The Joy of Padel podcast with Anthony Daulphin (JOPS04E14)

In this episode of Joy of Padel, the conversation centres around the remarkable journey of Anthony Daulphin, founder and CEO of the British Padel Awards. Reflecting on his introduction to padel only a few years ago, Anthony shares how a holiday encounter quickly blossomed into a full-fledged pursuit, leading not only to his own involvement on court but to the launch of a womenswear padel clothing collection and a series of pop-up shops across the UK. The discussion explores the inclusive and social nature of padel, delving into why the sport uniquely brings people from all walks of life together, in stark contrast to sports with higher barriers to entry.

A key theme that emerged is Anthony’s entrepreneurial drive—his determination to recognise the unsung heroes and innovators shaping the British padel community. The pair delve into the origins of the British Padel Awards, unpacking the challenges of galvanising support, defining 21 distinct award categories, and establishing a truly national platform for recognition in an industry still finding its feet. The conversation moves from concept to execution, revealing both the visible successes and the behind-the-scenes hurdles of staging such an ambitious event.

Listeners will gain insight into the award’s evolution from a one-off idea to a structured national network, with the launch of the BPA Network and a suite of upcoming regional events designed to foster connection and celebrate achievement. For anyone interested in sports entrepreneurship, community-building, or the vibrant future of padel in Britain, this episode offers both inspiration and practical lessons—demonstrating the power of vision, collaboration, and resilience within a rapidly growing sport.

To connect with Anthony Daulphin:

• Check out the British Padel Awards website: britishpadelawards.co.uk
• Contact by email: info@britishpadelawards.co.uk
• Find or follow the British Padel Awards on Instagram: @britishpadelawards
• For his clothing brand Reve-le Collection on Instagram: @revelecollection

To find the next eight BPA networking events around the UK:

• North West – Liverpool: Wednesday, 26 August 2026
• West Midlands – Birmingham: Wednesday, 30 September 2026
• North East – Newcastle: Wednesday, 28 October 2026
• Yorkshire & Humber – Leeds: Wednesday, 25 November 2026
• South West – Bristol: Wednesday, 27 January 2027
• East of England – Cambridge: Wednesday, 24 February 2027
• London & South East – London: Wednesday, 24 March 2027
• Scotland – Edinburgh: Wednesday, 28 April 2027

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To listen to The Joy of Padel podcast, you can use the embedded player above, or go find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any number of other podcasting services listed here.

Send in your questions or reactions: Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com.

Further resources for The Joy of Padel:

anthony daulphin | BPA Network | British Padel Awards | British Padel Awards Roadshow | Game4Padel | joy of padel | padel accessibility | padel award challenges | padel categories | padel clothing | padel club managers | Padel coaches | padel collaboration | padel community | padel entertainment | padel entrepreneurship | padel event management | Padel Foundation | padel in the UK | padel inclusivity | padel industry growth | padel juniors | padel networking events | padel Partnerships | padel podcasts | padel pop-up shops | padel recognition | padel social sport | padel sponsors | padel success metrics | padel Tournaments | regional padel events

This transcription comes courtesy of Castmagic.io an AI service for podcasters.

Minter Dial: Hey, well, hello, Anthony Daulphin.

Anthony Daulphin: Hello.

Minter Dial: Great, great to have you on the show. You appeared on my radar something like probably 2 years ago. We attended the Anglo-American Padel Cup in 2025. And then you did this whole crazy British Padel Awards. In your own words, Anthony, who are you?

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, well, thank you firstly, Minter, for having me on. And, um, I’m Anthony Daulphin, the founder CEO of the British Padel Awards. So, yeah, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Minter Dial: So, your road to padel, how— when did padel get on your radar, your radar? And, uh, and how’s your game?

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, padel was on my radar about 2 years ago. Um, I hadn’t played it at that point. I just, you know, started to hear a lot more about the sport. Um, Then last year, April, I was on a family holiday in Rhodes, and myself and a relative of mine, we got playing on the court in the resort and didn’t have a clue what we were doing, but we thought, right, let’s just give this a shot. Done a few tutorials and slowly picked it up throughout the 2 weeks that we were on holiday. And a few people on the resort came and joined us. So, we, we were now, you know, doubles in full flow. And, uh, yeah, we really enjoyed the sport. Got back to Liverpool, which is where I’m based, and, um, I decided to, to kind of further explore the sport and, um, found some local courts at a cricket club. Um, it was some Game4Padel courts that, that were set up there. And, and that was, that was it. That was the, the beginning of a, a long journey, shall we say, um, within the padel industry. Um, I have a clothing brand, so my clothing brand, I decided kind of take a different avenue and create a small collection for padel, mainly womenswear actually. So, I was doing a lot of pop-up shops at different padel clubs and different events, and this was where I quickly realized how widespread the sport was becoming, not just, you know, in the city where I was living, but, you know, nationally. This was going everywhere, everybody was talking about it. I also realized how inclusive it was from an age range perspective, you know, from ethnicity perspective, what you name it, you know, everybody was playing. So, I loved it.

Minter Dial: I wonder to what extent that will be something that padel can keep. For example, the culture of padel being social, the ability for it to be an inclusive sport. If, I mean, if you look and see how it is in Spain, it’s very often you’ll still get top dog people playing with people from a completely different background. I’ve, I’ve had the great pleasure of playing padel on the same padel court, a CEO and a tube, uh, driver. Yeah. And, and, you know, that’s just not relevant. You’re— it’s your padel, your smile that’s on the court.

Anthony Daulphin: Absolutely. And I, you know, I think I liken it to, you know, going to a party. You know, the music might be terrible, But if you’re with the right people, you will enjoy that, that night, and you always walk away from there remembering who you were with, the laughs and the jokes you had. So, the same is, I think, with padel, you know, regardless of level. I think it’s a very social sport. You end up meeting people from all different types of backgrounds, walks of life, and I think that’s the great thing about this sport is while you are playing, you’re also socializing and getting to know new people. And, you know, if you’re a business person, that might open up a new avenue for you for your business because you’ve met somebody new. Or if you’re just a social person, you might gain a new friend. So, you know, it’s a great sport, whatever level you’re playing at, which is good.

Minter Dial: And I’m quite sure you have experiences in other sports. The question I have is to what extent padel is special in this regard. How, how and why do you think padel is such a genuine connector? Um, what do you think makes it?

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, it’s a good question. Well, other sports are, you know, I’m a keen football fan, I play football regularly on a Sunday, um, but, you know, padel is quick, very quickly becoming the sport that’s actually starting to take front place. Um, I think more so the initial turning up early before a game, having a bit of a chat with whoever you’re playing with. I love the fact that you can join open games with people that you’ve never met before. I found I got better playing padel by joining open games and playing with people who were better than me, higher levels to me, and it challenged my ability, taught me new things. So, I think this is very different to many other sports where there’s so many different aspects that are involved in it that, that make it an enjoyable experience, I think.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I think one of the points that I typically break out is, as you said, even if you’re not a great player, you can still have fun. Absolutely. As opposed to tennis, which sort of takes years of lessons and drills, and they finally get some control of the ball. But it’s a, it’s a high barrier to entry as opposed to padel. So, in the British Padel Awards, you have always said, or you like to say, that you always have a fire burning in your belly to start projects. Yeah. What did that fire— how and what did that first translate into the British Padel Awards, that fire?

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, and I think again, this goes back to myself doing, uh, pop-up events at so many different clubs. Each club I was going to, I was meeting new members from the padel community, whether that be a coach, whether that be a player, whether that be a club manager, whether that be someone else who has a brand within the space. And it quickly showed me how much different aspects there were to the sport. With it being so new, I found it astounding that so many people in so quick time were trying to start some type of adventure. Some people were leaving their full-time jobs to be a coach. Some people were transitioning from tennis to now be a, a padel coach, um, and I just found it amazing that people were really basically putting their full 100% trust into this sport to say, I love this sport so much that I’m going to go ahead and do this. And for me as an entrepreneur and somebody who has always thrived off new exciting projects, This space I found very interesting because it was almost a bit of an untouched territory when it came to recognition. I thought it just made sense that if these people are leaving full-time jobs to create something in this sport, surely they’re putting in so much work, there has to be some recognition at the end of this for what they’ve achieved. Same is with a coach. If a coach has got to— from a level 1 to a level 2 or, you know, upwards, It’s an achievement, but where is the celebration within all of this? And for me, I saw the, probably the gap in that market where I’d done a bit of research and couldn’t really see, you know, an actual official awards platform that was really, let me word this differently, that was being so inclusive to the point where everybody across the nation, whether you’re a coach, business owner, podcast, whatever it be, have a space where they can say, right, I want to nominate my organization, my brand, and I want to shout about what I’m doing. So, that the Paddle Awards really came from recognizing the importance of people being able to celebrate their successes. Basically, that’s it.

Minter Dial: You know what I like about what you’re saying, Anthony? I mean, what I’m hearing is that you wanted to recognize the effort of being bold, and being an entrepreneur at the beginning of this whole thing, because it’s a slog being an entrepreneur and there’s no guarantee of success.

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, and I’m also somebody who knows, having run an education company for the last 10, 11 years, um, built that from scratch and actually left a full-time job to pursue it. And it happened to be— just happened to be the right decision because, you know, as I say, 11 years later we’re still going. However, I also know the amount of nerves it builds when it comes to a leap of faith like that. Then when you’ve took that leap of faith, you then have all of the behind-the-scenes work that nobody sees. You have to be the biggest supporter of what you’re doing. You have to be your own biggest fan. And until, you know, it starts to resonate with whoever your target market is. So, I also see it from the point of view of someone who’s done it and has to put in that sheer amount of work to get where you’re trying to get to. So, that was another aspect that I really wanted to celebrate is the hard work that people have really put into what they’re doing. It’s important. It’s important.

Minter Dial: So, when you had this first idea, this is burgeoning energy, investments, entrepreneurs around Paddle. Wow. What did you set out to achieve with the British Paddle Awards? How big was your vision at the very beginning? Because we’re going to get on to your— the new aspects of it.

Anthony Daulphin: What is—

Minter Dial: what’s the next steps of it? To what extent did you have this full vision, or was it just piece by piece and building as it goes?

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, well, yeah, you’d laugh at that, Minter. I mean, for me, when it comes to my ideas, they’re never small. So, it’s always a huge idea that somebody would look at and go, what? You know, but for me, when I thought of the awards, the only way it made sense that it could work was if it was done on a national scale. I mean, to do an awards in the city where I live at the moment, which is Liverpool, it didn’t make sense because Liverpool isn’t huge for padel. It is now, and it’s definitely ever-growing, you know. Somebody could have probably said, well, you could have definitely done an awards just for Manchester for all of their clubs and their communities, or London. And that is true. However, I knew that there’d be so many other people that would be missed out. So, national was the initial idea. I don’t know whether I knew how exactly it was going to work when I first announced it, but I knew I’d figure it out. And yeah, piece by piece, we start— I started to look at all of the— some of the key people within the industry who could help me pull this idea together. And, you know, whether that be the judges, some of the ambassadors that came on board in the early stages, Mm-hmm. And once we had the venue, it really was just right. How do we now build the platform? In what order are we going to run things? How are we going to decide what these categories should be? And, you know, you yourself know that there’s 21 categories, and even that was a really hard task to try and, you know, dwindle them down to 21. If some, some may say you probably should have had less, but, but I couldn’t leave certain uh, categories out because I still found them really important for the, for the padel space. So, yeah, it was, it was, it was tough to start with, I will say that.

Minter Dial: And from your perspective, Anthony, have you come across any other countries that are doing anything similar? I haven’t seen anything personally, but then again, you kind of have to speak Norwegian and Czech and these other languages to actually know what’s going on.

Anthony Daulphin: As of yet, no. Um, I have some big plans coming up. Um, I can’t really speak on it too much just yet, but, as of yet, I mean, across Europe, I’m sure that there’s certain initiatives that are happening. I haven’t seen anything done to the scale that we did it in the UK. I haven’t seen that as of yet, but I may be wrong, so I don’t want to be quoting anything. And but yeah, I haven’t seen it in Europe. Um, I know Dubai, I know they’ve got a pretty big padel scene over there.

Minter Dial: New Zealand.

Anthony Daulphin: Still haven’t seen a, a recognition platform such as an awards to take place, but I’m sure there’ll be, sure there’ll be one soon.

Minter Dial: and the US as well. Um, so yeah, Anthony, as an entrepreneur, you, you came up with this idea, let’s go national, the British Paddle Awards. What were the biggest challenges or hiccups and maybe the barriers you, you came across as you went through this, and how did you overcome them?

Anthony Daulphin: Some of the biggest barriers, I suppose, were initially, you know, when you’re starting anything as big as that, you immediately think of some of the key players who you really want to get involved with this idea to make it more credible. You know, little old me here trying to run this national awards, it doesn’t hold a massive amount of weight until people start to witness other people being involved. And that’s just the truth of the matter. However, yeah. Trying to get my ideas across to other people who are key players in the industry was difficult to start with. What I will say is that I think because it didn’t exist, there was a lot of people who were key players in the industry who actually did— couldn’t— could not— they couldn’t not agree that this was missing, because it was. And it’s almost like that same mentality. You don’t really know you needed it until it’s actually there in front of you, and you’re like, how have I not had this, you know, up to now? And I think Everybody’s working hard day by day, they’re moving 100 miles an hour, not thinking about, you know, all of the successes along the way. And it’s only when somebody stops you and says, hold on a minute, have you witnessed what you’ve accomplished already? And you stop and think, oh gosh, yeah, you’re right, I didn’t look at it that way. So, I think when the awards came and I was speaking to certain people, they actually said, well, actually, do you know what, this, this would be a brilliant initiative, really good. So, yeah, getting people on board was one of the, the difficult things in the early stages. Um, another thing was probably doubts, because there’s always going to be, uh, you know, a percentage of people who have them.

Minter Dial: The naysayers.

Anthony Daulphin: The naysayers, yeah, the people that have the, the power in their hands to, to help you to move something along. really in a real positive and a real, you know, impactful way. However, again, if nobody has seen something take place, you know, of what you’re trying to talk about to them, then it’s very hard for somebody to see that. And I always say, a creative— not everybody is naturally a visionary, not everybody is naturally creative. So, it’s sometimes hard for other people to see things through your eyes. Um, so it took a lot of, a lot of bashing and a lot of trying to really reinforce the idea to people. Um, and some people didn’t come on board. That, that’s, you know, the, the truth really. Some people said, no, we’ll sit on the sidelines. Um, great for what you’re doing, but we’ll kind of just, we’ll watch it from afar and, um, you know, all the best kind of thing.

Minter Dial: Yeah.

Anthony Daulphin: But we don’t really want to be kind of involved at this point.

Minter Dial: So, yeah, yeah, there’s always that, you know, joining the first edition, the fear that it’s not going to be a second edition and all that. So, um, with all, with all the commentary that you got about the 21 different awards, can you think of or tell us about one or two that you thought that you really feel are super valuable and counterintuitive anyway to what typically would be the type of awards you’d have?

Anthony Daulphin: You mean ones that are super important?

Minter Dial: Yes, to you.

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, to me. Um, yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I think Coach of the Year was, was super important, and I believe that because, you know, if we’re really going to see the sport thrive like we want it to, to become an Olympic sport, to be televised, you know, to be at that level of, you know, in the sports industry, I think coaches are an imperative aspect to building better players for the country. You know, there’s— we know so many different clubs now are running junior programs, which is great because, you know, as a person who works with young people, I also know how much young people there are who excel at sports in amazing ways but don’t have the channels to access it. And we look at people like You know, Jason Manfred, who’s created the Jason Manfred Paddle Academy, Nikhil Mahindra, who’s done the Paddle Foundation. These are people here who have created some really good avenues for not your child who’s in an affluent area and is able to access that extra funding to do things, but actually the children who are in more deprived areas where, you know, Padel is actually inaccessible, but actually people are there creating it. So, I think the coaches who are there and are training and coaching these, these juniors to, to, to have that fire burning in their belly from very early for padel, I think is brilliant. Podcasts, Minter, you know, I know it was yourself. I know Nick Bianchi who does, and Jen who do the Padel Stories podcast. And even that one was a category where some could have said to me, well, surely we don’t need that. In there because there isn’t loads of padel podcasts specifically existing. And I could have said, well, yeah, you are right. However, I think it’s important that you have created something, a platform to have great conversations with people from the industry that, that only elevates their profile as well, which is another aspect which will help drive the sport forward. So, yeah, so many, so many different— all of them were really important to me, if I’m completely honest. There wasn’t one in that list that I thought, hmm, Yeah, we’ll leave that because I thought every single category here has a place within the padel industry and we need it collectively to merge together to be a powerful and strong awards year on year, you know. Yeah.

Minter Dial: So, I attended, of course, and I was very thankful for the win. And I must say, I thought it was very well run for having attended many, many awards over the years. the ones that drag on, that are bumbled in terms of logistics. You had the great MCs of Joe and Gail. It was a smooth-run operation for it, and especially smooth and remarkable for that as a first edition.

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah.

Minter Dial: Yet one of the things is a challenge in this sort of thing. How do you evaluate success? There’s always going to be an economic component to it as an entrepreneur. But the, the, the notion of it was a success, yeah, it’s just people said, oh, it was really cool, Anthony, I loved it.

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, you know, you yourself said it went really well, but I can tell you now in the background there was so many things that did not go well. And, you know, um, I was saying this to somebody the other day that I actually didn’t relax and let my hair down until it was time for the after-party. Now, I had a seat, I had my meal being delivered to my table just as much as my other guests, and I never sat down once. I think I sat down once throughout the whole night. I sat down to listen to Joe and Gayle, um, because there were so many other things to sort out. Everybody who I spoke to said, what a great awards, it went so well. And, and in my head I was thinking, well, you don’t know.

Minter Dial: If only you knew. The show must go on.

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah.

Minter Dial: And, and that, that’s part of why it was so remarkable for me because I know that that happens. I know that there’s a microphone missing, or where is the guest who’s supposed to be doing this? And, and oh my gosh, uh, so-and-so drank too much, or, you know, stuff like that happens in these awards. And all of a sudden it can go very quickly tits up, as we say.

Anthony Daulphin: This is it. And, and no one can see the unforeseen things that are going to come because that is unforeseen. So, again, when that happens, you’ve, you’ve really got to have the right team around you to be able to troubleshoot and figure out, right, what do we do to get around this? We were behind on time at one stage. You know, we had a really— because there was 21 categories, the time restraints are very strict. So, we were behind on time at one stage and we were looking at the categories thinking, right, how are we going to get through all of these and still be able to do the entertainment and the main meal on time, etc.? So, it’s just having the right team around you to be able to troubleshoot. But you asked the question, what— how would you define it as being successful? Yeah. I don’t think I’m ever going to say that any of them have been successful, but what I will say is that it was done in a way where everybody left and had a great experience. And each year we will continue to make it stronger. We will continue to make the foundations of it much more solid. Um, you know, I’m already looking forward to 2027 now because we have a much more, uh, structured template to follow. We didn’t for number one, because we didn’t have a template. We had to literally make it from scratch, whereas now things should be a lot more straightforward. And, uh, we now— we can work on tweaking. We have the time now to work on tweaking things to make it what we really want it to be. Um, the first year was a trial and we did it, but now this is where you get to see in, in real full effect.

Minter Dial: Well, I must say I was very impressed, um, in the entertainment to have an opera singer. What— how did that idea come to bear?

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, Alexander Wall. Yeah, Opera for Sport. Yeah, he had got in contact quite early on and told me about his experience, you know, and, you know, performing— performances are everything for me. I have a background as a singer myself, and, you know, when it comes to doing an event, I’m always going to put a clear, a good focus on how are we going to entertain people. Yeah, that’s one of the big things for me. So, when Alexander got in contact, I knew there was some space there for him in some way. I didn’t know where it was going to fit in, but I thought, you know, with that British theme, you know, the British Padel Awards, I thought we need to really give this that feel. And the opera, the opera element of it, I think just went down really well. I had a lot of great feedback for Alex. So, yeah, a big shout out to him.

Minter Dial: Super. What makes me think actually, at the end of the day, if they’re talking about the future now, it does feel like having a British— with Britishness in it can also do something for our nation. Absolutely. Yeah.

Anthony Daulphin: And again, you know, it’s called the British Padel Awards. We are representing the country and we’re bringing everybody there. And let me just highlight, you know, we had a number of of partners who flew over from Europe. We had Lusa Tendas who came over from Porto. We had LED Projects who came over from Madrid. These were European partners who saw the importance of celebrating what we are doing in the UK. And yeah, I think pulling in some of those elements to make it, to give it a real British feel. What we should have had is cups of teas. You know, we should have had the teapots and scones on the table with cream and jam. However, we can fit that in next year maybe. But yeah, yeah, we’ve got to make— we’ve really got to give it that feel, and, and that’s what we, we tried to do.

Minter Dial: Well, I love it, Anthony. All right, so, um, what about the future? What, um, I know you’ve already done, uh, the British Padel Awards Cupra Cup that’s on, on board.

Anthony Daulphin: Um, how—

Minter Dial: because you, you’ve obviously seen the British Padel Awards and you’re clearly angling to make it bigger in terms of the footprint and what it’s trying to do. So, give us what you can about what is the future of the British Padel Awards as it now stands.

Anthony Daulphin: Yeah, so off the back of the awards now, you know, we, we now class ourselves and like to call ourselves the official recognition platform for padel. Um, that’s the, that’s the direction we’re, we’re heading towards. I’d like to say we’re, we, we’re there, and, um, we are now also recognise our position as helping people to network and come together. So, what we’ve created is the BPA Network, which is 8 regional networking events. So, we’re going to go on a roadshow. This is the British Padel Awards Roadshow right through to 2027. So, we’ve announced all of the dates, the official dates for every single region’s network event. We know there’s more regions in the UK than 8. However, 8 is a nice number to cover the main regions that, that we need to, and everybody can, can come and attend whichever ones they want. We’re starting with the Northwest. We’re holding it in Liverpool at the Palm House, and tickets are already on sale. We’ve got a number of partners already. We’ve got a great partner who’s just signed up for all of 8 events from the US, which I’ll be announcing over the next few weeks. We’ve got Luce Attenders coming back to join us again as an official partner, and we’ve got some great other people involved. from the Northwest and South. So, the roadshow is 8 regional events that allow each region now to be able to celebrate what they’re doing in their regions. But in those events, of course, we’ll be talking about the British Padel Awards 2027. We just announced the dates last week for the official awards, so wahoo! Saturday the 15th of of May, I can say, is, uh, 2027. Um, haven’t announced the official venue yet. We might be keeping it at the same place, we might take it somewhere different, but you’ll see that later on this week. And, uh, yeah, so, so it’s all go, but, uh, we’re ready to, to really keep our, you know, positioning and, and only build on what we’ve done.

Minter Dial: Superlative. So, I’ll put those dates in the show notes. location by location and links where possible. How can someone now, Anthony, get in touch with you? Who do you want to come say, hey Anthony, I need you? And how can they get in touch with you, find out about your clothing, Revleux, anything else?

Anthony Daulphin: I think, yeah, I think what we want to do now is we’ve showed that through partnership and collaboration, we were able to pull an amazing awards, and, and we could not have done that awards without all of the great brands, organizations that came on board to partner. So, I want to stress the importance of partnerships and, and people having synergies and using those synergies to do something on a bigger scale. It’s really important. Um, but yeah, so in terms of getting in contact with us now, we’re thinking about 2027’s awards. Uh, people can also get involved as a partner for the BPA Network events. Um, if you contact us via the British Padel Awards email, which is info@britishpadelawards.co.uk. You can also submit an inquiry via the website, so that’s www.britishpadelawards.co.uk, and you can get in contact with the team via there.

Minter Dial: Wonderful. All right, Anthony, rock on. See you soon.

Anthony Daulphin: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure to join you. Thanks for having me.