Matt Feuer spent 30 years supplying leather to brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Timberland, always wondering what he would do differently if he owned one. In 2024 he got his chance and bought BOAST, the maple leaf tennis brand he wore as a high school player in the 1980s.

Matt is the owner and CEO of BOAST, the racquet sports apparel brand founded in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1973. His family ran leather tanneries in upstate New York, and he spent decades building sourcing and supply chains in Asia before moving to the brand side. Since he took over, BOAST has shown up on Tennis Channel, put pros on tour in the brand, landed in Nordstrom, and is heading into Saks.

In this conversation, we get into:

- The story behind the leaf, including a letter a woman wrote in the early 80s so a student could keep wearing BOAST to school
- Why he bought a heritage brand instead of starting one from scratch
- Where BOAST lost its way, and why he added wholesale to what had been a direct-to-consumer business
- Why club directors, most of them 40 to 60 years old, greeted the brand with "welcome back"
- Why he sees padel as a closer fit for tennis players than pickleball
- A QR code merchandise program that lets clubs sell BOAST without stocking every size, with a cut of each sale going back to the club
- Hiring Adam Black as Head of Padel, and why BOAST is picky about international partners
- His advice for any supplier thinking about buying a heritage brand: awareness costs more than you think, and never trade quality for price

If you run a club, manage a pro shop, or want to know what it takes to bring an old brand back, this one's for you.

ABOUT COURTSIDE
CourtSide is a podcast about the business side of racquet sports. Long-form conversations with the owners, directors, and head pros shaping tennis, pickleball, padel, and squash. Hosted by Evan Dechtman, founder of TopSpin Digital.

New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

Want to be a guest? Book your spot: https://topspindigital.co/courtside/book
Email Evan directly: evan@topspindigital.co

Full show notes: https://topspindigital.co/courtside
TopSpin Digital: https://topspindigital.co
HEARD Digital Marketing: https://heardmarketing.io

CONNECT WITH MATT FEUER
Website: https://boastusa.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feuer

Marcos del Pilar came to the United States in 2017 to make a case for a sport few people here understood. He had built and run five tennis and padel venues in Spain. In America, he heard no from clubs, investors, and property owners who saw padel as a European trend or thought pickleball had already taken the second racquet-sport spot.

People call Marcos the Godfather of Padel in the U.S. He helped bring the first Padel World Championship to the country, co-founded the Pro Padel League, and built coach education for a new generation of American padel professionals.

In this conversation, we get into:

• Why the U.S. started using a different pronunciation, why Marcos calls that a temporary answer, and how he wants the sport said now
• Leaving a successful life in Spain to build a new category in America, with no family nearby and plenty of early rejection
• Why courts are only the physical asset, and why coaches, staff, programming, and human connection make players come back
• The questions a Denver tennis or pickleball club needs to answer before adding padel
• Why Marcos says to build the business model before building the courts
• What the Pro Padel League's franchise model taught him about player pathways, media, and sponsorship
• His projection of 20,000 U.S. courts and 15 million players by 2030, and why padel cannot stay a luxury product
• Why some of the best points of his career came from the bench, coaching someone else
  
  If you run a club, coach, build racquet programs, or are looking at the padel business, this one's for you.
  
  ABOUT COURTSIDE
  CourtSide is a podcast about the business side of racquet sports. Long-form conversations with the owners, directors, and head pros shaping tennis, pickleball, padel, and squash. Hosted by Evan Dechtman, founder of TopSpin Digital.
  
  New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss one.
  
  Want to be a guest? Book your spot: https://topspindigital.co/courtside/book
  Email Evan directly: mailto:evan@topspindigital.co
  
  Full show notes: https://topspindigital.co/courtside
  TopSpin Digital: https://topspindigital.co
  HEARD Digital Marketing: https://heardmarketing.io
  
  CONNECT WITH MARCOS DEL PILAR
  Website: https://www.padelandsuccess.com/
  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcos-del-pilar-padel/

Jennifer Gelhaus was four years into a molecular biology career, headed for a PhD, when she quit to coach tennis full time. No backup plan, no fallback.

Fifteen years later, she has built racquet programs at some of the most prestigious clubs in the country: Maidstone Club in the Hamptons, East Chop Tennis Club on Martha's Vineyard, Oyster Harbors Club on Cape Cod, and now The Club at Renaissance in Southwest Florida. She's also the host of the Vida Tennis Podcast, co-host of Power Players with the Directors Club of America, and the PTR's 2025 Young Professional of the Year.

In this conversation, we get into:

• Leaving Venezuela alone at 16 to play college tennis in the US
• The moment she walked away from a career in science
• What seven years at an elite Hamptons club before 30 taught her
• The communication system she says generates ten lesson requests per newsletter
• Why she thinks most club tennis directors don't treat the job like a business
• What it's like walking into old-school, tradition-heavy rooms as a young woman
• The biggest mistake new directors make in their first 90 days

If you run a racquet program or want to build a career in this industry instead of just a job, this one's for you.

ABOUT COURTSIDE
CourtSide is a podcast about the business side of racquet sports. Long-form conversations with the owners, directors, and head pros shaping tennis, pickleball, padel, and squash. Hosted by Evan Dechtman, founder of TopSpin Digital.

New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

Want to be a guest? Book your spot: topspindigital.co/courtside/book
Email Evan directly: mailto:evan@topspindigital.co

Full show notes: topspindigital.co/courtside
TopSpin Digital: topspindigital.co
HEARD Digital Marketing: heardmarketing.io

CONNECT WITH JENNIFER GELHAUS
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jennifer-g-561715a4