Pickleball Popularity Statistics and Demographics: Facts & INFOGRAPHIC

It’s no secret that Pickleball is USA’s fastest-growing sport. But how fast is it exactly growing? What are the pickleball demographics? And what’s the number of pickleball players?

In this post, we’ll answer all such questions and will share pickleball popularity statistics and demographics. Best of all, we’ve visualized the data in the form of an infographic, which makes the confusing data easier to understand.

So, let’s begin with the infographic.

Table of Contents

• Pickleball Infographic
• Pickleball Popularity Statistics
• Pickleball Demographics
• Growth of Pickleball VS Tennis
• Pickleball Courts and Location Facts
• The Bottom Line
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
  • What is the average age of a pickleball player?
  • How many pickleball players are there in the U.S.?
  • When did pickleball become popular?

Pickleball Infographic

Here’s the infographic on pickleball’s popularity and statistics.

To give a rundown of a few statistics mentioned in the infographic, Pickleball has 4.8 million players in the USA and a growth rate of 39.3% for the last two-year period. Six out of ten players are men, and every 2 out of 3 players play pickleball more than eight times a year.

Pickleball Popularity Statistics

Here are some of the statistics which show pickleball’s ever-rising popularity.

• Pickleball has 4.8 million players in the United States of America.
• The growth rate of the number of pickleball players for the two-year period is 39.3%.
• The number of players playing pickleball has nearly doubled in the last seven years (2014-21).
• Every two out of three players are core players, which means that they play pickleball more than eight times a year. This shows how addictive pickleball is!

Pickleball Demographics

• The average age of pickleball players in 2021 is 38.1 years, down from 41 years in 2020. This shows that pickleball is gaining traction among the youth.
• The average age of core players is 47.5 years and of casual players is 33.6 years.
• 33% of the core players are over 65 years of age.
• 27.8% of players are in the age bracket 18-34, which is the highest among all the age groups. But this age group also has the most number of casual players (33.9% of the total).
• The south-Atlantic region is the home to most pickleball players (around 1 million). However, the mid-Atlantic has shown the highest growth rate (50%) in the last year.
• Around 1.2 million pickleball players are college graduates. This makes up around 25% of the people who play pickleball.

Growth of Pickleball VS Tennis

Given the similarity between the two sports, pickleball’s growth is often compared to that of tennis. Here’s the comparison of the growth of pickleball and tennis.

In the last two years (2019-21), tennis saw a growth of 27.9%, while pickleball growth was 39.3% during the same period. It’s pertinent to mention that the growth of tennis over the last two years has been much higher than the previous years.

Comparing the number of pickleball and tennis players, tennis has nearly 22 million players in the USA, while pickleball is played by around 4.8 million Americans.

There are around 250,000 tennis courts in the USA, compared to over 30,000 pickleball courts. But the good thing is, you can play pickleball on a tennis court.

These figures show that though tennis is much more popular in the USA than pickleball, pickleball is growing more rapidly. Therefore, it’s quite possible that pickleball might overtake tennis, but it would take quite a few years.

Pickleball Courts and Location Facts

• There are 9,524 known places to play pickleball in the USA.
• Seattle has 3 courts for every 20,000 residents—the highest among all cities.
• Naples, Florida is called the Capital of Pickleball.
• Pickleball is the official sport of Washington state. Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill on 28th March 2022.

The Bottom Line

So these were some pickleball popularity statistics, growth rates, and demographics. Though there’s no doubt that it has exploded in popularity over the few years, it still has a long way to go to compete with other sports like tennis.

One of the positive signs from these statistics is that pickleball is not just the game of seniors, as more young adults are getting into it. With pickleball being such an addictive game, it’s surely going to get bigger and expand globally.

Nevertheless, with the current growth rate and projections, we can hope that pickleball will continue to become more popular.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions.

What is the average age of a pickleball player?

The average age of a pickleball player is 38.1 years, as compared to 41 years in 2020. This shows pickleball is getting popular among the younger population too.

How many pickleball players are there in the U.S.?

There were 4.8 million pickleball players in the United States of America in 2021. This is around 0.6 million more than the number of U.S-based pickleball players in 2020.

When did pickleball become popular?

According to the following graph, pickleball has been gaining traction since 2014, but it boomed during the pandemic. During the two years of 2020-21, it saw an astonishing growth of 39.3%.

Sources: SFIA, PAC, USAPA, and Statista