How Padel Banda in Warsaw turned the chaos of a large padel community into a system

When a padel community is just starting out, most of it can be run from a chat: book a court, create a tournament, gather the players and check a handful of payments.

But as a padel community grows, the administrative work piles up far faster than you would expect.

That is exactly what Padel Banda in Warsaw ran into. The community grew to thousands of members, runs dozens of tournaments every week, and the admin team has to keep on top of registrations, payments, waiting lists, ratings, communication and the schedule all at once.

At some point it became clear that the problem was no longer how to run another tournament. They needed a system that would let them manage a large padel community in Warsaw properly.

That is when Padel Banda started working with PADO.

Padel Banda Warsaw: the scale of the community

Today Padel Banda is one of the largest padel communities built by Ukrainians outside Ukraine.

To get a sense of the scale the team works at, the headline numbers are enough:

At that scale even a small manual process quickly turns into a serious load for the team.

Who is running today’s tournament? Who has already paid? Who is on the waiting list? Where has a place opened up? Which tournaments are filling more slowly this week? Where is the current information?

When all of that is handled through chats, spreadsheets and bank transfers, admins spend more and more time on routine.

Why Padel Banda chose PADO

There were already services for running padel tournaments on the market. But Padel Banda needed more than a tool for organising matches.

The problem was broader: a large padel community develops an entire operating system of dozens of processes — from registration and payments to waiting lists, ratings and communication with players.

So what was needed was a product not only for the player, but for the team running the community.

PADO combines two key parts:

• an app for players;
• a CRM for admins and organisers.

In the app players can find tournaments, sign up, follow their rating and results, and receive notifications.

The CRM lets the team see the whole picture and manage operations in one place.

For Padel Banda it was the administrative side that became one of the most important reasons to move to PADO.

The tournament calendar became the team’s main tool

One of the most useful features for Padel Banda turned out to be the calendar in the CRM.

The team sees every tournament on one screen and can quickly assess what is happening across the week.

What admins see in the calendar

• which tournaments are already full;
• where a lot of places are still free;
• which events are on today;
• which tournaments need extra attention;
• what the load on the team looks like.

If several events fall on the same evening, admins see the overall load immediately and can split the work between team members.

Most importantly, everyone has the same current picture.

The team no longer depends on one particular person remembering what is happening today or tomorrow.

Online payments cut down the manual work

For a large padel community payments can become one of the most time-consuming processes.

When payment is handled manually, admins have to check bank transfers, send reminders, deal with cash and pass information between themselves.

In PADO payments run through Stripe, and the money goes directly to Padel Banda’s account.

The team can also set the payment logic per tournament.

Payment can be:

• required at registration;
• optional;
• available later through the app.

That avoids creating an unnecessary barrier to signing up. A player can register first and pay later.

If a participant pays on site, the admin simply records it in the system.

As a result the payment information stays in one place regardless of who is running the tournament.

Wallet: easy payment and extra retention

Another tool was the internal Wallet.

A player can top up their community balance in advance and use the funds to enter future tournaments.

For the player it is mainly convenience.

For Padel Banda it is another retention tool.

If there is already money on the balance, the next match inside the community becomes the natural choice.

Wallet also simplifies internal refunds. Instead of a separate bank transfer the money can stay on the balance and go towards the next entry.

Community points: a season-long motivation system

A global rating shows how well a player performs.

But for Padel Banda that was not enough.

The community wanted extra motivation tied specifically to playing in its own tournaments.

That is how community points came about.

Players enter Padel Banda tournaments, earn points, climb the season table and compete for prizes.

What counts here is activity in Padel Banda’s own tournaments.

In effect the system answers two different questions:

• Global rating: “How well do I play?”
• Padel Banda season rating: “Where do I stand right now among the people I play with every week?”

That gives players an extra reason to come back to the next tournament and stay active inside the community.

An automatic waitlist instead of endless messaging

Popular tournaments often fill very quickly. Once every place is taken, a reserve list forms — the waitlist.

Previously an admin had to:

1. find out about a withdrawal;
2. find the next player;
3. message them;
4. wait for a reply;
5. move on to the next person if that player could not make it.

In PADO this can be automated.

Up to a set deadline the system moves the next participant from the waiting list into the main line-up itself whenever a place frees up.

The order can follow registration time or other rules depending on the tournament format.

For the player the process is almost invisible.

For the admin it means far less manual messaging.

Telegram notifications help players not to miss tournaments

For Padel Banda it matters that its audience uses Telegram heavily.

Push notifications in the app are useful, but a player can switch them off or simply not open the app for a few days.

Telegram gets checked far more regularly.

So Telegram notifications became a practical communication tool.

Players get important information and reminders where they already are every day.

That reduces the “I forgot”, “I did not see it” and “I did not know” cases — and at the same time cuts the number of personal reminders admins have to send.

What Padel Banda players get

Automating administration matters, but the system has to be convenient for the players themselves too.

In PADO a player can easily:

• find the right tournament;
• see the line-up;
• check their next matches;
• look through the results;
• follow their rating;
• receive important notifications.

Padel Banda singles out the rating system in particular.

A minimum and maximum rating can be set for a given tournament. If a player is outside that range, they cannot sign up for the event.

That cuts down manual moderation and helps build tournaments that match the level of the field.

More automation means more room for new formats

One of the main results of automation for Padel Banda is not only saved time.

When admins are not spending most of their energy on payments, lists and the reserve, the team has more room to develop the community.

Padel Banda regularly tests new formats:

• Americano;
• Winner’s Court;
• pair tournaments;
• events for particular levels;
• different scoring systems;
• formats with groups and playoffs.

If you want to know more about the different padel tournament formats, see our article “Padel tournament formats: Americano, Mexicano and others”.

And for running tournaments with a group stage and playoffs, there is a separate piece: “Padel tournaments with groups and playoffs: how to run one”.

For a large padel community in Warsaw it matters that the technology does not force every tournament to look the same.

On the contrary, the system should help organisers create new formats and new reasons for players to come back to the court.

Padel tournaments in Warsaw and Poland

When a community is growing fast, it matters not only to organise events but to make them easy for players to find.

PADO helps organisers manage tournaments centrally, and helps players find suitable events and sign up online.

If you are looking for padel tournaments in Poland, see the current events on the page for PADO tournaments in Poland.

For players in Warsaw that is particularly relevant, as the padel community keeps growing and the number of formats and events with it.

Working with PADO: the product grew alongside the community

When Padel Banda started working with PADO, the product for large communities was still developing quickly.

Padel Banda had real operational scenarios that quickly showed what needed improving.

The team talked to PADO regularly about:

• how convenient the admin workflow was;
• the overall view of events;
• the flexibility of the system;
• communication with players;
• new features for large communities.

So the collaboration was not simply a move onto off-the-shelf software.

PADO changed too, in line with how a large padel community actually works.

Some of the tools Padel Banda uses today came about precisely from those real-world scenarios.

What changed after moving to PADO

Padel Banda knew how to run tournaments before PADO.

That is not what the move was for.

The main change is that the operating system now matches the scale of the community itself.

As a result the team sees one picture, payments are tied to participants, the reserve is automated, and the calendar helps plan the whole week.

Telegram and the app take on part of the communication.

Wallet and internal points help build a longer relationship with players.

And admins get more time for the things that cannot be automated.

What this means for growing a padel community

For a large padel community, technology is not just an app for signing up to a tournament.

When the number of players runs into thousands and events into dozens a week, the organisational processes become a system in their own right.

Automation helps Padel Banda cut the routine and put more resources into growing the community:

• into people;
• into new formats;
• into partnerships;
• into atmosphere;
• into new events;
• into developing the community.

Technology should not replace the people who build a padel community.

It should remove the routine, so the team has time to grow the community.

Padel Banda, Warsaw

Padel Banda continues to grow one of the largest Ukrainian padel communities in Warsaw, using PADO to run tournaments, work with players and automate day-to-day operations.