In 2022, 36.5 million American adults played pickleball at least once between August 2021 and August 2022, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP), Chicago.
That number, which equates to 14 percent of the adult population in the country, is anticipated to grow with 45 percent of the 36.5 million saying they would play more often in the next six months than they had in the six months prior, according to the 2023 APP Pickleball Participation Report released by the organization in early January.
During the same period, 8.5 million Americans aged 18 or older played pickleball eight times or more.
“Pickleball is not only America’s fastest-growing sport—it is growing much faster than anyone really thought,” Tom Webb, chief marketing officer of APP, said in the release. “Now, pickleball has to be viewed as one of America’s favorite sports.”
Previously, surveys from other groups showed that more than four million people played pickleball in 2020 and five million people played in 2021, he said.
“Those numbers appear to have been conservative, but what the APP’s report shows is that the popularity of pickleball has exploded,” Webb said.
The number of fans at pickleball tournaments grows with each competition, and now that the number of pickleball participants has been defined, the growth will continue to increase, professional pickleball player Megan Fudge DeHeart said.
APP is the first and only tour officially sanctioned by USA Pickleball and serves professional pickleball players, senior professionals, amateurs and recreational players. The 2023 APP Tour slate has 16 tournament stops planned, in addition to International and Collegiate Series events. The APP also offers youth initiatives.
The survey of 2,500 nationally representative Americans 18 years old or older was conducted by international market research and data analytics firm YouGov on behalf of APP. It is the first report commissioned by the organization, which began in 2019 and plans to do the participation report annually.