How Pickleball is drawing fan love and brand dollars

Pickleball mania has been on a steady climb since 2020, when people increasingly turned to the quirky racket sport as a pandemic-era social activity. But 2022 marked a major turning point in pickleball’s growth, with an influx of brands beginning to incorporate the up-and-coming sport into their marketing strategies. See all of Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year here. Non-endemic brands, in particular, have stepped onto the pickleball court in droves, announcing sponsorships of national tournaments and top pickleball players. Anheuser-Busch InBev made the biggest splash, purchasing a team in one of the sport’s biggest leagues, Major League Pickleball, joining celebrity owners such as LeBron James and Tom Brady. About 4.8 million Americans were playing pickleball at least a handful of times annually by the end of 2021—a 39% increase from 2019, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. The average age of those players has also skewed younger, dropping from 41 in 2020 to roughly 38 in 2021, with half of 2021’s new pickleball participants under age 35. Read more: Pickleball's marketing momentum The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Tour, one of the top pickleball leagues in the U.S., saw record levels of brand participation this year, said PPA president Bryce Morgan. Few brands showed interest in sponsorship opportunities during the inaugural season in 2019, leading the PPA to include logos of endemic brands and pickleball paddle manufacturers on the court walls and player uniforms for free, simply to show companies what future sponsorship opportunities could look like, Morgan said. That move paid off in 2022 as the roster of sponsors exploded in size and scope, ranging from Hyundai and Carvana to Margaritaville Hotels and Resorts and DraftKings. A post shared by PPA TOUR (@ppatour) “Brands are seeing this as a business opportunity now,” Morgan said. Nearly all of the sponsors of this year’s 20-tournament PPA Tour are “renewing, if not doubling, their investments” in the league, with additional companies including JPMorgan Chase and Citibank in talks with the PPA to sponsor the 2023 tour, he said. With tournament payouts totaling more than $5 million this year, according to data from Selkirk, more eyes than ever are also tuning into matches on national broadcast channels such as CBS, ESPN and the Tennis Channel. The PPA will expand its broadcast partners to include NBC and Fox in 2023, Morgan said. CBS recently aired “Pickled,” a celebrity pickleball tournament hosted by Stephen Colbert. It further “push[ed] the sport into the mainstream,” said Kate Wilson, pickleball partnerships manager at paddle maker Selkirk, which aired an ad during the TV special. Pickleball’s growing popularity with Gen Z and millennial consumers has also appealed to many brands, similar to how companies seeking to reach younger demographics have entered into esports sponsorships in recent years, said Dae Hee Kwak, associate professor of sport management at the University of Michigan and director of the university’s Center for Sport Marketing Research. Rather than purchasing an entire team, many brands are backing individual players. Fifteen-year-old superstar Anna Leigh Waters inked deals at the end of 2021 with Fila and Richard’s Rainwater, a Texas-based brand that bottles filtered rainwater, and has received offers from roughly 10 additional brands to sponsor her in 2023. Skechers began endorsing two top-ranked pickleball players, Tyson McGuffin and Catherine Parenteau, earlier this year. Social media has also been a core part of pickleball’s growth in 2022. On TikTok, #pickleball has racked up more than 307 million views, while #pickleballtiktok has nearly 163 million. The sport is also popular on Instagram, where more than 367,000 posts include the hashtag #pickleball, and variations including #pickleballislife and #pickleballaddict have tens of thousands of posts each. “[Social media] is how the majority of people are being introduced to the game,” Selkirk’s Wilson said. “And then, once they discover it and start playing it, they go right back to social media for tips on improving and they grow with the community.” Selkirk began leaning into influencer marketing this year, entering into new agreements with 15 pickleball creators throughout 2022 with the goal of expanding the sport and serving as an educational resource for new players. Dozens of rising pickleball influencers, from YouTube creator @davispickleball to @thatpickleballguy on Instagram, emphasize the sport’s popularity among younger generations. “Before, [pickleball] was for more of an older age demographic,” said Hayley De La Mare, marketing operations manager at Selkirk. “But now, pickleball is really infiltrating all of these different ages. Celebrities are starting to get into it, bringing it more into the mainstream. Athletes are starting to post more about their experiences at tournaments. It's definitely in the spotlight right now.” See all of Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year here.

How Pickleball is drawing fan love and brand dollars

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