Question 1

What exactly is MACA Padel?

Accepted Answer

MACA is a mixed-ability padel experience built for groups of people who do not all play at the same level. It combines a tournament format, a participant journey, the technology to run it and the support around it. The result is a day where everyone plays, everyone matters and nobody is left standing on the side. Think of it as an engagement product powered by padel, rather than a padel tournament with a logo on it.

Question 2

Who is MACA designed for?

Accepted Answer

Any group of people who want a shared, active experience together — teams and workplaces, clubs, venues, communities and networks. It works best when the group is mixed: different ages, different abilities, different levels of confidence. That mix is the point, not the problem.

Question 3

Is MACA really a team-building activity?

Accepted Answer

You can describe it that way, and plenty of people do. But “team building” undersells what usually happens. MACA creates shared experiences, real conversations, healthy competition, new connections between people who rarely speak, and stories people are still telling weeks later. It feels like a proper event people chose to be at, not an exercise they were sent to.

Question 4

Why padel rather than another activity?

Accepted Answer

Padel is unusually easy to pick up — most people can rally within minutes, which matters when half the room has never held a racket. It is played in pairs on an enclosed court, so it is naturally social and conversational. It is also one of the fastest-growing sports in the UK, so there is genuine enthusiasm and curiosity around it. That combination of accessible, sociable and current is hard to find elsewhere.

Question 5

What are we actually buying?

Accepted Answer

Not court time, and not simply a tournament. You are buying a ready-made experience built around padel: the format, the participant journey from invitation through to the day itself, the technology that runs it, the content people share afterwards and the support you choose around it. The output is not a scoreboard — it is a group of people who feel differently about each other afterwards.

Question 6

How is MACA different from just booking courts?

Accepted Answer

Booking courts gives you an hour of padel and usually the same confident people dominating it. MACA gives you a structured event with a clear shape, a role for every participant regardless of standard, and something to show and share when it is over. It is the difference between an activity and an experience.

Question 7

Do our people need to already play padel?

Accepted Answer

No. Most MACA participants are new or fairly new to padel, and the format assumes exactly that. MACA helps you play padel with your colleagues, regardless of your standard. Complete beginners routinely finish the day as the people who enjoyed it most.

Question 8

What if we have complete beginners and experienced players?

Accepted Answer

That is the ideal group. MACA is deliberately designed so that different standards can compete in the same event without it becoming uncomfortable for either end. Stronger players still get competitive, meaningful matches. Newer players still contribute to the result rather than being carried.

Question 9

What if only a handful of people currently play padel?

Accepted Answer

That is completely normal and not a barrier. A small core of enthusiasts usually acts as the spark, and the rest of the group comes along because the day is built for them too. Many organisations run their first MACA precisely because they want to open the sport up to more people.

Question 10

Will the best players just dominate?

Accepted Answer

No — and this is the question we get asked most. A traditional padel tournament rewards the strongest pair and everyone else fills in the draw. MACA is built for mixed groups instead, so the day stays competitive at every level and the outcome is never decided by one or two standout players. We do not publish how we achieve that, but you will see it in the results.

Question 11

Can people of different standards genuinely enjoy the same event?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and it is the single most common piece of feedback we hear afterwards. Everyone plays a full day of matches, everyone has moments that matter, and the shared experience is the thing people remember. It is far more interesting than watching the best pair collect a trophy.

Question 12

Is it suitable for people who have never played before?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely. Padel is quick to learn, the rules are simple, and MACA is structured so first-timers are playing properly within their first match. If you would like extra reassurance, a coach can be added to warm people up and support beginners on court.

Question 13

How many people can take part?

Accepted Answer

MACA runs for 12 players on 3 courts, 16 players on 4 courts or 20 players on 5 courts. If you have a specific number in mind, tell us and we will tell you honestly whether it fits.

Question 14

What about mixed genders, ages and fitness levels?

Accepted Answer

All welcome, and all normal. Padel is far less physically punishing than most racket sports, and the day is structured in short matches with natural breaks. The mix of people is what gives the event its character.

Question 15

Is padel good for team building?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Padel is played in pairs on a small court, so everyone is close to the action and talking constantly. It is easy to pick up in minutes, gentle on the body and far less intimidating than tennis or squash. With MACA, partners change through the day, so people end up playing with colleagues they don't usually work alongside.

Question 16

How many people do you need for a corporate padel tournament?

Accepted Answer

MACA runs for 12 people on 3 courts or 20 people on 5 courts. Both take about three hours from the first round to the finals.

Question 17

Can complete beginners play in a corporate padel tournament?

Accepted Answer

Yes — that is what MACA is built for. Beginners and strong players are mixed so every match is competitive and nobody is left on the sidelines.

Question 18

Do we need to book the padel courts ourselves?

Accepted Answer

On Software Only and Supported you book the courts at your chosen venue. On Fully Managed we can arrange the venue for you.

Question 19

What can MACA help our organisation achieve?

Accepted Answer

MACA can support a surprisingly broad range of people and organisational goals.

Organisations can use it to:

• bring colleagues together
• connect different teams and departments
• encourage movement
• make activities more inclusive
• create shared experiences
• support employee engagement
• celebrate company milestones
• support charities or social initiatives
• create authentic employer-brand stories
• give employees something genuinely positive to talk about

The tournament is the vehicle. What you choose to achieve with it can be much bigger.

Question 20

How does MACA help people connect?

Accepted Answer

Traditional workplace activities often leave people spending time with the colleagues they already know. MACA deliberately creates opportunities for people to mix naturally through the tournament experience. Different abilities, departments, locations and social groups can play together throughout the event. That creates conversations and relationships that are difficult to manufacture through traditional workplace activities.

Question 21

Can MACA support employee wellbeing?

Accepted Answer

Yes — without making wellbeing feel like another workplace programme people are expected to participate in. MACA gets people moving, competing, laughing and spending time together. The experience creates the wellbeing benefit naturally. It does not replace professional wellbeing support.

Question 22

How inclusive is MACA?

Accepted Answer

Mixed ability is one of the reasons MACA exists. The format is designed so experienced players, occasional players and complete beginners can participate in the same event. The aim is not to remove competition. It is to make competition accessible to more people.

Question 23

Can MACA bring different teams or departments together?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Organisations can deliberately use MACA to connect departments, offices, leadership levels, new starters, remote teams and groups that rarely interact. You provide the people. MACA provides the structure that helps them interact naturally.

Question 24

Can MACA support our social-value or charity goals?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A MACA event can be connected to a charity, fundraising initiative, community programme or wider organisational cause. For example, an organisation could raise money through the tournament, support a chosen charity, involve community partners, use the event to celebrate volunteers, or link participation to a wider social-impact programme. MACA provides the experience around which those initiatives can happen.

Question 25

Can MACA help with employee engagement?

Accepted Answer

Yes. MACA creates something many engagement initiatives struggle to create: a shared experience people genuinely want to participate in. The experience can start before the event, build through the competition and continue afterwards through results, photographs, stories and conversations. It gives employees something to anticipate, participate in and remember together.

Question 26

Can MACA create positive stories about our workplace?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A well-run MACA naturally creates moments worth talking about: colleagues playing together, unexpected partnerships, beginners getting involved, competitive moments, celebrations, team photographs, personal stories and charity or social-impact moments. These stories can support internal communications, employer-brand activity and external social content. But the strongest stories may not come from the company account. They may come from the employees who were actually there.

Question 27

Can MACA help create positive employee advocacy?

Accepted Answer

Yes — but it should happen naturally. Give 20 employees a genuinely positive workplace experience and you create 20 potential voices who may choose to talk positively about where they work. Participants may share photographs, results, stories or moments through LinkedIn and other social channels. That creates something far more credible than manufactured corporate messaging: real employees choosing to say something positive about their workplace. MACA should never pressure employees to post or manufacture advocacy. Instead, it creates an experience worth sharing.

Question 28

Why does employee-generated content matter?

Accepted Answer

People are often more likely to trust real employees than polished corporate communications. When somebody chooses to share a genuinely enjoyable workplace experience, the message feels different. It is not “Our company is a great place to work.” It is “I had a great day with the people I work with.” That distinction matters. MACA can help organisations create more genuine moments from which those stories can emerge.

Question 29

Can MACA support our employer brand?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Employer brand is not only what an organisation says about itself. It is also what employees experience and what they choose to tell other people. A MACA event can create visible evidence of connection, culture, inclusion, movement, participation, fun and community. That can support recruitment, retention, employee pride and wider employer-brand storytelling. It does not guarantee direct recruitment or retention outcomes.

Question 30

Does MACA give us content we can use?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Depending on the event and package, MACA can generate natural material for internal communications, LinkedIn, employer-brand channels, recruitment content, company newsletters, social media, event recaps and charity communications. The aim should never be to stage fake corporate content. The event creates genuine moments. The content simply documents them.

Question 31

Can we encourage employees to share the event?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but keep it optional. Organisations can make it easy for participants to share photographs, results and experiences afterwards. MACA can support the creation of shareable moments and event assets. Employees should always choose for themselves whether they want to post publicly. The goal is not to manufacture positive posts. The goal is to create something people genuinely feel positive about.

Question 32

Can MACA help organisations with challenging public perceptions?

Accepted Answer

MACA cannot fix an organisation’s reputation and should never be presented as a PR solution. What it can do is create genuine positive experiences for employees. Those experiences can contribute to a broader story about the organisation, particularly when employees choose to share their own perspective publicly. You cannot manufacture authentic employee advocacy. You can create more reasons for employees to feel proud enough to share one.

Question 33

Can we shape MACA around our own people or brand goals?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely. Different organisations may want different outcomes. One might simply want a brilliant afternoon for its people. Another might want to connect departments, improve employee engagement, encourage movement, celebrate a milestone, support a charity, create employer-brand content, bring multiple offices together, launch a recurring internal competition, or create a positive shared experience for employees. MACA provides the structure. The organisation decides what the experience should mean for its people.

Question 34

Does achieving all of this make MACA complicated to organise?

Accepted Answer

No. This is an important part of the proposition. The experience can feel substantial without creating substantial work for the organiser. Depending on the package chosen, MACA can provide the tournament structure, technology, participant journey, event support and wider organisation around the experience. You choose how involved you want to be. For some organisations, that means using the software and running the event themselves. For others, it means telling MACA what they want to achieve and allowing the team to take care of almost everything else.

Question 35

How long does a MACA tournament take?

Accepted Answer

A standard MACA runs as a half-day event, typically around three to four hours including a proper finish. Matches are short and continuous, so there is very little standing around. We will confirm the exact shape of the day once we know your venue and group size.

Question 36

Do we need to organise the teams ourselves?

Accepted Answer

No. You tell us who is playing and the pairings and fixtures are taken care of for you. That is one of the parts organisers most often dread, and it is one of the parts you never have to touch.

Question 37

What does the MACA app do?

Accepted Answer

It runs the event and carries the participant journey. Players use it to register, see their matches and results as the day unfolds, and pick up their personal content afterwards. Organisers use it to run the day and to see how the event actually landed with people.

Question 38

What happens on the day?

Accepted Answer

People arrive, meet their group, and start playing quickly. Matches run continuously, results update live, and the day builds towards a proper competitive finish and a moment of celebration. It is designed to feel like a real event, not a booking.

Question 39

Do participants need to download anything beforehand?

Accepted Answer

No app store, no downloads. Players get a link, set up a short profile and are ready. Most people do it in under two minutes on their phone.

Question 40

What happens after the tournament?

Accepted Answer

Players get their own personal recap of the day, and you get a summary of how the event went and how people felt about it. That is usually what turns a one-off into something people ask you to run again.

Question 41

Can people share their experience and results?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Participants get personalised, ready-made content they can share if they want to, and organisers get event-level content too. Nothing is shared automatically — people choose what goes out.

Question 42

Can we brand the tournament around our organisation?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Your identity leads the event: it appears across the player experience and the content people take away, with MACA sitting quietly behind it as the format. Fuller event branding, signage and court dressing can be added if you want the day to look the part in person too.

Question 43

Can we include sponsors, charities or company initiatives?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A sponsor or charity partner can sit alongside your identity, and many organisers use the event to support a cause or connect it to something already running internally. These options are always optional and never delay the event.

Question 44

What is the difference between Software Only, Supported Tournament and Fully Managed?

Accepted Answer

Software Only — you do it, and we give you the format and the tools to run it. Supported Tournament — you run it, with MACA alongside you from planning through to review. Fully Managed — we take responsibility for delivering the whole experience. Every package runs the same proven MACA format; only the level of responsibility changes.

Question 45

How much work is involved for us internally?

Accepted Answer

That is exactly what the packages control. At the lighter end you will need someone to gather the players and run the day using our tools. At the fully managed end your job is essentially to invite people and turn up. Most first-time organisers choose something in the middle.

Question 46

Do we need to find a padel venue?

Accepted Answer

Only if you want to. If you already have a venue in mind, we will work with it. If you would rather not deal with that, venue sourcing and coordination is part of the more supported packages.

Question 47

Can MACA work across different offices or locations?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each event runs at a single venue, but many organisations run MACA in more than one location as a programme, with results and impact reported consistently across them. It is a good way to give distributed teams the same shared experience.

Question 48

Can we run MACA more than once?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and most organisations do. There is no subscription — you buy per event — so you can run one, see how it lands, and build from there. Repeat events tend to grow, because people ask to be included next time.

Question 49

What does MACA cost?

Accepted Answer

Pricing is public and per event, with no subscription. Today that is Software Only at £400 per event, Supported Tournament at £1,500 per event and Fully Managed at £5,000 per event. No VAT is currently charged. Optional extras such as a host, coach, photography, branding or awards can be added on top.

Question 50

Which package is right for us?

Accepted Answer

If you have someone confident to run the day, the lighter package is usually enough. If this is your first event, or the day matters to people above you, the supported or fully managed options remove the risk. Our short Help me choose questionnaire will give you a straight recommendation in about a minute.

Question 51

Are there any hidden costs?

Accepted Answer

No. The package price is the package price, and optional extras are quoted separately before you commit. Court hire and any food or drink at the venue are the usual additional costs, and we will be clear about those up front.

Question 52

How quickly can we get started?

Accepted Answer

Faster than most people expect. Once we know your date, venue and rough numbers, setting the event up is quick. The longest part is usually finding a date that suits your people.

Question 53

What information do you need from us?

Accepted Answer

To begin, just three things: roughly how many people, roughly when, and roughly where. Player details, branding and the finer points can follow once the event exists.

Question 54

What if we like the idea but are not sure where to start?

Accepted Answer

That is the most common place people start from. Answer a few short questions in Help me choose and you will get a clear recommendation with no obligation. If you would rather talk it through, we are happy to do that instead.

Question 55

Can we speak to someone before choosing?

Accepted Answer

Of course. Email us at play@macapadel.co.uk with what you have in mind and we will give you a straight answer, including if we think MACA is not the right fit for your group.

Question 56

How do we create our first MACA tournament?

Accepted Answer

Choose your package and place your order, and we will set your event up and guide you through what happens next. From there you are following a path that has already been walked many times.

Everything people ask before their first MACA

About MACA

Your people

For workplaces: people & brand

The tournament experience

Packages and organising it

Getting started

Ready to bring MACA to your people?