Name: The pickleball backlash.
Age: About a year old, give or take.
Appearance: A grassroots war against the forces of pickleball.
I don’t even know what pickleball is. Pickleball was invented in Washington state in 1965 – a cross between tennis and ping pong, using a playing area the same size as a doubles badminton court.
Is it fun? It’s the fastest growing sport in the US, with the number of players doubling between 2021 and 2022 to about 9 million, and forecast to reach 22 million this year.
It sounds as if everybody is crazy about pickleball. Not everybody. With the sport taking over parks and recreation centres across the US, a pickleball backlash is under way.
What is it that the spoilsports object to? Above all, the noise.
The cheering, you mean? Not likely. Pickleball remains, for the most part, a game that’s a lot more fun to play than it is to watch. It’s the noise of the ball.
The ball? Are you serious? When the rigid plastic paddle strikes the hard plastic ball, it produces a sharp popping sound. Multiply it by thousands of hits across thousands of brand new pickleball courts, all day and far into the night, and you end up with a lot of disgruntled local residents.
That sounds a bit petty to me. You haven’t heard the sound. “It’s like having a pistol range in your backyard,” one Massachusetts resident told the New York Times.
It can’t be that bad. One player who has set up a firm called Pickleball Sound Mitigation conceded that it “creates vibrations in a range that can be extremely annoying to humans”, at a decibel level similar to some vacuum cleaners.
Oh. What can be done? Noise mitigation efforts have been proposed, but uptake is slow. Some of those affected have sought remedy in law, and won temporary injunctions.
Is it just about the noise? No, there have also been clashes – even fights – with tennis players.
Why? Are they purists? Pickleball courts installed to accommodate the craze often take up space once occupied by tennis courts.
I can see that’s annoying. Where that hasn’t happened, pickleball addicts sometimes chalk their court measurements on to tennis courts.
This pickleball is beginning to sound like a bit of a blight. As a popular activity for elderly people and the previously inactive, pickleball has also led to a lot of injuries. One report estimates it could cost Americans up to $500m in medical bills this year alone.
I take back blight. It sounds more like a curse. Let’s hope pickleball never comes to Britain. Too late – it’s already here, with an estimated 270 venues across the UK.
Do say: “Anything that keeps people active is worth a national epidemic of noise pollution and broken wrists.”
Don’t say: “Don’t worry, that’s not pickleball – just a bunch of guns going off next door.”
