The 2025 Alpine Hexagon Cup was an event to remember. With an electric atmosphere throughout the Madrid Arena, top players showing off their latest tricks and an unrivalled fan experience, anyone who was fortunate enough to be there really had the golden ticket. However, the excitement of the event was not just limited to all of those in the arena. In an exclusive interview with Hal Hornby, Tim Godfrey – the Hexagon Cup strategic advisor – shares the insights behind the tournament’s impressive media and broadcast deals and the importance of showcasing the sport to a global audience.
Having been a key figure in the sports industry for 17 years, Tim Godfrey has never been one to shy away from a challenge. His recent work includes FIA Formula E, SailGP, the Professional Triathletes Organisation (now T100 World Tour), Feldspar Sports, the technology start-up, and most recently, the Hexagon Cup. While these sports differ, they share a common trait: they’re all challenger brands in the world of new sports IP. Whilst some are now more established, none have had a particularly long life and with Godfrey always being involved from the early stages he has become a master of reshaping, rethinking and curating how to bring a new sports concept to market.
With the Hexagon Cup still very much in early infancy, Godfrey has been responsible for constructing their extensive media, distribution and broadcast portfolio and creating a broadcast and digital product which captivates fans across the world.
Padel’s Untapped Potential: A Sport on the Rise
Padel has captivated players worldwide, but its rapid growth in participation hasn’t yet translated into a proportional rise in fandom, viewership, or professional engagement. This was one of the greatest challenges for Godfrey, saying, “We need to connect the rise in participant growth to the professional game. How do we get the engaged participant base playing it to start watching it? More broadly, how do we take the sport outside of its avid, hard core fan base?”
“How do we get the engaged participant base playing it to start watching it?”
This transformation won’t happen overnight, but the Hexagon Cup is accelerating the shift faster than any other padel event. It was clear that Godfrey could see huge potential in the product and that it would only be a matter of time until the gap was bridged.
So, what is it about this event that makes it a padel spectacle like no other?
First of all, Godfrey explained, “padel has such massive potential as a broadcast product, it is in a fixed arena, so you can do a lot with the crowd, with camera technology, data insights and interactivity – much like tennis has done over the years – we want to get to that level.” And boy, did the 2025 Alpine Hexagon Cup demonstrate this. The in-house fan experience had a constant connection between the court and the fans, with interactive elements helping to elevate the experience weaved into the broadcast. But also from a broadcast perspective, the use of technology to provide cutting edge insights, stats and engagement provided a whole new look to professional padel
With the interactive broadcast helping to keep fans engaged, the missing piece is the attraction of a new audience outside of the traditional padel fandom. This is where the celebrity involvement comes in. Through celebrity promotion and interest, a much broader audience is attracted to the Hexagon Cup compared to competitor events. This helps to spread the interest to new markets, demographics and audiences thus engaging a wider pool of people.
“Padel has such massive potential as a broadcast product, it is in a fixed arena, so you can do a lot with the crowd, with camera technology, data insights and interactivity – much like tennis has done over the years – we want to get to that level.”
This is something that Godfrey and the team have put a particular focus on, insisting that they “didn’t want to just point cameras at the court and rely on the padel. We really wanted to focus more on the data, the insights, the stats – the storytelling”.
This has paid off hugely for them with a captivated audience online demonstrating a 40-minute average watch time for the 2024 event. This is exceptionally strong and far greater than the likes of tennis and other competing sports. The combination of this and the fact that you can provide 50-60 hours of live content to a streaming platform makes it a hugely valuable product.
With this attractiveness and the ethos that “padel is at a stage that requires a global approach and needs to have as many eyeballs on it as possible”, this places a huge importance on the broadcast strategy for the event. For the 2025 iteration, the emerging markets across Asia-Pacific that have demonstrated an unprecedented recent adoption of the sport have been a particular focus.
Broadcasting the Future: How Hexagon Cup is Changing Padel’s Global Reach
There are two key factors underpinning the Hexagon Cup broadcast strategy. Firstly, the broadcast needs to bring immediate credibility to the event in its early stages and secondly, the strategy needs to have as large a reach as possible, attracting the greatest viewership.
As Godfrey explained, immediate credibility is created by “partnering with the biggest brands and broadcasters in the world”. This, however, also opens you up to the largest audiences. With partnerships with the likes of DAZN, SpoTV, Tencent, Saudi Sport Channel (SSC), ITV, Fox Sports Australia, and ESPN+ in the USA, the event was put on centre stage next to the biggest sports in the world. This all contributes to a more diverse and mixed distribution model across free to air, pay TV, OTT and even team owner streaming channels – as was seen in the case of Kun Aguero’s Kick channel.
“Immediate credibility is created by partnering with the biggest brands and broadcasters in the world”
But reach matters as much as reputation. The 2025 Alpine Hexagon Cup expanded from 23 broadcast partners in 2024 to 47, ensuring worldwide visibility both in Spanish speaking markets and internationally. This approach acts as a hybrid media distribution model with the team aiming to have “a streaming partner, linear partner and free-to-air partner in each market globally, as well as creating live and on demand content for Hexagon Cup owned platforms.”
This multi-media strategy has helped to propel this event forward rapidly and yet it is still very much the beginning for the world of professional padel.
