WAUKESHA COUNTY — Pickleball has become the nation’s fastest-growing sport in recent years, growing almost 40% between 2019 and 2021 with an equally “dramatic and exponential” increase in on-site participation, one player said.
Dozens of pickleball courts have sprung up in public parks and private communities in recent years, and more are in the planning process, but even that wasn’t enough to meet growing demand.
“It’s not the sport that does that, it’s the entire social network,” said Jim Meyer, CEO of Lake Country Pickleball.
Pickleball is a combination of badminton, tennis and table tennis. Players hit a whiffle ball with a paddle over a net about two inches shorter than a tennis net. The sport can be played in singles or doubles.
The sport was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle by three fathers trying to entertain their children, according to USA Pickleball, the national governing body for the sport. It has grown slowly over the past 57 years but has picked up momentum over the past four years.
Lake Country Pickleball was formed two years ago from an informal group of about 100 people.
“There was a growing loose group of people who wanted to play pickleball and it was sort of casually managed and people threw in about five dollars for balls,” Meyer said.
The now official club has grown to 550 members.
According to a 2022 report by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, there are over 4.8 million pickleball players, sometimes called picklers, in the United States. They’ve grown 39.3% between 2019 and 2021, making it the fastest-growing sport in the nation, the same report says.
“The entire industry saw 2022 as an unprecedented year of growth for our sport,” said Stu Upson, CEO of USA Pickleball.
Cross-generational appeal
Half of all people who played pickleball more than eight times a year were aged 55 and older in 2021, according to the USA Pickleball Association. However, the fastest growing segment of new players is the under-24s.
Meyer said Lake Country Pickleball has developed programs with local schools to attract more teens to the sport.
With a smaller court and lighter ball than tennis, pickleball can be easier on the body, according to Meyer. Lake Country Pickleball has members who are in their 80’s.
“They’re still hobbling around and competing — they’ll kick your butt,” Meyer said.
Pickleball is easy to learn, which draws people in to the sport, but difficult to master, which Meyer says keeps them playing.
“My own experience has been like that,” he said. “On the first day you will fumble around. By Day 10 you have a reasonable set of skills. At the end of my first summer, I was in the second round of the championship game.”
demand for courts
As interest in pickleball increases, so does the demand for a place to play, pushing some communities to build pickleball courts and add the sport to their future plans.
There are currently 24 Pickleball in Waukesha Courts in parks across the city, like Banting Park and Buchner Park, which opened the courts last summer. Local residents had requested these in public information sessions on park development, said Mona Bauer of the Waukesha Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department. In Oconomowoc, the city went from four painted pickleball courts to tennis courts, which wasn’t enough, so the city increased that to six.
“And then that wasn’t enough, so (Lake Country Pickleball) funded $400,000 and last year we built a new 10-court pickleball complex,” said Craig Hoeppner, director of Oconomowoc Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department.
Now the city has reserved space for an additional 10 sites next to the complex in Northeast Regional Park for future construction when funds are available, Hoeppner said.
Pickleball courts are also planned in Nixon Park in Hartland and are included in plans for a new subdivision in the city of Delafield.
“New courts are opening up all the time. Every community is trying to serve the Pickleball community,” Meyer said.
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