Is Pickleball The Sport Of The Future?
I just moved a month ago, and across the street from our home is a tennis court. Our first day here was July 31 and it is now September 2. That was 33 days ago. That was 792 hours ago. And in the 792 hours that I've been living here, there have been people playing pickleball on said tennis courts for at least 660 of those hours.
Now I would imagine that everybody has at least heard of pickleball before. But in case you're unaware, it's pretty much right in the middle of the spectrum between actual tennis and ping pong. It's played on a court like tennis, the ball is plastic and you use paddles like ping pong. If ping pong is Charmander and tennis is Charizard, then pickleball is the perfect Charmeleon. You know what I'm saying?
But anyway, from sun up to sun down, it's PickleSZN. Sometimes it's just a casual game amongst pals. On Tuesday/Thursday nights there's a league and this shit is packed. Now the average age of these pickle enthusiasts seems to be middle, but I feel like middle age is actually the fastest growing demographic in the United States.
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Think about it. 1) People are always getting older. You're older right now than you were when you first started reading this blog. And 2) People don't really die that early anymore. So if everybody is getting older but fewer people are dying, that middle age population is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger than it has ever been before.
And from everything I've seen, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the fastest growing demographic in America. Pretty soon there are going to be just as many middle aged folks as there are in the 18-35 demographic. And if they're all playing pickleball, well then it might just very well be the sport of the future.
So if you'll excuse me, I have a pickleball podcast to start up because there are some serious advertising dollars to be made in roughly 15-20 years from now.