—
Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America, and it’s impossible to ignore the hype. It seems like everywhere you look, more and more Americans are picking up the paddles, hitting the courts, and learning how to play pickleball.
According to Pickleheads, a platform that allows players to search for local pickleball courts, there are over 10,000 places to play pickleball in the United States.
But what is pickleball? And why is pickleball so popular?
Today, we’ll dig into an overview of pickleball, the history of the sport, and the reasons for its astonishing rise in popularity.
What Is Pickleball?
Pickleball is often described as a combination between tennis, badminton, and table tennis. A standard pickleball court is the size of a doubles badminton court, and players use paddles to hit a soft, perforated plastic ball (similar to a Wiffle ball) over a net.
Pickleball can be played as both doubles or singles, though doubles is more popular. The sport is suitable for all ages and levels of athleticism, the rules are easy to learn, and it doesn’t require a lot of expensive equipment.
How Pickleball Started in the United States
Pickleball was born in 1965 in the beach community of Bainbridge Island, Washington. Friends Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell came home from a game of golf to find their families bored, so they set out to find a solution—an activity the entire family could enjoy together.
Pritchard’s property housed a badminton court, but when the two fathers found there wasn’t a full set of badminton equipment on hand, they were forced to improvise. According to the USA Pickleball Association, the pair initially used ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball, and experimented with volleying over the net, which was initially set at a height of 60 inches.
Soon, they found that the soft plastic ball bounced well and that a lower net height (36 inches) worked better. A third friend, Barney McCallum, was brought into the fold. Together, the three men worked out the original rules for how to play pickleball, inspired heavily by badminton.
Over the course of the next two years, buzz about pickleball spread by word of mouth throughout Bainbridge Island. Eventually, the first permanent pickleball court was built at the home of Pritchard’s friend and neighbor, Bob O’Brian.
In the spring of 1976, the world’s first known pickleball tournament was held at South Center Athletic Club in Tukwila, Washington. According to USA Pickleball, the tournament was many players’ first introduction to the sport: “Many of the participants were college tennis players who knew very little about pickleball. In fact, they practiced with large wood paddles and a softball sized plastic ball.”
How Pickleball Grew in Popularity in the US
Throughout the 70s, pickleball grew organically throughout the Pacific Northwest. Along with that word-of-mouth growth came the formation of Pickleball, Inc. in 1972, which was intended to protect the sport, as well as to teach larger audiences how to play pickleball.
Perhaps the most significant modern milestone in pickleball’s growth came in 2005, when the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA) was formed. USA Pickleball is the official national governing body for pickleball in the US. USA Pickleball has helped further refine and expand the official ruleset for pickleball, as well as facilitate competitive play.
In 2019, a Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) report indicated that pickleball had become the fastest growing sport in America, with over 3.3 million players at that time. It is a sport destined to soon be a household name, much the same way disc golf is also rising in popularity. In 2022, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s annual Topline Participation Report remarked that pickleball had continued to hold that spot throughout 2020 and 2021 in what it described as an “incredible rise.”
Popularity Growth in 2021 vs 2022
Pickleball’s growth from 2022-2023 was even more incredible.
As of 2023, the number of pickleball players in the United States has risen to a mind-blowing 36.5 million, according to a new study released by the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP), as reported by CNBC.
The data released by the Association of Pickleball Professionals was gathered by YouGov, a global public opinion and data company.
Their results suggested that not only are a lot of people playing pickleball, but they’re playing often, too. 8.5 million respondents said they played 8 times or more in 2022, and 45% said they intended to play pickleball more in the upcoming six months than they had in the previous six months.
Why Pickleball Continues to Grow
Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America, but why? Pickleball’s unprecedented growth is down to a few key factors:
- It’s social. Pickleball requires multiple players, and it’s usually played in doubles teams. Pickleball’s culture is fun-loving, inclusive, and easy-going.
- It’s easy to learn. It only takes a few minutes to learn the rules of pickleball.
- It can be played by all ages. Pickleball is a low-impact sport suitable for players of any age and level of athleticism.
- It can be played almost anywhere. Pickleball can be played indoors or outdoors, at any time of the year and in any climate. Players can play on dedicated pickleball courts, or they can mark lines on tennis courts, in gyms, or just about any other suitable surface.
Where To Play Pickleball
From local parks and community centers to hotels and private sports complexes, the options for finding places to play pickleball are endless. Pickleball lines and portable nets can be added to virtually anywhere with a hard surface and enough space.
According to Pickleheads, roughly 4,500 American cities have local pickleball facilities, meaning that wherever you live, the chances are good that there’s a place to play right around the corner.
More and more pickleball clubs are springing up across the country, too. If you want to learn how to play pickleball, you’ll find friendly, outgoing players excited to induct you into the hobby.
Pickleball: The Fastest Growing Sport in America for Good Reason
Ultimately, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America for one reason above all others: It’s really, really fun. Without that key factor, the game’s accessibility, health benefits, and low barrier of entry wouldn’t matter so much.
At the end of the day, most of us are looking for ways to enjoy ourselves, get some exercise, and meet new people, and pickleball offers all of that and more.
How has pickleball impacted your life and community? If you haven’t given pickleball a try, what’s stopping you?
—
This content is brought to you by Brandon Mackie
Photos provided by the author.