New facility adding to pickleball popularity in Indiana
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Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America for the third year running, and Indiana has seen a rise in courts and players around the state, including a planned franchise location in Fort Wayne.
Florida-based Ace Pickleball Club this week announced a new franchise of its indoor pickleball facilities for the Allen County city. The new company is opening its first location in July and expects to open the Fort Wayne location by the end of 2024.
Ace Pickleball Club’s approach targets existing big box stores rather than ground-up construction, significantly reducing the investment and increasing the speed of growth, said the company in a news release.
The American-made sport, a cross between ping pong, badminton and tennis, offers a unique social dynamic due to its easy to learn rules and mechanics. Pickleball is played on a badminton-sized court with a net on the ground similar to a tennis net.
Pickleball participation nearly doubled in 2022, increasing by 85.7% year-over-year and by 158.6% over three years according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA).
Pickleball is now up to a total of 8.9 million players in the United States over the age of six, an increase from 4.8 million in the 2022 SFIA Report.
“Anytime I take someone out, even their first time, they pick up the game in about 10-15 minutes. By the end of that first session, they’re even winning games depending on who they’re playing with. That’s motivating for people, it makes them want to come back for more,” said Pickleheads co-founder Brandon Mackie.
Launched June 2022, Pickleheads is a website that helps players find courts, connect with other players and set up tournaments.
Indianapolis and Fort Wayne are both in the top 30 on Pickleheads for number of pickleball courts in the U.S.
According to the website, there are 267 total pickleball courts in Indiana. Pickleheads has documented over 75 across the Indianapolis Metropolitan area as well as over 25 in Fort Wayne.
“What we’re trying to do is simply just help people play more pickleball. So whether that’s the brand new beginner that’s never played before that needs to find a court to go out and play, or the diehard that plays every single day,” said Mackie.
Mackie theorized that the boom of popularity in the last few years came from the movement of participants playing outdoors rather than indoors due to COVID-19 restrictions. “A lot of the activity shifted outdoors, to tennis courts and public parks. I think that drew a lot of awareness to it because people saw it being played out in their local public park, they got curious about it and they wanted to play.”
Mackie thinks that pickleball is outgrowing the tennis and basketball courts that typically host pickleball games temporarily, saying, “Now we’re seeing investment into dedicated facilities. Sometimes those will be right next to the tennis courts, maybe they’ll just be standalone pickleball courts, or they will be indoor facilities where you are retrofitting a failed retail space, or an old warehouse into pickleball courts.”
Professional pickleball, while in its early stages, has yet to reach the Hoosier State, but a few tournaments have taken place in Cincinnati and Chicago.
Mackie is optimistic about the sport’s place into a more organized scene, saying, “I’ve already talked with some parents and organizers that are trying to bring it to the high schools and coordinate it. I think it’s inevitable that any sport that people love to play, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t become a varsity sport, a college sport and one day an Olympic sport.”