Philly is far short of pickleball courts
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
What a pickle-dillo: Philly doesn't have enough courts to satisfy the growing number of pickleball players in our region.
Driving the news: We rank a dismal 82nd in the U.S. in courts per capita, with only 1.2 courts for the sport per 100,000 residents, according to the pro-parks nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL).
Why it matters: Like other cities, Philly's got a love/hate relationship with pickleball.
Zoom in: Residents in Chestnut Hill raised a, um, racket last year about the noise generated from pickleball courts at the Water Tower Recreation Center. They even threatened to sue unless the city did something about it.
- In response, Philly recreation officials closed the courts on Sundays and scaled back hours Monday to Saturday, so people weren't thwacking paddles at 9pm.
- The city is building more courts at the Awbury Recreation Center, per a recreation department spokesperson.
The intrigue: The Chestnut Hill controversy "scared everybody away," making it harder for local players to get their pickleball fix, says Braden Keith, marketing and operations manager at Bounce Pickleball.
- Bounce is opening a new indoor pickleball center with 16 courts in Malvern next week and has signed up more than 750 members so far.
The big picture: There's been a sixfold increase in public pickleball courts in the 100 biggest U.S. cities since 2017 — from 420 to 2,788 — but municipal leaders say they still can't come close to meeting demand from pickleheads, Axios' Jennifer A. Kingson and Alice Feng report.
- Seattle is #1 on TPL's list of the friendliest pickleball cities, probably because the sport was invented on nearby Bainbridge Island in 1965.
- Lincoln, Nebraska is #3 — which surprised even the city's parks & rec facilities manager, who chalked it up to the dedication of some local snowbirds who caught pickleball fever while wintering in Phoenix and lobbied their hometown to build courts.
By the numbers: There are roughly 100,000 pickleball players in the Philly region, including parts of South Jersey, Keith tells us. He estimates about 8,000 of them live in the city.
The bottom line: Keith hopes Philly's numbers improve ASAP. He says Bounce hopes to eventually move into the city but is currently competing with indoor soccer for space.
- "Everything in Philly moves a little slower," he tells Axios. "They've always got a bigger problem here."