Beach tennis, um mercado sem dono

São Paulo may seem to have beach tennis on every corner, even in São Paulo's financial district. The sport has taken over parking lots, rooftops, and rooftops between corporate towers. Brazil has become the largest global hub for beach tennis, with 180 international tournaments held there in 2025, more than any other country, according to the São Paulo Tennis Federation.

Italy, the sport's birthplace, is second. The United States organized fewer tournaments than the state of São Paulo alone – 49 to São Paulo's 45. It's a number that would make headlines in any other context. Brazil has a long history of building sports markets in the informal sector. Football on sand produced world champions and never generated a robust commercial league.

Beach volleyball dominates the beaches and still tries to turn everything into business on a larger scale. Sand volleyball in Brazil grows on its own. But it also parks itself. Beach volleyball is the exception that explains everything. It grew on the same sand, on the same organic path, without structure and without investment from large companies.

In 1991, Banco do Brasil arrived. The National Circuit soon followed. In 1996, Atlanta. Olympic gold. Beach tennis already has a critical mass. There are franchises, there are tournaments, there are investors. What's missing is not money. It's the data that turns everything into an investment thesis. In the United States, pickleball lived a similar situation.

It was a popular, grassroots sport, without structured data and without organized capital. When the Sports & Fitness Industry Association began publishing annual reports with numbers on participants and infrastructure by state, the scene changed. Apollo Global Management invested $225 million in the sport in 2026, valuing the business at $750 million, according to CNBC.

Broadcasting came. Sponsors followed. The report didn't "create" pickleball. It made the growth visible to those with capital. The Brazilian beach tennis scene still doesn't have that document. Estimates of participants vary widely, suggesting more about the need for methodology than the true size of the market. The sector grew through state federations and private initiatives, at a pace no institution had time to keep up with.

It's a fact, not a criticism. It's a reality. Organized capital doesn't chase intuition. It chases argument. And in the world of investments, argument has a name: verifiable data, historical series, market projections. Until that doesn't exist for beach tennis, the sport will continue to grow by demand and Brazil's beach culture.

It will continue to fill courts. It will continue to host more international tournaments than Italy. But it will leave money on the table.