America's Pickleball Craze Has a New Winner | Next in Sports

[@digitalreporter]

0:01 Intro 2:29 Anna Leigh Waters #1 Women's Pro Pickleball Player In Singles, Mixed Doubles, Doubles 4:27 MLP/PPA 5:43 Rules 6:46 History 7:21 COVID 7:55 Pickleball Courts 9:18 Brian Levine, MLP CEO 12:48 Drew Brees/Larry Fitzgerald 15:20 Pickleball Terms 15:42 James Blake, Retired Tennis Pro 16:42 Easy Of Use/Growing TV Audience 16:25 Josh Walker, President Sports Innovation Lab/Fluid Fan 18:25 A-Listers/Gary Vaynerchuk 20:42 The Jersey 5's/Anna Leigh Waters 22:38 Future

[@TheTomtah]

This reminds if the padel craze we had here in the EU during the pandemic. A lot of the padel courts where I lived went bust when the pandemic was over and people returned to working. Who will win out, padel or pickleball?

[@edgeprobability]

Padel has newfound traction in Miami. They are very similar, but the low barrier to entry will allow PB to thrive as a sport. I’m not very bullish on the media product of PB as a professional sport.

[@rayschoepfer2921]

Pickleball is a far better business opportunity than padel. Padel is very expensive in that it requires courts with walls and astro turf as well as requiring more surface area per court. The price of the infrastructure per padel player served is 4 to 6 times the cost of pickleball. As well, the time required for a player to go from new to having fun on the court is much, much longer in padel (as it is in tennis). Here is Uruguay, they are just starting to reach the "bust phase" of padel. I actually talked to a court builder and asked how many people does he see playing padel and he said not many but there is lots of interest in building courts because the owners "heard" that everyone is playing padel. I currently play pickleball at two abandoned padel courts. In business, you go with the numbers and the numbers clearly show it is pickleball.

[@RichardsWorld]

Pickleball is growing and growing in the US. It's not slowing down anytime soon. COVID stopped it for about months, then started to pick up slowly. Now it's picking up fast again. I've seen lots of tennis courts disappear and get converted to pickleball courts. In pickleball it's easy to go to random strangers and mix in and play with some people. I can't think of many other sports that you can do that.

[@ClaytonCarroll]

I don't know if a single person commenting here has ever played this game seriously or is thinking critically about this "fad". Just try it with people that can sustain at least a 5 shot rally and you'll see why there's only two types of people in this world, those that don't play and those that are addicted.

[@thedanishmalik1]

i was thinking it a tennis for old people than they sad game was first exclusive to retirement homes

[@tomzphone]

they are shutting down our indoor soccer leagues to convert the field to pickleball. Hopefully this is a short term thing.

[@lt4374]

Sorry, this is just the start. Before you know it, your bed will be turned into pickleball court too.

[@thejuicerr]

It's only the beginning. Pickelball is an addiction.

[@cageynerd]

Dude, played for the first time yesterday. So fun. The only curious thing is that it took me about 15 minutes to learn and after that I beat all my friends at 11-point matches. Even beat them playing 1v2. I'm a skilled tennis player. I think there is a cross-over there that makes it TOO EASY for tennis players to take advantage of pickleball tournaments.

[@cageynerd]

Recreationally though -- it is genius...

[@KneeDownFPV]

Too easy for high level tennis players to beat low level players, sure. 😂

[@rmb_dev]

Basically, it's tennis for less fit people - you don't have to run for the ball and to have great cardio and flexibility...

[@r3dp1ll]

it's between ping pong and tennis so more accessible

[@edgeprobability]

Go play singles. Funnily enough the fatter people at my club play tennis bc they can just chill at the net.

[@KneeDownFPV]

Obviously said by someone who hasn’t seriously played, especially singles.

[@thejuicerr]

That is a fallacy. Try playing singles 4.0 >

[@cavezol]

Awesome❤

[@lt4374]

Just saying, why not build more concrete outdoor ping pong table? You could fit 4 ping pong table on 1 pickle ball courts. And you could play until you’re 90s and on wheel chair

[@kleanish]

No way they showed converting a tennis court to a pickleball court.. sigh

[@DavidSchilter]

How is 36 million 14% of the US population?

[@fouur]

this is def covids fault

[@MrMRGamer1010]

This will go bust in a few years. Doesn't have any of the staying power or viewer fun of any large pro sport.

[@tmo8385]

You are so wrong... I started playing a year ago and now there are twice the numbers of people playing than when I first played at Chicken n Pickle. It's very hard to reserve a court here since they're always full.

[@Napstone]

i worked at a sports goods/racquet store in CaIgary 2013 summer and I can teII you this right now, pickIebaII paddIes were our highest seIIing items mostIy shipped to FIorida retirment homes! I see it's finaIIy diffused into mainstream society

[@SoCalFreelance]

Obnoxious hype to boost a wall streeters get rich quick scheme. -_-

[@manonamission2000]

bingo!

[@tmo8385]

The hype is real bro. You will see...

[@fornello123]

Vocal fry 😫😫

[@manonamission2000]

of the worst kind

[@dreaming_fox163]

So basically table tennis and tennis combined. Less movement is easier. Basically, american lol

[@huckfin1598]

If a 13 or 16 year old can be a Pro, it's not a very difficult sport

[@JuanPablodelaTorre]

There are 13-year-old grandmasters. Would you say Chess is not a "very difficult sport"?

[@huckfin1598]

@@JuanPablodelaTorre This is about sports. The physical athletic realm. Please try to keep up.

[@JuanPablodelaTorre]

@@huckfin1598 I don't think you understand what sports are. But, all right. Both of the Williams sisters became pros at 14. Same age as Freddy Adu, the youngest player to sign for a pro soccer team, and Wilfredo León, youngest volleyball player to compete internationally. This happens in almost every sport.

[@edgeprobability]

Considering her mom was a collegiate tennis star at USC, I’m not too concerned about her athletic gifts

[@misobeast8047]

@@huckfin1598 Gymnastics? You're not wholly wrong, but you should have phrased it 'Not Physically Demanding'. Even then, singles PB can be quite exhausting when you play a similar player (particularly rally types). Its almost always your opponent that makes something 'difficult' (or not) anyway. The particular Sport is more often than not, irrelevant.

[@muneebahmad7887]

lol what a ridiculous sport. Geared towards those with a pension and loads of time.

[@Hアッシュ]

私が言ってた新しいゲームってそういうのじゃないんだけど… ( ´⌓` )はぅ…

[@chrisaguilera1564]

Never heard of it. Sounds like a scam.

[@theredhall-thisisfootball]

Americans keep creating unnecessary sports that the World obviously reject😂... They saw how football was so popular and decided to create a sport that has nothing to do with the foot and called it Football, they wanted their own version of Cricket so they started Baseball now this...😅

[@tmo8385]

Pickleball is played all over the world now. So many more young players are coming into this sport, more than older people... I know this since I have been playing at Chicken n Pickle for over a year now, and it's very hard to reserve a court here because the courts are always fully booked.