00:00Our event is called the Pro-Am Paddle Tour. It's a pro-celebrity team paddle event.
00:05The model is we move around the UK, go to major cities. We have two days.
00:11First day is a celebrity pro-am and the second day is our community day.
00:15So the first day is much more about leaning into that celebrity engagement to create awareness and publicity around the sport.
00:22And then our community day is about getting as many new people on court as possible.
00:27So, for example, here in Leeds, working the likes of Leeds Rhinos Foundation, Leeds United Football Club Foundation and some other groups from the community.
00:37And that's where our partnership with the LTA comes in.
00:40Maybe players that haven't had their first experience with paddle, we give them their very first experience.
00:45They go away with a racket in the hand, a smile on their face, a voucher to play again, so that they pick up the sport again the second time and the third time.
00:52And that's really where this partnership with the Pro-Am Paddle Tour and today especially with Slides of the Paddle Club.
00:58Coming here today is very fun. It's different to like tennis because obviously the bigger swing and how to shorten it.
01:05And it's pretty close to tennis, but it's different because of the wall and getting used to the walls about it.
01:11It's so nice to watch them because obviously he's very sociable. He's a lot more sociable than other sports.
01:17I first got involved in Paddle about four and a half years ago. My background is player management, so I manage top British professionals.
01:23I had a feeling pretty early on that this was going to grow.
01:27Around that time or just prior to that, the LTA had taken on the governance of Paddle in Britain.
01:33And I think we have all been waiting for that boom phase.
01:37I would say certainly the last sort of six to 12 months, that is now happening for real in Britain.
01:43I've played Paddle before. It's very fun. You learn a lot of stuff. It's like tennis. So if you've done tennis before, it's great. It's easier.
01:53I would probably play this again if I could. And I hit the ball with some of my friends and then she hit it back to me.
02:01I first got into a sport in 2020, so it was during that Covid kind of period.
02:05And Covid was quite isolating, quite lonely for some people. So coming back out of Covid, going into an environment where there's four players on a court, not so much on your own.
02:16You're not going to the gym on your own. You're going into an environment where there's facilitation of play, but you're meeting new people all the time.
02:22It's a sport that's really accessible. So you kind of pick it up new, but you're obsessed very quickly.
02:28Leeds is an incredible city in terms of a sporting heritage. It's right up there in terms of the British cities and the ones that we want to touch and we want to be involved in.
02:40We're working really, really closely with the local authority and the borough councils to try and map out where Paddle can thrive and survive in the future.
02:47And I think it's really important that we do that work to make sure we don't sort of cluster one area, but make sure it spreads across the city.
02:55But we also reach out to all the communities to make sure the sport remains accessible.
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