Pickleball: 8 Fun Facts About the Sport Everyone Wants to Play

Pickleball keeps growing in popularity because it is very easy to learn and does not require special physical or technical skills.

If you haven't heard about pickleball yet, you will soon start hearing about it everywhere. This sport combines elements from other racket sports such as tennis, badminton, and table tennis. It is played on a smaller court than tennis, with a very light paddle and a perforated plastic ball. It can be played in singles or doubles, the serve must be done underhand, and the court has a 2.13-meter “non-volley zone” on each side of the net, where players cannot hit the ball without letting it bounce first.

Beyond learning how to play, this sport has many interesting facts that are growing as fast as its popularity:

• Although the origins of some sports are debated, pickleball’s origin is clear: in 1965, three friends (Congressman Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum) were spending the summer on Bainbridge Island, Washington. In the backyard, there was a badminton court, but they had no shuttlecocks or rackets. So, to entertain their families, they improvised using table tennis paddles and a perforated plastic ball. With a bit of imagination, they created a sport that combines the size of a badminton court, a net like in tennis, and paddles similar to table tennis but larger.
• Where does the name “pickleball” come from? Many people believe the game was named after the Pritchard family dog, Pickles, who supposedly ran after the ball during the first games. However, Joan Pritchard, Joel’s wife, explained that the name comes from the term “pickle boat”, used in rowing to describe a boat with a mixed crew from different teams. Since pickleball combines elements of tennis, table tennis, and badminton, they thought the name was a perfect fit.
• The official ball is made of plastic and has a diameter between 7 and 7.5 cm and weighs 22 to 26 grams. There are no color restrictions, although most balls are yellow. Because they are perforated, they produce a distinctive sound that some people find annoying: from 30 meters away, the noise from a pickleball court reaches 70 decibels (compared to 40 decibels in tennis), similar to a vacuum cleaner. And when multiple courts are active, the sound becomes even more noticeable, sparking a real debate about pickleball noise and how to address it.
• In the United States, pickleball is extremely popular: in 2024, an estimated 50 million people (about 19% of the adult population) played at least once. It is the fastest-growing sport in the country, with an 85.7% annual growth rate and over 40,000 dedicated courts. In many states, requests to build pickleball courts outnumber those for tennis or basketball courts. In Washington State, where the game was invented, pickleball has been the official state sport since 2022.
• Many celebrities are huge fans of pickleball: among them are Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson, George Clooney, and Bill Gates. LeBron James and Tom Brady are even owners of pickleball teams.
• Because it is easy to learn and does not require very demanding skills, it is a very attractive sport for all ages, but especially for older people: 33% of players are over 65 years old. The average age of the amateur player is 38 years old.
• Its international expansion continues to grow: the World Pickleball Federation (WPF) already has more than 60 member states spread across five continents. But the USA, the country where the sport was created, is not part of the WPF because it has its own organization, the USA Pickelball (USAP), which wants to maintain its own expansion model without depending on another international entity. In 2020, USAP helped form the International Pickleball Federation (IPF), which has 91 organizations from 77 countries and competes with the WPF in the global regulation of the sport, generating tensions between the two. Which of the two is Spain part of? The WPF.
• Such international expansion brings with it an inevitable question: will it become an Olympic sport? Despite its popularity, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has not yet included it on its list of possible sports and fans will have to wait until at least the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Australia.