Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway, and I'm Melissa Harris-Perry.

We're going to wrap up today's show with a little bit of fun, with pickleball. The wildly popular sport is taking over courts across the country, and discussions of the relative merits of pickleball started taking over Takeaway production meetings too, so we sent producer, Cat Sposato out into the city to bring us back a report for you to relish.

Cat Sposato: For the past year, the sport of pickleball has been popping up pretty much everywhere I look. Even some of my friends are playing in rec leagues these days. I'll admit it, despite it being everywhere, I still don't know anything about it. I decided to see what all the fuss was about first-hand and headed to Life Time Sky. It's a fitness club in Manhattan where pickleball can be played on indoor courts.

Andy Peeke: Well, the first time I ever played pickleball was in Yonkers in New York in 2017. I just saw a poster posted somewhere saying, "Hey, burn off the Thanksgiving meal playing pickleball with your family," and I'm like, "Oh, let me take my kids and go do that. Why not?"

Cat Sposato: The first thing I did was talk to Andy Peeke. He's the lead pickleball professional at Life Time Sky. He coaches people from all skill levels at the club.

Andy Peeke: It's like tennis and ping-pong had a baby. That's just about the shortest and most concise way I could put it.

Cat Sposato: Pickleball's official origin story is a reflection of its core value, accessibility for all ages. In 1965, founders Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell took a couple of ping-pong paddles and a wiffle ball out to Bell's private tennis court in Bainbridge Island, Washington. There, they created a game that all their family members could play together at the same time. That level of access is what so many people who play across all ages and backgrounds love most about the game. I went to the Life Time pickleball courts in Westchester, New York to take a lesson. Because pickleball is played in pairs, I took my Takeaway colleague with me.

Jackie Martin: Hi, my name is Jackie Martin. I'm the line producer for The Takeaway.

Cat Sposato: [unintelligible 00:02:22] pickleball coordinator here at Life Time is going to teach Jackie how to play pickleball today.

Speaker 5: Let's go. Let's have some fun.

Cat Sposato: [unintelligible 00:02:30] is a pickleball coordinator for this Life Time club.

Speaker 5: This is one thing I say to all my people who are older. I say, this is the only sport that you can play with your kids and go to tournaments and them feeling that they're not carrying you. You could be equally good with your kids. It's such a bonding, such great bonding you can have on the pickleball court between generations. It's very interesting in that way because it's a great equalizer in every way. You can be 80 years old and play fabulous pickleball, or you can be six years old and play fabulous pickleball.

?Andy Peeke: Stay on the line first. Let's just try [unintelligible 00:03:19].

Jackie Martin: Try again [unintelligible 00:03:21]?

Andy Peeke: No thinking. Just hit it over [unintelligible 00:03:25].

Jackie Martin: [unintelligible 00:03:26].

Cat Sposato: I have to admit that I really saw the appeal of the game while Jackie and I were getting our quick lesson from [unintelligible 00:03:33].

Speaker 5: I want you to stand behind the kitchen line, and I am going to be on the other side. What I'll do is I'll drop the ball here, you let it bounce, and send the ball back to me and try to bounce it on the other side.

Cat Sposato: Okay. After a 120-minute lesson, Jackie and I were already playing a full game on the pickleball court holding our own with folks who have been playing for years. I'm not that athletic, and yet, I feel like I could play for hours. For all its popularity, pickleball is causing some real problems across the country. There's a fierce battle between pickleball players and tennis players in the fight for space to play.

Cities like Arlington, Virginia, San Francisco, California, and Exeter, New Hampshire are a few of the communities embroiled in very public battles over the right to retain tennis courts. For critics like Caitlin Thompson, co-founder of Racquet Magazine, the idea that pickleball courts are replacing tennis courts across the country is a real disservice to tennis players.

Caitlin Thompson: In the past couple of years especially, tennis has benefited from a huge surge in growth among Black, brown, and Hispanic players.

Cat Sposato: Specifically to Caitlin, it's a disservice to the kinds of people who play tennis.

Caitlin Thompson: To me, that's so exciting and that's what I'm seeing in a real sport, is getting obscured by this fact that is-- I don't want to say totally in service of, but certainly catering to a white, largely baby boomer audience for recreational players which, look, if you're going to be on the couch or go do a thing, go do a thing. When it comes to the expensive tennis, both in terms of hype and literally space, because these pickleballers like a lot of colonial thinkers tend to think that they get to decide how space is used, and they feel entitled to it, that's when I get really upset.

Cat Sposato: It's true that pickleball's demographic makeup of recreational players tends to skew older. According to USA Pickleball, 79% of casual players are 65 or older. Whereas in tennis, the demographic makeup is becoming more diverse than ever. Data from the US Tennis Association states that people of color represent 38% of the total tennis-playing population, and in the last three years, the number of Latinos playing tennis has increased by 90%. For Caitlin, space is a massive issue for tennis players because tennis isn't as portable as pickleball is.

Caitlin Thompson: Tennis is a sport that you need a purpose-built space for. I use that term really specifically, purpose-built. It's one that urban planners or architects use, something that's specifically for a thing. Pickleball is essentially a bar game. It's no different in terms of skill or athletic exertion than darts. It's fun, but you don't need to build a special darts haul to play darts. Any wall will do. Pickleball is the same thing. You can play in a parking lot, you can play on a sidewalk.

Cat Sposato: Repurposing these sports spaces is the real issue according to Caitlin.

Caitlin Thompson: Because of the hype of pickleball, and again, the types of people who've been playing it, white older folks who feel entitled to spaces, there's been some beefing. It's mostly happening with tennis players because there's already a net, but it's also happened with basketball courts and a number of other civic spaces where these entitled people feel like they can come onto the space, a space that's already pretty limited and under-resourced, and feel like they can run it over.

Cat Sposato: Caitlin makes the case that the easy access and low barriers to entry to playing pickleball don't translate into real accessibility for young players of color.

Caitlin Thompson: I take a huge issue with us prioritizing that over the growth of a real sport. The other thing is tennis is a real sport. It's a really competitive sport. There's athleticism required. There's years of training. Listen, that's not to say that it's not fun to play kickball or pool or whatever. Those are difficult things to do quite well. The difference between something being accessible and something being difficult is not the same thing. Is it accessible to become a professional tennis player? No, but it's not as accessible to become an NBA player.

That doesn't stop the city rightfully and communities from investing in creating black tops for people to play basketball. For me, I think the fact that people can get good at it very quickly is definitely a selling point for why it's a recreational thing, but it doesn't mean that it should be, I think, prioritized over something that has history tradition, a sport you can play until you're very old. That doesn't mean you have to [unintelligible 00:08:25], but pickleball doesn't give you much exercise.

It's actually not a real, viable professional sport because it's not a real viable, truly athletic activity. It's not a lot different than if we decided to make huge swathes in the city dedicated to shuffleboard. Is it fun? Great. Is it accessible? I guess. Is it a good thing to prioritize over something that gets our heart rate up and attracts young, diverse people? I would argue, not one day.

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Craig Morris: This is not two separate groups of people. There are a lot of people that play both sports, tennis and pickleball.

Cat Sposato: Craig Morris is the chief executive of Community Tennis at the US Tennis Association.

Craig Morris: It's really important that we look at this opportunity holistically and understand what players want. At certain times, as I've said, players want to be able to play or compete in both activities, so we've got to make sure that that challenge that we're facing allows for that opportunity for local communities.

Cat Sposato: He says his organization is making strides to ensure that tennis players aren't displaced during pickleball's quick rise in popularity.

Craig Morris: What we've tried to do to alleviate some of the precious, particularly parks and rec agencies and public accessible facilities where people can often walk down and play for free, which is what we want, we put out a statement of guidance to really try and help support local facility owners to understand how they can support the implementation of both sports coexisting to meet the needs of and the demands of those local communities that want to play both tennis and pickleball.

Cat Sposato: That idea of crossover between sporting groups extends to the competitive space too. Since the world of competitive tennis is much more restrictive and difficult to enter, many competitive tennis players of all skill levels are now looking to pickleball for new opportunities.

Stu Upson: The tournament landscape in pickleball is really vast.

Cat Sposato: Stu Upson is the CEO of USA Pickleball, the national governing board for the sport.

Stu Upson: There are three professional pro tours. These are the tournaments run around the country where the pros compete.

Cat Sposato: He says that tournaments make pickleball professionals accessible to amateur players in ways that are unique to the sport.

Stu Upson: Many are broadcast or streamed. Many will draw several thousand fans to come and watch. The other interesting aspect of this is that these professional tournaments also have an amateur component. Amateur players can come and play in their age or their skill level, and some of these tournaments could add 800 or a thousand players competing or leading up to the pros who would traditionally play on the weekend.

Cat Sposato: The world of professional pickleball is still in its infancy. This means that amateur players can turn into professionals in a very short period of time, and that's what we'll talk about when we come back from the break here on The Takeaway.

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Cat Sposato: Critics of pickleball like Caitlin Thompson, the co-founder of Racquet Magazine, who you heard from before, consider its popularity to be too young for it to be taken as seriously as more established sports like tennis.

Caitlin Thompson: I think the fact that people can get good at it very quickly is definitely a selling point for why it's a recreational thing, but it doesn't mean that it should be, I think, prioritized over something that has history, tradition, and frankly, is good for your health.

Cat Sposato: Pickleball does have a booming professional industry. Pro athletes LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tom Brady, and Draymond Green all own and invest in pickleball teams through Major League Pickleball, one of the biggest pickleball leagues in the United States. Think about what it takes to become a professional tennis player and play at the US Open. According to data collected by the US Tennis Association in 2010, on average, it took an investment of at least $143,000 to qualify as a professional tennis player, but in pickleball, you can become a professional almost by accident like Julie La Battaglia. She's a 54-year-old former Montessori teacher turned pickleball professional. She caught the pickleball bug back in 2019 right before the pandemic hit.

Julie La Battaglia: I was introduced at a local Y where I do my gym. Some people were playing, and I heard the sound that some people might say it's an annoying sound. Some people might say it's a sound of life itself, the sound of a balancing pickleball, but I heard that sound and I was just instantly just curious. It was mostly seniors who were playing at that time. This is pre-pandemic, just before. They were kind and welcoming. They just described the sport to me, and I was instantly hooked like everybody else.

Cat Sposato: After playing at local rec centers and in parks for a couple of years, Julie decided to try her hand at playing in a pickleball tournament.

Julie La Battaglia: Most of the tournaments that I played, initially they were local, but also in Florida, there's a lot of tournaments. All throughout the East Coast and California is also big, Utah. They're everywhere. The great thing about tournaments is that you have both amateur and pro players and senior pro players altogether. You get to see all these superstars of pickleball that you just watched on the Tennis Channel. Now you're just able to meet them at the next tournament and talk to them and pick their brain about pickleball.

Cat Sposato: From there, she was hooked. Julie started playing as an amateur in tournaments across the country as a way to meet new people. The more she played, the more she racked up points as a player. Then as she was signing up for another tournament, she found out some incredible news.

Julie La Battaglia: I just found out a couple of weeks ago as I was trying to register for the US Open, actually, which I'll be playing in a couple of weeks which is held in Naples by the way. They informed me that I was not eligible to play amateur because I'm an official pro, which I guess I accumulated enough points in the senior pro tour to be ranked. Apparently, I'm ranked number 26 in the world in senior pro singles women.

Cat Sposato: That's right. In less than a year of playing pickleball in a formal setting, Julie racked up enough points in the world pickleball league to become a professional pickleball player. Being a pickleball pro is a pretty big deal. For starters, it can open up opportunities to play in some of the world's best sports venues. Last year, Julie was eligible to play in the senior pro singles division for the Pickleball NYC Open, which was held in the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Queens, New York.

That's also where the US Open for tennis is held. Those same courts are reserved for the matches that changed the careers of tennis legends like Serena Williams, Andy Murray, and Naomi Osaka forever.

Julie La Battaglia: Just entering it, walking through the gates, knowing that you are going to play senior pro and just knowing this is-- I never got to play there as a tennis player, but here I am playing pickleball on these hallowed grounds and then winning my first pro match. I was like, "Yes, this is special. In what other sport can you do this?" I just started playing a year and a half ago, and now I can play and win a pro match.

Cat Sposato: Here's Stu Upson again.

Stu Upson: I think the great opportunity for an athlete to become a professional pickleball player is that there aren't really many barriers other than you have to be really good.

Cat Sposato: He says part of pickleball's appeal is in its opportunity.

Stu Upson: Because there are enough leagues with the APP and the PPA, there are plenty of opportunities for good athletes who are becoming really good pickleball players to have that opportunity to compete in the various tours and tournaments around the country. It's still a young sport. There are still opportunities for young athletes to compete at the pro level.

[music]

Cat Sposato: Being a professional pickleball player can also be lucrative. At the USA National Championship, the prize pool is $150,000. Like athletes in any other sport, Stu says that sponsorships and endorsements from athletic equipment brands and sportswear companies make big payouts to pickleball pros.

Stu Upson: The pros will generate income from prize money from competing and winning in tournaments, but they're also receiving endorsements from manufacturers and other marketers. Where probably two years ago the top player earned maybe $50,000 to $100,000 a year, now they're well into, gosh, $500,000 or more a year when you combine prize money, some appearance fees, and also sponsorships.

Cat Sposato: In recent years, pickleball has given athletes who never had the opportunity to go pro at racket sports in their youth the chance to gain those same experiences later in life. That is, as long as they invest enough time into the game.

Stu Upson: The professional pickleball players are those who've played competitive tennis at some level, perhaps collegiately or maybe even at the pro level, but not a top 200 player in tennis, as an example. We're finding that a lot of the pro players are really good tennis players who are realizing that they can make a good living and maybe even a better living and have a bigger career in pickleball than in tennis because, again, they're not a top 100 or 200 player in professional tennis.

Cat Sposato: As pickleball continues to grow, the accessibility of going pro in this sport has the potential to become as inaccessible as most others. Stu says that's not necessarily a bad thing for the sport in the long term.

Stu Upson: Certainly, as the sport grows and the professional game grows, the competition will become greater. You'll have more players competing, and so someone who might have been competing for three years is now a pro. There are going to be more younger players and new players coming in to make the competition even greater. That's a good thing. What you have at the pro level is you have a handful of pros who do tend to dominate, and they're superstars like Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters, but I think more players are going to come in and compete with them at the highest level, and that's good for the sport. I don't think it's a concern that the barriers to entry at the pro level will increase over time. I think that just makes the pro game even better because you're going to have better players competing at the highest level.

Cat Sposato: The days of overcrowding in the pickleball professional industries seem to be far off, at least for now.

Stu Upson: It's growing incredibly, but it's still heavily dominated by North America. Probably 95% of the pickleball players in the world are here in the US and Canada. The game is starting to grow internationally, and there certainly are aspirations for pickleball to become a larger, a big international sport, and eventually get in the Olympics, but that's many years away because the game has to be stronger around the world for it to be a true global sport and be worthy of recognition by the International Olympic Committee and then consideration for an Olympic sport.

Cat Sposato: One thing is for sure, pickleball's popularity isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so it looks like it's time to pick up a pickleball paddle and play a game if you're curious about it. For The Takeaway, this is Cat Sposato.

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