A former regional press sports reporter has launched a specialist PR agency with the aim of bringing a fast-growing sport to a wider audience.

Lee McLaughlan was a sports reporter for the Birmingham Post & Mail, Coventry Telegraph and Shropshire Star, as well as a football commentator for two Midlands radio stations, before joininh  the Professional Golfers Association as a press officer.

Now he is branching out to start his own PR agency, Sweetspot Communications, specialising in promoting the sport of padel.

The racket sport, traditionally played in Spain and South America, is now widely recognised as the fastest growing sport in the world, with 25 million players in 110 countries.

However Lee, pictured, believes that the PR and communications industry has been unable to match the sport’s pace of growth in order to promote it to a wider audience.

Sweetspot Communications will aim to offer a range of services to padel stakeholders across the world.

Said Lee: “This year has seen lots of developments with new clubs, courts, players and leagues starting around the world as padel continues to expand.

“However, from talks I have had with people in padel, public relations hasn’t kept pace and hasn’t been a main priority. However, with the expansion, more investors and more businesses are entering the padel sector so that does appear to be changing. Given that, I’m here to deliver high performance PR to the sport.

“A PR colleague, who has founded a UK padel magazine, suggested that my skills and experience would be hugely beneficial, so I have taken the plunge and launched Sweetspot Communications.

“It’s a return to my sporting roots having worked on a freelance basis across a range of sectors. I think this will be beneficial to padel as I can use this experience and knowledge to take the sport to a new audience.

“I’ll be bringing experience from a decade working in golf, where I proactively promoted the game, raised the profile of its experts and stakeholders to a wider audience, which is what padel needs.

“I also bring more than a decade of journalism experience in print and radio covering major tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup, The Ryder Cup and Wimbledon, as well interviewing some of the biggest names in football, golf and tennis.”