Kylie Jenner has a pickleball court in her backyard. The Kardashian family exposed pickleball on an episode of their show Keeping up with the Kardashians. To name a few more celebrity “sightings” in pickleball, legendary Olympian, Michael Phelps has played exhibition games at PPA events alongside NFL’s Larry Fitzgerald.
Ellen DeGeneres worked with manufacturer Vulcan Sports to produce a line of Ellen paddles - which I believe the proceeds of those sales went to her animal charity. She’s also given GAMMA pickleball packages during her 12-Day Giveaways.
Most recently, Forbes published an article about Bill Gates and how pickleball has been his favourite sport for decades. For a few years now celebrities have been speaking up about their admiration for the sport but is this actually impacting the growth of pickleball?
Let's dive in...
The statistic mentioned in the introduction might be hard to determine, however, there is one statistic available to us - thanks to a recent article by Forbes - and that is the global growth rate of pickleball has increased by 40% over the last two years, with a total of 48.8 million people playing our beloved sport (cite).
I firmly believe that celebrities have to be making an impact on the number of people entering the sport. Pickleball’s been trending and no doubt the tweets and self-proclamations have been affecting that growth.
At this point, I wish that I could insert my own anecdote about a celebrity encounter on the pickleball court. However, all I can share is that I was at the Toronto Cup tournament when Milos Raonic and Daniel Nester made a tv appearance - I think Nester played a little bit but Raonic was injured at the time.
Sadly, other than that, I’ve played at the courts that Jamie Foxx often frequents. Not exactly noteworthy.
And speaking of trends, a significant move was made by former NFL quarterback Drew Brees, who just made his announcement of becoming part owner of the Major League Pickleball (MLP) team, Mad Drops, earlier this summer.
Brees has publicly shared his love for pickleball in the past, but this is a serious move - it’s moves like this that celebrities can really make an impact on pickleball: by investing in our sport.
Earlier this year, late show host Stephen Colbert announced that he’s proceeding with a celebrity pickleball tournament called Pickled. Although details are still sparse, this sounds like the perfect opportunity to introduce some big names and major celebrities to pickleball.
With pickleball in its infancy (still), there’s a long way to go for this sport, and to see high-profile influencers such as Thomas Dundan, owner of NHL team Carolina Hurricanes and Brené Brown, professional author and famous for her TED talks are already investors in the game, was a sign that we kind of just know that this sport is going places.
It will continue to take time -it can only grow so fast - but these are the types of people who will help to make it happen.
That said, some of that celebrity love really needs to happen here in Canada. It might be time that we start calling out our Canadian elite to step it up and help create that buzz here in the country. Surely, one of them (who still happens to live in the country) has tried and liked pickleball. Right?
Okay, some people care more than others when they see a celebrity walking down the street but one thing I’ve noticed is that pickleball players really seem to really enjoy it when celebrities announce their love for pickleball.
It’s almost as if people get a sense of validation; kind of like the “I told you it was going to be big” type feeling. At least, I know that I get that feeling when friends and family now say to me “pickleball is actually kind of a thing these days”. I think to myself “ye, I told you this was going to be the case 7 years ago”.
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