1/ Easy to start, hard to master.

2/ Good balance between being still athletic (you have to run), while not punish less-fit players a lot.

3/ Social component. In Portugal you must get a beer after each match. Suddenly you have 100+ friends and a shared interest.

4/ Full gradient between 'funny dumb ass game with friends with no experience' to 'professional competitive sport'. With a lot of options in between like beginners games, clubs events, amateur leagues and semi/pro tournaments.

5/ The game is more tactical, that athletic. After you get initial technical background, you start to play more 'chess' than 'overpower opponent' style.

6/ Good business. More people on less space = more revenue. More social = more spending in a bar. Coaching is more profitable as well (groups of 4).

7/ Open to all social groups. My wife is playing female-only tournaments. We play mixed tournaments together.

I play padel for 3 years, played tennis for year, tried squash and badminton.

It’s doubles so you only need four people to play. The underarm serve gives it a very shallow learning curve so almost anybody can play. However, there is enough nuance to the game that there’s lots of tactics and skill to learn as you get better.

Also the app (Playtomic) for organising games works great.

We have indoor courts here in the UK where’s there’s not much else to do in the winter. It’s a lot easier to get four people together to play padel for 90 minutes than trying to get 10/12 together for a 5/6-a-side football match.