Data Sources & Methodology

Data Sources

All of our insights are derived from publicly available data sources that we systematically monitor and refresh:

• Public booking platform listings — publicly listed availability and pricing from major booking platforms used by UK padel clubs
• Club websites and public listings — court counts, facility details, pricing structures, and operational information
• UK planning portal data — planning applications, applicant and agent details, decision outcomes, and timelines

Gross Booking Value (GBV) Estimates

Three things follow from that definition, and each matters when you read the figures:

• Court hire only — coaching, equipment hire, retail, memberships, events and food & beverage are not counted
• Inclusive of VAT — UK listed consumer prices include VAT. GBV is the price a player pays, so it contains the VAT the club collects and remits to HMRC. VAT is never the club's revenue
• Before platform commission — measured before any booking-platform fee, payment processing, discount, or no-show adjustment

GBV is therefore not revenue. It is the gross value flowing through a club's booking funnel — the standard measure for marketplaces — and it sits above any revenue line a club would recognise in its accounts.

We estimate GBV by analysing publicly available booking and pricing data from clubs across the UK. These are estimates, not actual reported figures. Our model factors in:

• Court utilisation — how often courts are booked during operating hours
• Pricing data — hourly rates across peak and off-peak periods
• Time normalisation — adjusting observed data to consistent monthly figures
• Day-of-week patterns — weekday and weekend rates are priced separately, and weighted by how often each occurs in a typical week

Two observation windows. Monthly GBV and occupancy reflect the last 28 days (scaled to a 30-day month) — a recent, real-time read that we also compare to the prior 28 days for the trend. Yearly GBV is an annualised run-rate from the last ~90 days, a more stable trailing-quarter figure that doesn't swing on a single quiet or busy week. Because they use different windows, the yearly figure is deliberately not the monthly figure × 12.

No seasonal adjustment. Padel demand shifts materially between summer and winter, and we do not model that cycle, so our figures are an annualisation of observed activity, not a seasonal forecast.

For clubs where we observe publicly listed availability, GBV is estimated from observed utilisation patterns and listed pricing. For remaining clubs, we apply conservative estimates using each club's publicly listed court count with discounted occupancy and pricing assumptions.

GBV is not a conservative estimate of a club's court-hire revenue — if anything it is an upper bound on it, because it includes VAT and is measured before commission, discounts and no-shows. Separately, a club's total turnover may exceed its court-hire GBV, because coaching, retail and food & beverage are excluded here entirely. These two effects run in opposite directions and we do not net them off: GBV measures one thing — the gross value of court bookings — and should be read as exactly that.

Occupancy Rate

Occupancy measures how full courts are during operating hours — a key indicator of market demand:

We observe publicly listed availability across thousands of time slots to estimate occupancy, applying statistical weighting to ensure clubs with more comprehensive data contribute proportionally to the average. Where we know a club was closed for refurbishment, maintenance or an event, we exclude those dates. We cannot exclude closures we are unaware of, so a club that was shut during the observation window may show correspondingly lower occupancy and GBV for that period.

Pricing Data

We collect publicly listed pricing information from booking platforms and club websites, building an hourly pricing schedule for each club:

Prices vary significantly by location (London clubs average 40% higher than regional clubs), court type (indoor vs outdoor), and time of day. Clubs without a pricing schedule fall back to their listed minimum price.

Planning Applications

We monitor UK public planning portals to identify padel-related applications across local authorities. Our system extracts:

• Application status and decision outcomes (approved, pending, refused)
• Planning agents and applicant organisations involved in padel developments
• Geographic distribution and local authority coverage
• Timeline data from submission to decision

Data Coverage & Limitations

Our occupancy and gross booking value estimates are based on publicly available data collected from clubs with publicly listed availability on booking platforms.

• All data is sourced from publicly available listings — we do not access private or internal club systems
• Coverage of UK clubs is comprehensive but not exhaustive. Clubs that may not be included at any given time include private or members-only clubs that do not list publicly, recently opened or pre-opening clubs we have not yet indexed, clubs that have closed or paused operations, and clubs whose public information is incomplete
• The absence of a club from a report is not an indication that the club is not in operation — if you spot a missing club, let us know at hello@playskan.com and we will look at adding it
• Gross booking value figures are estimates only, not actual reported figures — see Gross Booking Value for exactly what is and isn't included
• GBV includes VAT and is measured before platform commission, so it should not be read as a club's revenue or profit
• We are continuously expanding coverage by monitoring additional booking platforms and adding new clubs

Data Freshness

Booking availability and pricing data is refreshed on a regular basis, typically daily. Aggregated insights (gross booking value estimates, occupancy rates, market reports) are recalculated on a regular schedule and updated with each site deployment.