Where America Plays

Recently we’ve seen a ton of padel, pickle and other racquet & social club projects and developments come across our desk. 

These have ranged from developers who are racquet sports enthusiasts building courts as side projects to entrepreneurs who are going all-in on creating OpCo/PropCo platforms for the industry. Plus there are a growing number of high-net-worth & family office investors asking how to get exposure to the category before it institutionalizes.

So we are doing what Thesis Driven does: mapping the landscape.

The Racquet Clubs Database tracks the clubs opening across major cities, from open-door courts to the invitation-only institutions that have guarded their gates since the 1800s. New York alone runs 26 clubs across 8 sports, with courts dating to 1865, and we are expanding city by city.

It is also a two-sided front door, which is the part we are most excited about:

• Building in this space? Sign up and submit your project. We want it on the map and in front of the capital watching this category.
• Accredited investor who wants exposure to racquet, sport, and social club concepts? Sign up and opt in, and we will send opportunities as they come together.

Anyone can sign up on the site to unlock the full database. The two doors above are how we start connecting the people building with the people funding.

Note: the whole thing was vibe-coded by Matt Shumaker, one of our summer interns, over a couple weeks in Claude Code. He did a remarkable job. If you spot a club we missed or a bug he didn't, that is the fastest way to make the map sharper: tell us (matthew@thesisdriven.com)

-Paul Stanton