Player retention: a blueprint for club success
Customer loyalty is the growing hot topic in the rapidly burgeoning UK padel scene, with player retention and loyalty increasingly key to the success of padel venues. The Bandeja spoke with Soul Padel founder Mark Hewlett to find out more.
As padel continues its rapid expansion across the UK, Soul Padel believes the sport is entering a new phase, one where long-term success will be determined less by how many players try padel once, and more by how many come back consistently.
That thinking underpins the launch of Streak the Court, a new habit-building feature embedded within Soul Padel’s Soul Mates loyalty programme. While January included a prize-led activation, Streaks will remain permanent, designed to support repeat play and sustained engagement rather than short-term spikes.
For Soul Padel, the focus on retention is informed by experience at both ends of the market.
In Stockport, where its club opened in 2024 and expanded to six courts in summer 2025, close to 11,000 players have now taken to the court, with more than 5,000 customers joining Soul Mates. The club operates in an increasingly competitive local market, with multiple operators and growing consumer choice.
In contrast, Soul Padel St Helens, which opened at the end of November, represents a much earlier-stage market. Despite that, the club has already welcomed more than 1,500 customers, with more than half opting into the loyalty programme within its first month.
According to Mark Hewlett, the lesson from both environments is the same: “In emerging sports, acquisition naturally gets a lot of attention because growth is visible and exciting. But retention is what really determines whether clubs succeed over time. We’ve seen this both as an early entrant in areas where padel doesn’t yet have a foothold, and in more competitive markets where players have plenty of choice. In both cases the underlying question is the same, how often do people come back, and how engaged are they when they do?”
Hewlett believes most drop-off has little to do with enjoyment: “Most people who try padel enjoy it. What tends to get in the way is time, routine and confidence. If returning to play feels complicated or requires too many decisions, people drift away, even if they like the sport.”
Retention is about encouraging frequency and consistency in a way that fits naturally into people’s lives.”
- Mark Hewlett, founder, Soul Padel
From an operator perspective, this shifts the focus towards habit formation: “A player who plays once a week for a year is far more valuable, economically and culturally, than someone who plays four times a week in a month and then disappears. Retention is about encouraging frequency and consistency in a way that fits naturally into people’s lives,” added Hewlett.
This thinking directly informed the design of Streak the Court. Players who play on at least four separate days in a month, and scan in via the Soul Mates app, maintain their streak. There are no penalties for missing a month, and no pressure to perform, a structure intended to mirror how padel is already played, socially and regularly.
Loyalty
Crucially, Hewlett sees loyalty as something that needs to be closely aligned with operations and the on-court experience, not treated in isolation.
“Marketing plays a vital role in bringing people through the door, but long-term engagement is shaped by what happens once they’re playing. When loyalty mechanics are built into the playing experience itself, they help reinforce behaviour and also give operators better insight into how often people are really playing, not just how much they’re spending,” he added.
As the UK padel market becomes more crowded, Hewlett believes this distinction will become increasingly important: “Operators who focus early on engagement, loyalty and repeat behaviour will be far better placed as competition increases. The next phase of padel’s growth won’t be defined by who opens the most courts, but by who keeps the most people playing,” he concluded. 🎾
