thought. How attractive. And I suppose the stories of a twins, the Gomes twins and Catherine is more mediatic as well, which helps it become more of a sponsorship story.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, I mean, I didn’t really. I don’t differentiate between selling to the media, to sponsors, but it just so happens that we, you know, we contacted a lot of sponsors or been contacted by a lot of sponsors and their interest always comes back to female and the kids. And there are some interesting. Nikhil plays with a lot of famous people now, a lot of celebrities and the sponsors like that. So, there are opportunities for him in terms of what he’s doing with the celebrities. But otherwise it’s generally, you know, if there’s a brand out there, they prefer to back a female or some kids rather than the men. That’s what we’re finding.

Minter Dial: Well, I mean, of course, and, and the sponsors are thinking that’s media coverage to pay with celebrities. Give us a few names, juicy names of celebrities who are playing padel in the UK to give us a little bit of inspiration because I, I know there are a few.

Jonathan Rowland: I think there’s. So, Romeo Beckham’s playing all the time. David Beckham’s son, Stormzy, which he plays at the Harbour Club. I’m sure you’ve seen them up there. I have quite a lot of these YouTube guys that you and I wouldn’t know, but everyone, all the young kids know there’s a guy called Nico who’s been quite involved in, in the sport. There’s just a lot of, a lot of ex sports guys playing a lot of.

Minter Dial: Well, of course half, half of the Liverpool team played with Klopp.

Jonathan Rowland: Yeah, the lead. John Terry’s very, very keen player. Jorginho there’s lots of them. There’s lots of these ex-footballers who have taken up and it’s growing, it’s growing. You know, there’s all sorts of people coming to the sport now, which is great. It helps everything. Helps. Helps the sport progress.

Minter Dial: All right, well, last word for padel in the future.

Jonathan Rowland: What.

Minter Dial: What is the defining word for you, Jonathan?

Jonathan Rowland: Evolution. Momentum. We have to be forward thinking. We have to support this sport no matter what, because it is going to make the Olympics and it will be a sport of note in the next 10 years. So, everyone’s got to get behind it.

Minter Dial: Vamos, Jonathan. Thank you so much.

Jonathan Rowland: Thanks, Minter.