Put the date on the number, not just the page

A data table should let a reader answer four questions without searching the surrounding article:

1. What was counted?
2. Who produced the figure?
3. When does the figure describe?
4. When did the publisher last verify or change it?

For padel data, that usually requires more than a generic “Updated 2026” label. Court counts, player estimates and federation registrations may all have different reference dates, even when they appear in the same report.

Use four distinct date labels

Do not treat every date as an “update date.” Give each one a defined job:

• Data as of: the date or period represented by the number.
• Source published: when the original report, release or dataset appeared.
• Last checked: when the publisher most recently confirmed that the cited source and figure still matched.
• Last revised: when the table’s values, definitions or sources were last changed. If it has not changed since publication, say so.

The article’s publication date is separate. Editing surrounding prose should not make an old observation look current, and checking an unchanged source should not be presented as a data revision.

This distinction is particularly important when one source uses several cut-off dates. The International Padel Federation presented its 2025 World Padel Report on 28 November 2025, while the report labels its headline participation data as October 2025 and its court totals as June 2025 (FIP report page; FIP report PDF). The presentation date therefore cannot substitute for the dates attached to the figures.

Put shared metadata next to the table

If every row comes from the same source and reference period, keep the table compact and place a metadata block immediately below it. For example:

Data as of: June 2025 Source: International Padel Federation, World Padel Report 2025, pp. 18–19 Source presented: 28 November 2025 Last checked: 22 September 2026 Last revised: 22 September 2026 — source and reference date added

Link to the exact report or dataset, not merely the organisation’s homepage. Include the relevant table, sheet or page number where that makes the figure easier to verify.

The underlying principle is provenance: identify the data’s origin and disclose changes made during republication. The W3C’s Data on the Web Best Practices recommends providing provenance information, a version indicator and a version history.

Use row-level dates when the observations differ

When metrics have different cut-off dates, show those differences inside the table rather than hiding them in one footnote.

Selected global padel measures reported by FIP, 2025

Metric	Reported figure	What it measures	Data as of	Source
Amateur players worldwide	>35 million	FIP estimate based on national-federation estimates and FIP analysis	October 2025	FIP World Padel Report 2025, pp. 10 and 14
Federated players	>850,000	Player licences held with FIP-affiliated national federations	October 2025	FIP World Padel Report 2025, pp. 10 and 14
Courts worldwide	77,355	Estimated installed padel courts	June 2025	FIP World Padel Report 2025, pp. 18–19

Source presented: 28 November 2025. Table last checked: 22 September 2026. Status: The amateur-player and court totals are estimates; the player total is not a census.

That structure prevents three unlike measures—estimated players, registered licence holders and physical courts—from being read as though they share one methodology or observation date. The same discipline is useful when comparing national participation figures in How Many People Play Padel Worldwide?.

Record checks and revisions separately

A short change log is enough. An illustrative entry might look like this:

Date	Type	Change
22 September 2026	Checked	Confirmed figures and links against the FIP report; no values changed
10 January 2026	Revised	Corrected the courts reference period from October to June 2025

Use checked when nothing substantive changed. Use revised when a number, source, definition, geography, time period or uncertainty label changed. For a correction, state the old and new values where practical.

The UK Office for Statistics Regulation similarly calls for revisions and error corrections to be released transparently and promptly, with the nature and scale of the change made clear (Code of Practice for Statistics).

Minimum publication standard

Every published padel table should have:

• a precise title naming the metric, geography and unit;
• an as-of date or reference period;
• a linked, named source;
• a note identifying estimates, scope limits and material transformations;
• a last checked date;
• a last revised date and brief change note when applicable.

For a downloadable spreadsheet, repeat the metadata on a cover or contents sheet so it remains attached when the file is separated from the article.

The aim is not to add decorative timestamps. It is to attach time and provenance to the figure a reader may quote, compare or reuse.