Blame It On Rio

New sport serves up opportunity.

Paddle, anyone? Although lesser known than its cousins, tennis and racquetball, the sport of paddle is nonetheless turning heads--and we don't just mean literally. "It's extremely fun," raves Edward H. Thompson, 53, founder of the Paddle Recreation Center in Houston. "This is a sport that's proven itself a winner in many countries."

Putting his enthusiasm into concrete form, Thompson recently opened the first of what he plans to be a chain of Paddle Recreation Centers. "We're a country that's constantly looking for new things," says Thompson, citing the success of extreme sports as an indicator of paddle's potential. "You find something radical every year."

What's radical about paddle is that it incorporates many of the elements associated with tennis--a net to hit over, service boxes and the like--and combines them with the wall rebounds common in racquetball. "The ball stays in play much longer than it does in tennis," explains Thompson. "So you're in motion for a longer period of time."

Not that the motionless are excluded. Spectator-friendly, paddle also serves up a market for tie-in apparel and equipment. Sums up the former tennis-pro-turned-paddle-enthusiast, "We're selling fun."

This article was originally published in the March 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Blame It On Rio.