The franchise league building the professional stage for America's fastest-growing racquet sport.
Padel - the enclosed, doubles-only cousin of tennis played with a solid paddle and glass walls - has spent the last decade becoming one of the most-played racquet sports in Europe and Latin America. In the United States, it is now arriving in a hurry. The U.S. Padel Association projects roughly 15 million active American players and 20,000 courts by 2030. Pro Padel League (PPL) is the company betting that a fast-growing recreational base needs a professional tier to watch, and building it before the rest of the market catches on.
Founded in 2023 by CEO Mike Dorfman, PPL is a city-based franchise league - closer in structure to Major League Soccer than to a traditional tennis tour. Ten teams compete across the United States, Canada and Mexico, and every franchise fields both a men's and a women's side. The league runs a season of ticketed, multi-city events that culminate in a single-elimination playoff, the City's Cup Finals. It is, in the league's own words, "the world's leading professional padel league."
PPL sells to four audiences at once. There are the fans - spectators who buy tickets to live weekends and watch matches on streaming and broadcast. There are the team owners and investors who buy franchise stakes. There are the professional players, men and women, who need a paid competitive circuit in North America. And there are the sponsors and advertisers looking for early access to a sport whose audience is expanding faster than its supply of courts.
The problem PPL solves is a structural one. Padel's growth in the Americas has been bottom-up - clubs, courts and casual players multiplying - without an organized professional showcase to give the sport stars, standings and a season worth following. Racquet sports in the U.S. have shown how quickly that gap can be filled; pickleball went from backyard novelty to televised league in a few short years. PPL is trying to do the same for padel, and to own the professional layer while the category is still forming.
Padel's growth continues to accelerate here in the U.S. and globally. This investment will help elevate our league, teams, and players.
The clearest signal of PPL's trajectory is what it now costs to own a team. When the league launched in 2023, a franchise slot cost $200,000. By 2026, the league says several teams have been valued above $10 million. The funding has kept pace: a $10 million seed in 2025, followed by a $15 million Series A in 2026.
In March 2026, PPL closed a $15 million Series A led by Rick Schnall, co-chairman and governor of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets - the kind of operator who understands franchise sports economics from the inside. Venture firm Left Lane Capital joined, along with investors Andrew Schwartzberg and Jason Tillis. The round followed a $10 million seed in 2025, and the league said the new capital would go toward expanding its front office, building infrastructure and filling out a full calendar of events.
The star power extends to the teams. The New York Atlantics count tennis pro Francis Tiafoe and Ajax goalkeeper Maarten Paes among their backers; polo icon Nacho Figueras is behind the Florida Goats; and Edward Rogers, chair of the Toronto Blue Jays and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, is invested in the Toronto Polar Bears. PPL did not wait for stars to arrive - it recruited owners who already are.
Led by Rick Schnall (Charlotte Hornets governor). Investors: Left Lane Capital, Andrew Schwartzberg, Jason Tillis.
Early capital to scale league operations and expand the franchise footprint across North America.
Each PPL franchise fields a men's and a women's team, and points from both divisions combine into overall standings. The top teams qualify for the City's Cup Finals. Here is the 2026 roster.
| Dates | City | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 9-12 | New York | Season opener |
| Aug 13-16 | Los Angeles | First-ever PPL LA event |
| Sep 24-27 | Playa del Carmen | Mexico |
| Nov 19-22 | Guadalajara | Mexico |
| Dec 3-6 | Miami | City's Cup Finals |
PPL's revenue comes from several places: selling and appreciating franchises, ticketing multi-city live events, title and league sponsorships, and media distribution. That is a different model from the traditional player-ranking tour. By owning the franchises and the calendar, PPL captures the upside of team-value growth and can package a national audience for sponsors - deals already include Swiss watchmaker Frederique Constant, Franklin Sports and official court partner AFP Courts. The league also became title sponsor of the US Open Padel Championships in New York.
The newest piece is PPL II, a developmental league launched in 2026 with more than $350,000 in guaranteed player compensation. It is a pipeline play: a lower rung to identify and grow North American talent so the top league has homegrown stars to build around. Combined with media distribution the league says reaches 300 million households across more than 100 countries, it points to a strategy of building audience and talent depth before maximizing revenue.
PPL is not the only organization chasing padel's rise. Globally, Premier Padel - backed by Qatar Sports Investments and the International Padel Federation - runs the marquee international tour, and the legacy World Padel Tour circuit shaped the pro game before it. Those are ranking-and-tour models built primarily for a global, Europe-and-Latin-America audience. PPL's differentiation is structural and geographic: a franchise league, built for North America, with men's and women's competition on the same court, same weekend.
The broader competition is for attention and crossover audience, where padel sits alongside the U.S. pickleball leagues that proved a recreational racquet boom can be converted into a watchable pro product. PPL's wager is that padel - more athletic, more telegenic through its glass-walled arenas, and already huge abroad - can travel the same path, and that a franchise league is the right vehicle to carry it.
Dorfman describes himself as an early-stage startup person. Before padel, he spent years in the insurance world - including leadership roles at his family's transportation-focused brokerage - and co-founded Koffie Financial, an insurtech company built for the autonomous-vehicle era. He came to padel first as a fan, then bought into the New York Atlantics as an owner, and ultimately took over as CEO of the league. It is a founder story in the literal sense: someone who fell for a product as a customer and decided to build the business around it.
Mike Dorfman launches PPL with seven city-based franchises at a $200,000 entry fee per team.
The league grows to 10 franchises and runs multiple tournaments across the U.S.
PPL raises seed capital to fund operations and expansion.
The developmental league debuts and PPL closes a Series A led by NBA governor Rick Schnall.
Pro Padel League (PPL) is North America's premier professional padel league, founded in 2023, with 10 city-based franchise teams across the U.S., Canada and Mexico that each field men's and women's sides.
It was founded and is led by CEO Mike (Michael) Dorfman, who previously co-founded insurtech company Koffie Financial and owned the New York Atlantics franchise before leading the league.
A $10 million seed round in 2025 and a $15 million Series A in March 2026 led by Charlotte Hornets governor Rick Schnall, with Left Lane Capital among the investors.
Through franchise fees and sales, ticketed live events, sponsorships and title-sponsor deals, and media/broadcast distribution reaching 300M+ households in 100+ countries.
PPL II is a developmental league launched in 2026 with $350,000+ in guaranteed player compensation, created to identify and grow North American padel talent.