Pickleball
Based on Wikipedia: Pickleball
The Sport That Came From Boredom
One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1965, on a small island in Washington State, a group of bored families accidentally invented the fastest-growing sport in America.
Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell had just returned from a round of golf to find their families listless and restless at Pritchard's summer home on Bainbridge Island. Someone had tried to set up badminton, but the shuttlecock—that feathered projectile essential to the game—had gone missing. Rather than surrender to tedium, Pritchard and Bell did something remarkable. They challenged their children to make up their own game.
What emerged from that lazy afternoon would eventually attract nineteen million players, spawn professional leagues, draw investments from NBA stars and NFL quarterbacks, and become the official state sport of Washington. But in those first hours, it was just families messing around with whatever equipment they could scrounge.
Frankenstein's Racket Sport
The beauty of pickleball lies in its mongrel origins. The game borrowed liberally from everything in the garage.
The court? A badminton court. The net? That same badminton net, though the families quickly lowered it from its regulation five feet down to about hip height—roughly thirty-four inches at the center—so players could drive the ball rather than loft it. The paddles? At first, they grabbed table tennis paddles, but these proved too small and flimsy. Within days, someone had fabricated larger, sturdier paddles from plywood in a nearby shed.
The ball presented its own evolution. The inventors initially used a Wiffle ball—that iconic hollow plastic sphere riddled with oblong holes that American children have been hitting in backyards for generations. But they eventually switched to something called a Cosom Fun Ball, which proved more durable and gave players better control. Modern pickleballs are still hollow plastic spheres with holes, though now they're manufactured to precise specifications: between twenty-six and forty evenly spaced circular holes, a diameter between 2.87 and 2.97 inches, and a weight between 0.78 and 0.935 ounces.
If you've never seen a pickleball, imagine a plastic ball about the size of a tennis ball but much lighter, with holes punched through it like a giant piece of Swiss cheese. The holes reduce air resistance and slow the ball down, which fundamentally changes the game's dynamics compared to tennis.
The Name Game
Ask ten pickleball enthusiasts how the sport got its name, and you might get three different answers—because even the inventors couldn't quite agree.
Joan Pritchard, Joel's wife, claimed the name came from "pickle boats" in crew racing. In rowing, a pickle boat is assembled from the leftover rowers who didn't make the other boats—a motley crew of whoever's available. Joan saw the parallel: pickleball was assembled from the leftovers of other sports.
Others insisted the sport was named after the Pritchard family dog, Pickles, who allegedly had a habit of chasing down errant balls. This version makes for a better story at parties. But the Pritchards themselves maintained that the dog came along after the game already had its name—and that the dog was actually named after the sport, not the other way around. They blamed a journalist from the early 1970s who decided readers would find the dog story more charming than an obscure rowing reference.
There's even a third theory. Bill Bell, one of the co-inventors, claimed he coined the name because he enjoyed hitting shots that put his opponents "in a pickle"—an idiom meaning in a difficult situation.
Representatives of USA Pickleball, the sport's governing body, say their research confirms the pickle boat origin. But historians who've studied the question admit they can't definitively settle the matter. The truth was lost somewhere in the haze of a Washington summer sixty years ago.
What Makes Pickleball Different
To understand pickleball's appeal, you need to understand what makes it distinct from its parent sports—especially tennis, which it most closely resembles to the casual observer.
The court is much smaller. A pickleball court measures twenty by forty-four feet, the same dimensions as a doubles badminton court. A tennis court, by comparison, is seventy-eight feet long. This compression means less running, which opens the sport to older players and those with limited mobility. You can play a competitive game of pickleball without being able to sprint.
The serve must be underhand. In tennis, the serve is often the most dominant shot in the game—professionals can fire balls at over one hundred miles per hour, and recreational players can win points outright with well-placed serves. Pickleball's underhand serve requirement equalizes this. You can't simply overpower your opponent from the service line.
But the most distinctive feature is the kitchen.
The Kitchen and the Dink
No, not where you cook dinner. In pickleball, "the kitchen" is the nickname for the non-volley zone—a seven-foot strip of court extending from the net on each side. Step into this zone, and you're forbidden from hitting the ball out of the air. You must let it bounce first.
This rule transforms the entire strategy of the game.
In tennis, aggressive players rush the net to put away volleys—shots hit before the ball bounces. The net position is commanding. You cut off angles, reduce your opponent's reaction time, and finish points with authority. Tennis rewards aggression.
Pickleball's kitchen complicates this calculus. You can approach the net, but if you're standing in that seven-foot zone, you cannot volley. This creates a fascinating cat-and-mouse game. Players often stand just behind the kitchen line, looking for opportunities to attack while avoiding the temptation to step into the zone.
The kitchen gave birth to one of pickleball's signature shots: the dink. A dink is a soft, controlled shot that arcs just over the net and lands in the opponent's kitchen. Because it lands in the non-volley zone, your opponent cannot attack it aggressively—they must let it bounce, then hit it back gently, often with their own dink. This creates extended rallies of soft touch shots, each player probing for an opening, waiting for the other to pop the ball up high enough to attack.
Watch skilled pickleball players, and you'll see long sequences of dinks punctuated by sudden explosions of violence—a drive or an overhead smash when someone finally makes a mistake. The rhythm is hypnotic: tap, tap, tap, tap, BANG.
The Demographic Sweet Spot
Pickleball found its earliest passionate adopters among retirees.
This makes sense when you understand the sport's physical demands. The smaller court means less ground to cover. The underhand serve removes the shoulder-wrenching motion that gives so many tennis players rotator cuff problems. The lightweight paddle puts less strain on elbows and wrists than heavier tennis rackets. The plastic ball, with its holes creating drag, moves slower than a tennis ball, giving players more time to react.
In 2001, pickleball was included as a demonstration sport in the Arizona Senior Olympics. One hundred participants showed up. Within five years, that number had grown to 275. The sport had found its people.
Retirement communities in warm-weather states became hotbeds of pickleball culture. Snowbirds—retirees who migrate south for the winter—carried the sport from the Pacific Northwest to Arizona, California, and Florida. Recreation centers installed courts. Tournaments proliferated. The sport grew steadily, if not spectacularly, for decades.
Then came the pandemic.
The COVID Explosion
When the world locked down in 2020, people desperately sought outdoor activities that allowed social interaction while maintaining distance. Pickleball was perfectly positioned.
The courts were outside. The net kept players separated. The game could be played with just two people, or four if you wanted doubles. It was easy to learn. Equipment was cheap. And unlike gyms or indoor facilities, courts were often available in public parks.
The Sports and Fitness Industry Association, which tracks participation in various sports, began calling pickleball the fastest-growing sport in America. They gave it that distinction in 2021. And in 2022. And in 2023. And again in 2024.
The numbers tell the story. In 2021, there were roughly 4.8 million pickleball players in the United States. By 2024, that number had exploded to 19.8 million—a 311 percent increase in just three years. The number of outdoor courts in major American cities grew by 650 percent over seven years.
The sport that had charmed retirees suddenly attracted younger players too. The demographics shifted dramatically. While players over fifty-five had long dominated the sport, growth was now driven by players under thirty-five.
The Noise Problem
With explosive growth came backlash, and it took an unexpected form: noise complaints.
Pickleball is loud. That hollow plastic ball striking a solid paddle produces a distinctive "pop"—a sharp, high-pitched crack that carries far. On a quiet morning, the sound of a pickleball game can be heard hundreds of feet away.
When courts were rare and players few, this hardly mattered. But as communities converted tennis courts to pickleball courts, as public parks added facilities, as residential neighborhoods found themselves hosting games at seven in the morning, complaints mounted. Homeowners sued. Towns enacted restrictions. The joyful "pop, pop, pop" of pickleball became, to some, an infuriating assault on their peace.
Equipment manufacturers responded with "quiet" paddles and balls, designed to reduce the acoustic impact. Some communities built sound barriers around courts. The conflict between players seeking recreation and neighbors seeking silence became a recurring feature of local news across America.
Going Pro
By the late 2010s, pickleball had grown large enough to support professional competition.
Two professional tours launched in 2019. The Association of Pickleball Professionals, now called the Association of Pickleball Players, received sanctioning from USA Pickleball, the sport's governing body. The Pickleball Professionals Association formed independently. Both began organizing tournaments with prize money and television coverage.
In 2021, Major League Pickleball introduced a team-based league format with franchises, mimicking the structure of major American sports leagues. The league attracted celebrity investors whose names would have been unthinkable for a backyard game invented with spare badminton equipment. LeBron James, the basketball superstar. Drew Brees, the retired quarterback. Gary Vaynerchuk, the entrepreneur and media personality. Tom Brady, Kevin Durant, and dozens of other athletes and celebrities bought in.
The world's first dedicated pickleball stadium opened in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The facility, called The Fort, includes forty-three courts, an event center, a restaurant, and serves as the permanent home and training facility for the Association of Pickleball Players.
Here's a striking fact about professional pickleball: more than ninety percent of professional players have backgrounds in tennis. The skills transfer. But pickleball offers something tennis doesn't—a more accessible path to professional competition, particularly for players who might not have quite reached the elite level in tennis.
The Collegiate Frontier
By 2022, pickleball had grown large enough to establish college competition.
DUPR, a company known for its player rating software, held the first collegiate national championship that year. The National Collegiate Pickleball Association formed in 2023, followed by additional collegiate tournaments from other organizing bodies. In 2025, the Collegiate Pickleball Tour and National Championships launched, with plans for a Collegiate World Championship inviting players from all countries.
This collegiate expansion mirrors the sport's broader trajectory. What began as a family game became a retiree hobby, then a pandemic phenomenon, then a professional sport, and now an organized college competition. The infrastructure keeps expanding to match the demand.
Beyond American Borders
Pickleball's growth isn't confined to the United States.
Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom have developed substantial playing populations. Professional leagues now operate in Australia, with others developing across Asia. According to DUPR's registration data, the countries with the fastest-growing pickleball participation are India, Thailand, Venezuela, China, and the Philippines.
The sport's accessibility helps explain its global spread. The equipment is inexpensive. The rules are simple. The court dimensions are modest enough that facilities can be improvised in parking lots, gymnasiums, or converted tennis courts. A community can establish pickleball with minimal investment.
An interesting data point from the Apple Heart and Movement Study, conducted in collaboration with Brigham and Women's Hospital and the American Heart Association, found that among Apple Watch users, the number of people playing pickleball surpassed tennis for the first time in July 2023. When measured by smartwatch activity tracking, pickleball had overtaken its parent sport.
How the Game Actually Works
If you've read this far wondering about the actual mechanics, here's how a pickleball game unfolds.
The server stands behind the baseline, on the right side of the court, and serves diagonally to the opponent's service court on the other side. The serve must be underhand—the paddle must contact the ball below the server's waist, and the paddle head must be below the wrist at contact. This prevents the booming overhand serves that dominate tennis.
Here's the critical wrinkle: on the serve, and on the return of serve, the ball must bounce before being struck. This is called the two-bounce rule. The server hits, it bounces in the receiving court, the receiver returns it, it bounces on the serving side, and only then can either team hit volleys—shots taken out of the air. This rule prevents the serving team from immediately rushing the net for a quick volley winner.
Points can only be scored by the serving side. If the receiving team wins a rally, they don't get a point—they get the serve. Games are typically played to eleven points, and you must win by two. Matches are usually best of three games, or in tournaments, best of five.
The strategic heart of the game lies in that seven-foot kitchen zone. Skilled players work to advance to the kitchen line, where they can pressure opponents with dinks and attack any ball that floats too high. The interplay between soft touch shots and sudden power creates pickleball's distinctive rhythm.
The Equipment Arms Race
As with any sport that grows popular enough to support serious competition, pickleball has developed an equipment industry obsessed with marginal gains.
The original plywood paddles have given way to sophisticated composites. Modern paddles use cores of polymer honeycomb, Nomex (a material related to Kevlar), or aluminum, faced with fiberglass, carbon fiber, or graphite. Manufacturers tweak every variable: weight distribution, surface texture, handle length, and edge guard design.
Balls have similarly evolved. Indoor and outdoor play typically use different balls, with outdoor balls having smaller, more numerous holes to cope with wind. The specifications are now tightly regulated—USA Pickleball maintains a list of approved equipment for sanctioned tournaments.
Even shoes have become specialized. Tennis shoes work reasonably well, but pickleball-specific footwear now exists, designed for the lateral movements and quick pivots the game demands.
The Infrastructure Gap
Pickleball's explosive growth has outpaced its infrastructure.
A 2022 report from the Sports and Fitness Industry Association estimated that approximately nine hundred million dollars of court construction would be needed to keep pace with the sport's expansion. The Middle Atlantic region—New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—had the most severe shortage, with only one dedicated court for every thousand participants.
This scarcity creates conflicts. Tennis players resent having their courts converted. Neighbors complain about noise. Wait times at popular facilities stretch for hours. The disconnect between demand and supply remains one of the sport's growing pains.
The Pickle Boat Comes Home
On March 28, 2022, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State signed legislation making pickleball the official state sport of Washington. The signing ceremony took place on the original Pritchard family court on Bainbridge Island, where bored families had improvised a game fifty-seven years earlier.
The legislation was proposed by State Senator John Lovick in 2021. It passed without controversy. The sport had come full circle, receiving formal recognition from the state where it was born.
The Pickleball Hall of Fame, established in 2017, now honors the game's pioneers and champions. Joel Pritchard, who went on to serve in the United States Congress and as Washington's lieutenant governor, lived to see his backyard invention become a national phenomenon before his death in 1997. Barney McCallum, who experimented with paddle designs in his father's Seattle basement and created the "M2" paddle that became the standard for early players, saw the sport grow from neighborhood curiosity to international movement.
Bill Bell, the third inventor, who may or may not have named the sport for the pickle-inducing shots he enjoyed, watched badminton equipment and plywood paddles evolve into carbon fiber and polymer honeycomb.
The pickle boat—that hodgepodge crew assembled from whatever rowers were left—turned out to be faster than anyone imagined.
Why It Matters
Pickleball's rise tells us something about how sports succeed.
The game isn't elegant. It lacks tennis's aristocratic grace or golf's pastoral beauty. Its name is silly. Its origins are a shrug—bored families, missing equipment, improvisation. But it meets people where they are.
It's easy to learn. You can play a recognizable game within an hour of picking up a paddle. The serve isn't a weapon that takes years to develop. The court doesn't require youth and speed to cover.
It's social. The smaller court keeps players close enough to chat between points. The pace allows conversation. Many players report that the friendships formed on pickleball courts matter as much as the games themselves.
It's accessible. Courts are proliferating in public parks. Equipment costs a fraction of what golf clubs or even quality tennis rackets demand. You don't need a country club membership or an expensive gym.
And it's genuinely fun. The dink exchanges create tension. The sudden smashes provide release. The scoring system keeps games close. The two-bounce rule prevents overwhelming serves from ruining the experience for beginners.
The sport that emerged from a missing shuttlecock and a lowered badminton net has become, improbably, a fixture of American recreation. Nearly twenty million people now play. Professional athletes invest. Television networks broadcast tournaments. Colleges organize championships.
All because some families on a Washington island got bored one Saturday afternoon and decided to make something up.