Its starting point is the asset. Padel, pickleball, tennis, badminton and squash are usually read as five separate markets; read from the court up, they are one business, and the facility is its engine. Roughly 80% of the sector's value is generated at the facilities themselves — the facility is the point of sale of racquet sports. That is where the consequential decisions are made — feasibility, location, architecture, programming, operations — and where a mistake is hardest to undo. The Institute's work turns evidence into guidance at exactly those points: what works, what does not, and what to do next.
Our vision
No court, no player. Facilities are the single most consequential lever for participation, and therefore for the entire development pathway of racquet sports. The Institute works toward a connected global ecosystem in which well-run facilities are accessible, financially resilient and environmentally responsible; where architecture and operations are designed as one system; where decisions rest on comparable data rather than guesswork; and where participation grows across ages and genders because knowledge moves freely rather than being learned five times over.
Our mission
To equip every stakeholder with decision-grade knowledge and the means to act on it. The Institute converts field evidence into ecosystem reports and country analyses, proven facility models, management playbooks, design guidelines and implementation support. It convenes a global network of practitioners and sets out clear pathways — from concept to opening, from first-time player to lifelong member — so that communities gain places to play, operators reach sustainable performance, and the sports grow.
How we work
One principle governs everything below: evidence over opinion. Every figure carries its source and date — anyone should be able to check how a number came about.
- 01Sources, not the open webMarket studies, official statistics, peer-reviewed research, federation registries — selected, verified and dated before anything is published.
- 02Every number carries its originIf a figure appears in our work, its source and date appear beside it. Numbers without provenance are opinions.
- 03The facility is the unit of analysisSports don't succeed or fail — facility models do. Our frameworks compare facility types across sports, markets and decades.
- 04Reviewed by domainNothing is published on the strength of a single view. Every output is written or reviewed by specialists in the relevant field — facility design and engineering, financing and feasibility, programming and player pathways, operations technology, retail and food and beverage, events, community growth — each with decades in this ecosystem, and each reviewing only within their own competence.
- 05Independence, declaredThe Institute represents no manufacturer, no franchise and no federation, and sells no courts. It publishes its methodology alongside its findings, and where interests exist, they are disclosed.
Two professions, not one
Understanding the racquet sports ecosystem and exploiting data with modern AI are two different professions — different people, different tools, different working cultures. In 2026 the Institute separated them: it concentrates on the sport, its market and its data, while RacqI — Racquet Sports Intelligence was founded as a separate company for the data infrastructure and AI. The separation is organisational, not conceptual: the interface between the two is defined, and the work is still delivered as a whole.
“Understanding this sport and building AI systems are two different professions. Asking one team to do both means accepting that it will do neither particularly well. We were not willing to accept that.”
The Racquet Sports Institute and RacqI are two legally independent companies that work closely together. The Institute sources, verifies and curates the ecosystem data — offerings, pricing and legal structures — that feeds the facility database; RacqI relates it to information from outside the sport — climate, demographic, leisure-spending and economic indicators — and applies AI to answer questions for a specific site, market or business case. The Institute's editorial judgment remains its own: RacqI has no influence on what we analyse or publish.
Talk to the Institute
For research enquiries, data requests, press, or partnership with federations and public institutions.