Opinion: Tennis Players Aren’t Cool With Pickleball, and You Shouldn’t Be Either.
In the tennis community, what began as murmurs have grown deafening: pickleball is killing tennis. It’s the fastest growing sport in America, they say. It’s easy to learn, fun to play, and (allegedly) physical but not overtaxing. It’s also relatively affordable, highly social (i.e. less snobby) and does not require a large playing area. Sold yet?
Tennis is obviously pickleball’s closest relative, but the comparisons are not fair and tennis players are not here for it. The technical and athletic requirements in tennis are way, way higher than pickleball. Tennis demands new players to seek extensive guidance through private lessons and practice time before they are ready to compete. Players will have to invest in their equipment too, and sometimes pay relatively high fees for court time. Pickleball, on the other hand, is accessible from day one. Paddles are cheaper and low maintenance, and it takes about an afternoon to learn the basics and maybe a few weeks to get good at them. Tennis, on the other hand, involves much pain and suffering - both mental and physical. It takes years to learn, and many players never get good at it.
Tennis players that have toiled for years to become the best at their local clubs are not enthusiastic about the emergence of pickleball as a mainstream sport. They’re even more peeved to see their local courts converted into 2 or 3 pickleball courts. Of course, some tennis players welcomed pickleball as a cross-training opportunity or even a full-time switch. With their prime years behind them, pickleball offered an opportunity for washed up tennis players to become elite competitors again… and on the very first day playing. But for most others, taking up pickleball in any serious way is an outright betrayal of the values that make tennis great. It is to tennis what bodyboarding (aka boogie board) is to surfing: cheaper, easy enough for most children to figure out, and irritating to a community of athletes with a time honored culture.
Speaking of culture, tennis probably would do well to take a page out of pickleball’s book to become more inclusive. But then again, tennis players are snobby for a reason. Most have spent years languishing at low levels before being promoted to higher calibers of competition. To climb the ladder, they had to take lessons, craft a social circle around weekly matches and clinics, and spend hours (not to mention money) practicing the many different shots. When tennis players scoff at inexperienced new participants that think the sport is easy, they’re not being pretentious. Tennis really is that hard, and really isn’t fun when there is a large skill disparity between players on the court.
In tennis and similarly difficult sports, players earn their status. They should be allowed to feel superior to other people that have never challenged themselves in the same physical, emotional, and time-intensive way. Tennis players secretly revel in the glory of being good at something that can humble great athletes with no prior experience. Indeed, elite tennis players have skills that many great athletes couldn’t master in a lifetime of practice.
Under scrutiny, the case for pickleball is not very compelling. For one, it’s noisy - very noisy. Every touch of the ball produces an unpleasant thwack that registers 70-85 decibels (the same amount of noise as a freeway), drawing ire from local residents that can still hear noise 600 feet away. Pickleball is also unspectacular to watch considering most rallies consist of “dinks” and minimal movement. And on that very point, pickleball isn’t even that much exercise; an hour of walking burns more calories. Also the claim that pickleball is “safer” for the injury prone turns out to be nonsense too. While the game is not as strenuous as most sports, the ball stays low and the minimal barrier for entry allows the oldest and clumsiest athletes among us to compete. Unsurprisingly, this bad combination has created $500 million in medical costs annually since its rise in popularity.
Given all of this, one would think that pickleball should be relegated to child’s play (or senior’s play more accurately). So what gives? Why is this noisy, boring, and sedentary-but-not-safe sport so freakin’ popular? There are clearly a host of factors, including the 2020 pandemic, but perhaps the most plausible explanation is peer pressure and social media.
At this point, some readers might think I haven’t played enough pickleball to know what I’m talking about. The truth is that I tried pickleball for the first time in 2015, way before celebrities like David Dobrik and Ellen Degeneres had ever held a paddle. This was even before Ben Johns - considered the greatest pickleballer to date - had tried the sport. I was playing tennis at a country club where one of their courts had freshly painted pickleball lines. A local coach gathered some of us to explain the game he hoped would catch on with the aging demographic at the club. We (being relatively accomplished tennis players) played for about 30 minutes, some of us more amused than others but no one overly impressed. I played more than once too, but wasn’t any more convinced. Dumb, I thought. So that was that.
And I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Over the next several years, those courts sat basically empty despite the club’s efforts to promote the game. Club members tried it, and it flopped. Fast forward to now, and pickleball is a sensation. The same country club today has a dedicated pickleball facility and a dedicated pickleball coach rather than a lone tennis court with a few extra lines painted on.
I’ll admit that pickleball for old people makes some sense. I’m more discouraged by its appeal to young people. Then again, consider the times we live in. Our world is filled with so much short format entertainment content and so much adoration for celebrities and influencers that produce nothing but shallow, shallow drivel. Pickleball is short format entertainment and celebrity endorsed - the sporting equivalent of Tik Tok. Nearly everyone that tries pickleball is told ad nauseam how much they’re going to love it before they even hit a ball. Evidently, humans are susceptible to this kind of herd mentality.
There’s a maxim in economics called Stein’s Law that suggests “if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” As an industry, pickleball may not be built to last. First, consider the moral issue at stake. Sports are a means to help children and adults develop into well-rounded, physically fit, and goal-oriented people. What are the values of a sport that anyone can learn in a day? Second, consider the fiscal issue. Why invest in an industry that only requires one day of training and minimal consumer interaction? Why coach a sport that has so few technical difficulties, where one lesson is enough for the majority of people to learn the basics? Anything that’s so easy to pick up will be just as easy to put down. Remember Peloton? When the dust settles and the social media hype dies down, it seems more likely than not that people will look at pickleball in an objective light - that nothing seriously interesting has happened since the first few times they’ve played.
