Hexagon Cup returning in 2025
April 10, 2024
The organisers of the Hexagon Cup have confirmed that the innovative teams competition will return to Madrid Arena in 2025, following the success of its inaugural event. The second edition Hexagon Cup is expected to take place from January 31st to February 4th 2025.
Simon Freer, Hexagon Cup Chairman, commented: “We are thrilled to announce the return of the Hexagon Cup to Madrid, the padel capital of the world, where padel is officially now more popular than football. Madrid’s selection as the host city for the Hexagon Cup underscores its pivotal role in the global padel community and reaffirms its position as a premier destination for top-tier sporting events. Many of the world’s top padel players call Madrid home, and along with its vibrant sports culture, its central location within Spain and excellent transport links for those travelling within Europe and from further afield, it makes an ideal destination for drawing in participants and spectators from all corners of the globe. We thank our hosts, the City of Madrid, along with the Madrid Padel Federation, and the Spanish Padel Federation. Together, their support not only fosters the growth of the sport domestically but also elevates its stature internationally. We are all eagerly anticipating another thrilling tournament, filled with top head to head matches, passionate fans, and unforgettable moments against the backdrop of this dynamic padel loving and welcoming city.”
The Hexagon Cup is a padel event for teams, which sees the world’s top male, female players join forces in mixed category teams to compete for a €1 million prize fund.
Aside from being the first teams based competition, each team is led by world-renowned figures from different sporting, business or entertainment industries, including Eva Longoria (Eleven Eleven Team USA), Andy Murray (Team AD/Vantage), Robert Lewandowski (RL9), Rafa Nadal’s Academy (Rafa Nadal Academy, powered by Richard Mille), and Puerto Rican businessman Carlos Lopez-Lay (Team Bella Puerto Rico). A Hexagon owned team, entrusted fan voting to help determine its player line up.
Earlier this year, the team’s pairs competed in a series of head-to-head qualifying matches ahead of a knock-out Semi Finals and the Finals showdown. Murray’s Team AD/Vantage was victorious, taking the overall team title, and the team’s male pairing of Martin DiNenno and Juan Tello, and its female pair of Sofia Araujo and Delfina Brea both taking the category titles, whilst Lewandowski’s RL9 team came runner up, with Enzo Jensen and David Gala taking the title in the Next Gen pairing.
To analyse the impact of the first event, Hexagon Cup organisers brought YouGov Sport in to gather data and insight from its first event. Highlights included confirmation that the event was one of the most watched padel events globally, with over 1500 hours of dedicated tv and digital streaming distributed live to over 190 markets internationally.
Produced by Aurora Media Worldwide, the host feed was distributed to 22 broadcasters partners including DAZN as global live partner, Warner Brothers Discovery and Eurosport, ITV, ESPN USA, Fox Sports Australia, Canal+, Saudi Sports Channel, Tencent in China & PCCW in Hong Kong.
In addition, official short-form social media video views and global news coverage of the match action contributed to the overall impact of the event. Hexagon Cup’s YouTube attracted over a million views and over half a million hours of watch time, with digital daily highlights and over 300 clips published across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook though Grabyo, and by the tournament’s official partners, which included Alpine, Mahou, Playtomic and Ticketmaster.
Freer continued: “We are all incredibly proud of the impact of the first Hexagon Cup. These numbers, along with overwhelmingly positive feedback from players, teams and media, surpassed our expectations and prove that there is an appetite for innovative new concepts in padel. Our goal was to create something that took the fan, player and overall sporting level of padel to new levels, which is exactly what we’ve achieved. We are committed to growing and developing the event and will be back even bigger and better in Madrid next year. We are also in the process of planning a small number of satellite events, along with some surprises for the amateur players. These will take the excitement of the Hexagon Cup to emerging padel territories, an important goal in our long-term mission to help grow the sport’s popularity around the world.”
In addition to the broadcast statistics, over 1,337 media impacts (online, print, radio and TV) appeared about the event, with 100 per cent positive sentiment, with Spain, Europe and the US being key locations for readership.
At Madrid Arena itself, ticket sales performed strongly for a first-event, with an average of 80 per cent attendance recorded each day due to the round robin qualification format which meant high profile head to head matches were played from day one.
Sarah Melville, Media Director, YouGov Sport UK, added: “For a first-time event, these figures are incredibly impressive, already matching padel industry levels, and show that the Hexagon Cup has exciting potential ahead of it.”