Case study · Padel du Plateau, Rocroi (Ardennes, France)
A fully automated padel club
In Rocroi, in the French Ardennes, Florent Maquart launched Padel du Plateau where padel was still unknown: no players, no courts, no facilities. He chose to take everything digital with SportFinder from day one.
Bringing a new sport to a town where padel is still unknown means starting from nothing: no regular players, no rival club, but above all no courts, no facilities, no software. Very well informed, Florent had already compared court suppliers, explored access control solutions and assessed several management systems.
That left the real difficulty of a launch: making the right choices without yet having a community or any certainty. Which solution will hold up in the long run? How do you avoid losing time in the opening stages while laying solid foundations for what comes next? Two indoor courts, open every day from 8am to 11pm, to be run with almost no one on site.
Profile built from the club’s data on SportFinder; the FFT affiliation is taken from the club’s Ten’Up profile (consulted on 7 August 2026).
Getting set up
Ambitious technical choices, from day one
Centralised management software
From onboarding, a “teacher” access was set up to view and share the lesson schedule — more than enough to organise the activity, while keeping management centralised and simple for the club.
Florent wanted a fully digital service from the opening. Online booking, with payment split between players, smooths the organisation and encourages players in the young community to get together.
For access control and building automation, the club put its trust in Dinec, a supported choice that is 100% compatible with SportFinder: a QR code at the entrance and automated lighting, all run from a single tool.
This is what a player booking at Padel du Plateau sees — from the club’s page to a match filled with other players, without a member of staff having to step in.
Step 1
Book online and pay your share
The calendar shows free slots in real time. At checkout, each player pays their share or the full amount — or one pays for several players.
Step 2
Share paid, the match can open up to others
The share is paid; the club is waiting for the other players. By switching visibility to “Public”, the booking becomes a match open to other players.
Step 3
A player joins — and everyone is notified
Another player finds the match: places left, share per person, a “Join” button. At every step, the app alerts the right people — the organiser receives the request, the player receives the answer.
The organiser: “… would like to join your match.”The player: “You can join the match!”
Step 4
The match fills itself
Two players confirmed and paid; the court fills up with no intervention from the club. A booking started by a single player turns into a four-player match, each having paid their share and received their notifications. The club had nothing to enter, nothing to take at the desk, nobody to chase.
This is exactly the “fully digital” service Florent wanted to offer from the opening — and it keeps alive a community of players that, at the start, did not exist.
The result
From the opening, online booking became the norm
98%
of the club’s bookings are made online: the digital service Florent wanted has become his players’ reflex, with no front desk to staff.
In Florent Maquart’s words
“A first month well beyond our hopes! Our collaboration has a lot to do with it. Every day I thank my instinct for putting my trust in SportFinder: daily follow-up, lightning-fast answers to my questions, simple software that anyone can use and that gives me total autonomy. I can only recommend it without a second thought.”
Florent Maquart Manager of Padel du Plateau, Rocroi Translated from French
What it says about our model
A club that thrives is our success too
Supporting a club from scratch to opening day is not about selling a licence and disappearing: our commission is on the club’s online sales, so we only earn our living when its courts fill up. The right question to ask us in a demo is not “how much does it cost” — our prices are published — but “how much will it bring in”, and that is something we prefer to work out on your data.
Can you open a fully automated padel club with SportFinder?
Yes. Padel du Plateau started out that way from the opening: online booking, payment split between players and self-service access to the court, with no front desk to staff.
How does a player book a court at Padel du Plateau?
From the club’s page on SportFinder, they choose a slot on the real-time calendar, then pay their share: each pays their own, or one pays for several.
What is an open match?
A booking open to other players. The organiser makes the match visible; a player asks to join, the organiser accepts, and everyone gets a notification at each step until the court is full.
Does SportFinder work with access control that is already installed?
Yes. Padel du Plateau chose Dinec for access control and building automation: a QR code at the entrance and automated lighting, run from the same tool as the bookings.
Opening a club, or taking yours digital?
We look together at what automation changes for you: online booking, split payment, self-service access — and what it can bring in, on your figures.
Case study · Padel du Plateau, Rocroi (Ardennes, France) 
