Player, Coach, Entrepreneur: A LeBow Alum Builds the Athletic Community of His Dreams
As a boy in Morocco, growing up right next to a tennis club, Mehdi Rhazali had a unique experience around racquet sports. “It was a community. Everyone knew everyone,” he says.
When he came to Philadelphia, things were different: “Everything is very transactional: You go, you play, you leave. Or if you want that sense of community, you have to pay so much money for it, and then it’s very exclusive.”
As he finished up his studies at LeBow, Rhazali set out to create something that felt more like what he remembered. The result: VIVA Padel & Pickleball, a multisport facility just north of Center City near Temple University’s campus.
Creating community
Rhazali took his undergraduate degree in marketing in 2011, then went on to earn a Master of Sports Business in 2014 and an MBA in strategic technology and innovative management in 2023 — all at LeBow.
He first came to Drexel on a tennis scholarship, later becoming team captain. He then went on to become assistant coach and now serves as the director of tennis and head men’s coach for Drexel. That’s in addition to his role as cofounder and CEO at VIVA, which opened in spring 2025.
Along with his business partners Andrew Eisenstein and Kai Lee, he’s bringing to life his vision of a different kind of racquet club.
“We wanted to create a community where people have a home and where they can play at all levels and all ages,” he said. Along with frequent events, a club app and a WhatsApp group help to forge that sense of community.
Of course, ramping up a brand-new sports club in downtown Philadelphia is not without its challenges. A big up-front question: Where to put it?
The real estate question
With commercial real estate in high demand, “it’s tough to find a good spot,” Rhazali says. The solution came in the form of a rooftop parking lot, which during the day serves the purposes of co-founder Eisenstein’s business, Iron Stone Real Estate Partners.
There’s ample parking, great views of Center City and an international clientele. A 1968 Airstream serves as the pro shop, and an automated gate limits access to members and nonmembers with a reservation. The net effect, Rhazali says: “You feel like you are somewhere in Miami, or somewhere abroad, like Portugal or Spain.”
Eisenstein solved the real estate problem, and co-founder Lee brings technology savvy and finance smarts. Add Rhazali’s racquet experience, and you have what looks like a winning formula.
Of course, challenges remain, but ones of the kind that an MBA helps to solve.
“For example, there’s a challenge in filling the courts during non-peak times, like when people are working,” Rhazali says. To move the needle there, “we’ve been doing a lot of corporate and team-building events.”
In the bigger picture, there are questions about pickleball itself. It’s a trend right now — that’s what motivated Rhazali to jump in — and trends are notoriously short-lived.
Rhazali expresses confidence: at the moment, expenses are low and demand is steady, so much so in fact that VIVA is opening a second, indoor location in Flourtown, in the suburbs north and west of Philadelphia.
“We are looking out 10 years, and I think we will be fine,” he says.
Super passionate
Those who know Rhazali say that confidence is well founded.
“Mehdi was my coach at Drexel. He has years and years of racquet sport experience, and he’s also a great padel player and a pickleball player, so that helps as well,” says Sanil Jagtiani BS finance and economics ’22.
“On the more personal side. he’s just a very hard-working person, and he’s super passionate about what he does.”
As someone immersed in the world of racquet sports, Rhazali says he’s filling a gap in the marketplace: “If you think about it, a lot of people in Center City don’t go to country clubs, and they don’t drive 30 minutes to play tennis, padel or pickleball.”
There are courts in public parks, he says, “but they have a lot of long wait lists. People have to sit there for hours to just get a couple turns.”
To fill that gap, Rhazali and his partners set a high bar for themselves. “We said: Let’s build a really nice courts, with good lighting, and make it like a home club — a place they can call home,” he says.
That brings us back to the starting point: Rhazali’s ambition to recreate the community vibe he remembers from his time in Morocco.
With a sport like padel, “you have four people on the courts and they socialize quickly, they get to know each other and they can all grow as they advance in the game,” he says.
VIVA encourages that energy: “We have a big WhatsApp group where people are chatting. Someone says, ‘Oh, we need one more for tomorrow at 3 p,m.,’ and now you’ve got four strangers meeting and playing and having a good time. It’s very organic.”
Meanwhile, Rhazali continues coaching at Drexel. “There are young men and women that come from different parts of the world and I love teaching them all about being excellent at tennis during their academic time here — becoming strong, personable, just getting them ready for when they’re done and they get that dream job,” he says.
More than just a dream job, Rhazali said LeBow helped set up to build his dream career.
“I wanted to sharpen my ideas in order to learn how to execute a plan professionally and do it the right way,” he says. “The MBA helped me build new skills that I did not have. I got to meet a lot of different professors and attend many different conferences. All of that helped shape me.”
