Pickleball has become the fastest-growing sport in the United States for the third consecutive year, with USA Pickleball reporting that the number of players has now exceeded 13 million – a figure that represents a 200% increase over the 4.2 million players the organisation counted just three years ago and that places pickleball comfortably ahead of racquetball, squash and badminton in total participation while making serious inroads into the participation numbers for tennis, which has historically been the dominant racquet sport in the United States. The growth has been driven by a combination of factors that make pickleball unusually accessible compared to most sports: the equipment is inexpensive, the rules are simple enough to learn in an afternoon, the physical demands are manageable across a wide age range, and the social dimension of the game – doubles play on a compact court that makes conversation easy – creates an immediate community experience that most individual fitness activities cannot replicate.

The sport’s demographic profile has shifted significantly as participation has grown. Pickleball’s early growth was driven primarily by older adults – retirement communities were among the sport’s earliest and most enthusiastic adopters – but the past two years have seen rapid penetration among players in their 20s, 30s and 40s who discovered the sport through word of mouth, social media content and the increasingly visible presence of professional pickleball competitions that have attracted sponsorships from major consumer brands and broadcasting deals with mainstream sports networks. The Professional Pickleball Association’s tour, which now includes events in more than 30 cities across the United States and Canada, has provided a professional showcase for the sport that has accelerated mainstream recognition in ways that grassroots participation alone could not have achieved.

Why Pickleball Is So Addictive

Sports scientists and recreational activity researchers have identified several features of pickleball’s design that contribute to its unusually high player retention – the proportion of people who try the sport and continue playing regularly. The compact court (44 feet long by 20 feet wide, compared to 78 feet by 27 feet for a singles tennis court) means that points are played at high speed with frequent contact, giving beginners the immediate satisfaction of rallying and scoring that takes months of practice to achieve in tennis. The underhand serve, which eliminates the service motion that is one of the most technically challenging aspects of tennis to master, further reduces the entry barrier for new players. And the kitchen rule – which prohibits volleying the ball while standing in the 7-foot non-volley zone near the net – introduces a strategic dimension that rewards patience and shot selection over pure power, making the game competitive across a wider range of athletic abilities than most racquet sports.

• The average cost of starting pickleball – a paddle ($30-$150), balls ($15-$20 for a pack) and court shoes ($50-$100) – is a fraction of the startup cost for golf, tennis or cycling at similar levels of seriousness.
• Most players report feeling competent enough to enjoy a game within 2-3 sessions of first picking up a paddle, a learning curve that compares favourably to golf (18+ months to reach basic competence) and tennis (6-12 months).
• The doubles format means that new players are immediately part of a social unit, and the culture of the sport – which involves players of all levels mixing freely, with open ‘drop-in’ sessions where strangers pair up – creates a community feel that individual sports cannot match.
• The physical demands of pickleball – cardiovascular activity, lateral movement, reaction time – provide genuine health benefits comparable to those of tennis while generating lower rates of overuse injury, a particular advantage for older players or those returning to sport after injury or inactivity.
• Pickleball can be played indoors (on converted basketball or volleyball courts) as well as outdoors, giving it year-round accessibility in climates where outdoor play is seasonally limited.

Where to Buy: New to the sport? Everything you need to get started is available through Pickleball Paddles and Sets on Amazon – from beginner paddle sets to court shoes.

The Infrastructure Boom

The growth in pickleball participation has created a significant demand for dedicated court infrastructure that is reshaping recreational facility planning across the United States. The sport requires smaller courts than tennis, which means that existing tennis facilities can convert or add pickleball lines relatively easily, and many public parks have done exactly that – sometimes to the frustration of tennis players who find their courts repurposed for a newer sport. But dedicated pickleball facilities are also being constructed at a rapid pace: USA Pickleball estimates that more than 44,000 pickleball courts now exist across the United States, up from approximately 10,000 in 2020, and that demand continues to outstrip supply in most metropolitan areas where waiting lists for court time are common at peak hours.

Private investment in pickleball infrastructure has followed the participation surge, with dedicated pickleball clubs, indoor facilities and mixed-use recreation centres featuring multiple pickleball courts opening across the country. Companies including Chicken N Pickle, which combines pickleball courts with food and beverage service, and Ace Pickleball Club, which operates dedicated indoor facilities with professional coaching programmes, have raised significant capital and expanded rapidly over the past 18 months. Major fitness facility chains including Life Time Fitness and Planet Fitness have added pickleball courts at new locations, recognising the sport as a member acquisition and retention tool that appeals to demographics they have historically struggled to attract and retain.

The Professional Game

The Professional Pickleball Association has attracted a growing roster of professional players who have committed full-time to the sport, several of whom have transitioned from professional tennis or other racquet sports attracted by prize money that has increased substantially as sponsorship has grown. Ben Johns, the sport’s most dominant men’s player for several years, and Anna Leigh Waters, the women’s world number one since 2022, have become genuine sports celebrities with sponsorship portfolios and social media followings that would have been unimaginable for professional pickleball players a decade ago. The sport’s growing television presence – with partnerships with CBS Sports, ESPN and dedicated streaming coverage – has made these players recognisable to audiences beyond the pickleball community for the first time.

The professional game’s growth has also attracted investors and celebrities who have purchased ownership stakes in professional teams, a development that has both raised the sport’s profile and introduced the commercial infrastructure – team branding, city identity, fan loyalty – that tends to accelerate mainstream sports adoption. Major League Pickleball, which operates alongside the PPA in a competitive landscape that has seen the two tours gradually move toward collaboration, features ownership groups that include celebrity investors alongside the sports business professionals who typically dominate sports franchise ownership. Whether this investment and commercial energy can sustain itself as the sport matures beyond the novelty phase of its growth curve is one of the most interesting questions in American recreational sports over the next several years. The 13 million players already committed to the sport provide a broad base of participation that most emerging sports never achieve, suggesting that pickleball’s place in American recreational culture is secure regardless of what happens to the professional game’s commercial fortunes.