You might think this is the wrong place to bring this up—I say, you gotta fish where the fish are. I bring my indictment of pickleball, a bastardized version of a real sport, to the people (fish?) who love it most, not to spark controversy, but to ask a favor: please do it somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
I know that this sounds like another old head complaining about the world changing to adapt to society’s needs, but please be assured that mommies and daddies were playing some version of pickleball long before today. It’s only more recently that the pastime has interfered with tennis players’ lives in such a way that it inspires them to speak out about it. Many before me have written impassioned letters about various injustices, and this is no different, really.
Let’s look at the facts: according to Portland Parks & Rec, there are 92 “Tennis Only” outdoor public tennis courts in the city of Portland, plus a dozen or so publicly accessible indoor courts (which cost $14/hr and up), and private racquet clubs whose monthly fees are upwards of $200. Anyone who has tried to book an indoor court at Portland Tennis Center knows that it can sometimes feel like you’re trying to score front-row tickets to Taylor Swift (for your daughter, of course…). Never mind trying to get private lessons with David R., he’s booked the fuck out. You want to join the Monday night 3.0-3.5 singles mixer? Good luck, chump. The weather, the lack of indoor courts, and the prohibitive price of private clubs makes tennis an already tough sport to play, no matter how badly you may want to. So on a dry spring day in Portland, you’ll find just about all the public outdoor courts full of tennis players. And rightfully so; they wait patiently through six or so months of rain to break out their racquets, hit the courts, and burn off all of that pent-up energy from winter.
You, my imagined interlocutor: Ok, but that’s how pickleball players feel, too. They can’t play in the rain, either.
Me: Who cares?
Pickleball skyrocketed in popularity starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Major League Pickleball showing up in Texas in 2021. You might call pickleball a symptom of long COVID. Even Andre Agassi, with his rat tail between his legs, has forsaken the great game that made him who he is (or, arguably, the game that he made into what it is) and crossed the metaphorical net to increase his net worth. Agassi became the inaugural chair of Life Time’s newly formed Pickleball and Tennis Board in February 2024. This is largely where my hatred for pickleball started … when Andre told Boardroom (Kevin Durant’s sports, media and entertainment brand) how much he loved the sport.
Here’s what he said: “[Pickleball] is a sport that, from a participation standpoint, I believe dramatically in the growth of the marketplace. There’s a low point of entry from a skill perspective, and there’s a quick and constant level of improvement. And then, there’s an equitable management of skill levels that can actually be enjoyed as a community. And people put their phones away for two hours. So I’m fully bought into the growth of the sport from a participation standpoint.”
What happened to tennis being a lifetime sport, not a Life Time sport, Andre?
Maybe the hate got worse when I saw a trailer for the Netflix movie The Electric State that depicted Agassi in an alternate universe showing highlights from his illustrious pickleball career. Am I overreacting?
Even though pickleball was invented in 1965, I’d never seen anyone play it outside of a gym class until a few years ago. Tennis, on the other hand, has been popular among amateurs for hundreds of years. Just in the blip of my own personal existence, I’ve been playing and watching tennis for over a quarter century.
Pickleball hasn’t yet paid its dues, either in time or cultural contribution. Even though, yes, it’s been growing at a rate of 311% over the past three years, it doesn’t have the actual numbers to carry out an occupation. It lacks the community of established fans and players needed to justify sharing the already highly coveted outdoor tennis courts. No one is rushing home from work to tune into a pickleball match on Flivee or Bloopl or whatever streaming service it’s broadcasted on. This is to say, it has no hoes.
If it did have hoes, then someone would build dedicated pickleball courts for those people to play on … right? I’m sure in time, if this growth continues, pickleball will have its own Wimbledon (I would call it Dinkledon, or the Jar Open) and legendary players, matches, and all of that good stuff that contributes to a sporting tradition rich in history and lore. But right now? Y’all need to do that shit somewhere else.