The Apprentice hots up for padel Max
Apprentice hots up for padel Max
The budding padelpreneur offering Lord Sugar a slice of his would-be padel club business in exchange for being crowned The Apprentice 2025 has made it into the final ten candidates with five episodes to go.
Max England (31), a former professional tennis player turned padel entrepreneur with ambitions to open premium padel facilities, has so far been in the winning team four times, lost once as project manager and been on two losing teams (but without being called in for a boardroom showdown).
Tonight the teams create and market their own hot sauce, pitching the product to industry experts. According to the BBC ‘for one team a basic brand and rudimentary recipe fail to spice things up, while a forgotten item leaves the other team in hot water. In the boardroom, Lord Sugar gets hot-headed, and there’s a shock in store for the candidates’.
Surrey native Max was introduced to padel by his friend and fellow ex-tennis player Nick Hatchett, handily ranked GB No 6 in the domestic rankings. “I fell in love with it like so many people do and all of a sudden it was almost like starting a new sport with a bit of an advantage of having the tennis skills from all the years of playing tennis,” said Max.
He entered The Apprentice in the hope of scooping the £250,000 investment in his fledgling business Max Padel, which also has a range of padel rackets.
So if he makes it through to the interview stage what will his business plan reveal about his padel concept?
“I went on pitching premium padel centres in and around Surrey to capitalise on demand really. Padel is absolutely taking off, which is great to see, but supply is not keeping up with demand,” said Max. “I think there’s a period of time where we need more centres and clubs to make sure everybody gets a chance to play. Some of these fantastic clubs are already at 90%-plus capacity, which is fantastic but as an avid padel enthusiast I’d like it to be more accessible.”
Max is giving nothing away about his progress through The Apprentice process but did reveal his thoughts on board members Sir Alan Sugar, Baroness Karen Brady and Tim Campbell:
“This is very much a sitting on the fence answer but I didn’t have a favourite. They all bring something unique to the table. Obviously Lord Sugar is what-you-see-is-what-you-get and that is really true to what he’s like in real life. He’s a no-nonsense kind of guy and I really respect that. Baroness Brady is an icon, right? She’s a real role model of mine and it was a real privilege to be in and around her and see how she operates. And of course Tim’s been through The Apprentice process himself. I really respect all of them and feel really privileged to have been able to to come into close contact with them,” added Max.
And the candidates?
“I got on with them all, and I really genuinely mean that. There are moments when things get heated and you guys get to see quite a bit of that on camera. When the cameras aren’t on you are just living with 18 businessmen and women in their own right and yeah, that took me by surprise I guess because I was expecting to be seeing a lot of conflict behind the scenes and for not everybody to get on but I think we just got quite lucky in that everyone did get on and kind of had mutual respect for each other.”
And favourite task to date?
“Turkey was my favourite week, hands down. We got to go to Cappadocia and ride in hot air balloons. They were incredible. The audience gets to see us up in the air but for me what was almost as amazing was in the morning. I think there were 150 balloons and everyone gathers there at around 5am. All of the hot air balloons are being inflated, the flames are going up, they’re lighting up. It was honestly breathtaking. And then of course, they all go up for sunrise. I felt really privileged to have been on the Cappadocia team, I think we probably got a slightly easier ride than the other team that went to Bodrum. And we won the task.” 🎾
Follow Max’s progress in The Apprentice, on BBC 1 Thursdays at 9pm.
