You've seen it at parks across the country and in viral videos on TikTok.
While pickleball is for some an indelible symbol of the 1990s, the game commonly described as a "combination of tennis, badminton and ping pong" is currently in the midst of a resurgence and major spike in popularity fueled by celebrity fans such as LeBron James and Melinda Gates.
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Over 14% of Americans or 36.5 million people played pickleball at some point between August 2021 to August 2022, according to a recent Association of Pickleball Professionals, At the start of 2021, that number was only 5 million.
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Pickleball Is Popping Up Where Retail Used To Be
As a result, many sports business owners have been desperately looking for both indoor and outdoor spaces in which to install pickleball courts. This all also comes at a time that some like to call a long-running concept known as the "retail apocalypse" — many suburban malls struggle to keep spaces filled while retail giants such as Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and David's Bridal all declared bankruptcy in the last month.
According to a report by real estate firm JLL first dug up by CNN, operators of pickleball courts have been snapping up retail space faster than most other businesses. In the last year, Pickleball America has leased space in mall spots that previously held stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond, The Gap (GPS)'s Old Navy, and Saks Off Fifth.
The latter was what formerly occupied the 80,000-square-foot retail space at Connecticut's Stamford Town Center — after the department store shut down, Pickleball America swooped with a lease to install 28 pickleball courts.
In New Hampshire, the All-Stars Pickleball Club leased the 26,000-square-foot space in Concord's Steeplegate Mall formerly occupied by affordable clothes giant Old Navy. Another pickleball court space opened up on the site of a former Burlington's (BURL) store in New Jersey's Shore Mall
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"The first quarter saw notable mall move-ins from entertainment tenants like X-Golf, Urban Air Adventure Park, Museum of Illusions, and Combat Ops," the researchers write in the report. "A growing sports & entertainment phenomenon also has malls in its sights: pickleball. [...] Now, pickleball court owners are targeting malls for expansion."
While many malls still draw in a steady stream of visitors, the rise of online shopping both in the years leading up to and during the pandemic means that physical stores can function as smaller "showrooms" rather than large spaces for keeping inventory.
Movie theaters, arcades and gaming centers, and the facilities for a range of other sports are some of the other businesses leasing out the space formerly occupied by large stores — in 2023, people are much more likely to go to their complexes for "active" activities they can't practice at home rather than to shop for things they can easily buy online.
The steady stream of visitors, in turn, can help get retail chains bring in sales from those who may not have otherwise looked for their products online.
"We've been seeing increased announcements of move-ins and aggressive opening plans from social entertainment concepts like Puttshack, Topgolf, Punch Bowl and Camp Pickle – a pickleball-focused eatertainment concept," the authors of the JLL report write.
