Padel in Indonesia: A Sports Trend or an Exclusivity That Marginalizes?

 VIONELLA IZZA MAULIDA (30802300023)

Who doesn't know about the booming sport of padel? Padel has been quite popular for the past few years. However, lately, it has been widely discussed that padel has suddenly become popular among the upper class, including celebrities and influencers. Before we discuss it further, let's get to know a little about padel. Padel is a new sport that is played similarly to tennis and squash. Unlike tennis, padel can only be played by four people or in a doubles format. Padel is extremely popular in Spain. In this “land of the matadors,” there are 4 million amateur padel players supported by 20,000 padel courts as supporting facilities.

Figure. 1 Illustration of padel hitting technique.

Source: Ayo.co.id

Recently, padel has gained significant popularity among top celebrities and influencers, including Nagita Slavina, Aurel Hermansyah, and Davina Karamoy. In fact, padel has even been referred to as an “elite” sport by some, as it requires expensive equipment and sportswear. The limited number of venues, their locations in expensive resorts, and the high cost of court rentals make padel seem like more than just a sport; it has become a “hangout” for the upper class.

With the rise in popularity of padel tennis, which is currently skyrocketing, some people are interested in building padel courts. However, the construction of padel courts is not as straightforward as imagined, as some courts have been built by displacing certain areas and community fields. For instance, in the Kedoya area of West Jakarta, as reported by Kompas.com, the Pilar court in Kedoya is the only one remaining in the area. A similar incident occurred at a salon in the Bogor area. Through a TikTok account with the username @heyedle, it was revealed that the business, which was built with friends over three years, had to close because it was evicted by the management for a padel court. This led to many people commenting, such as “ paling 2 tahun lagi padel juga sepi,kek poundfit 2 tahun lalu reme banget pada fomo sekarang ga terlalu rame. “ However, there were also residents who commented that padel is not entirely negative, as seen in the comments section of the @heyedle account: “gw suuka banget kok padel bukan karean fomo tapi emang seru tau! Pls jangan ngejudge fomo fomo duluan sih dan lapangan padel ga sepi coy mau booking aja penuh mulu”.

Ultimately, padel presents a dilemma among some members of society: an activity promoted as healthy and fun, yet sometimes driven by social media hype and exploited by savvy businesspeople.