As the courts fill up with pickelball players, professional player of the sport, Zane Navratil, said the accessibility of pickleball has resulted in the increasing number of people playing.

“Just the accessibility of it whether it’s from the physical accessibility, but also the economic accessibility of being able to play for pretty cheap,” Navratil said. “You can play between ages, between generations because there’s not a huge learning curve.”

Before the sport started being played nationally, there was little recognition for it. Now there are over 36 million players around the country along with people playing in courts all around the nation. The sport has also gained a significant social media presence.

Senior Shae Hagans began playing when pickleball wasn’t as popular just started being introduced to the community.

“It was really underground and only the elite players played,” Hagans said. “It was such a tight knit community, we really all knew each other. Now it’s just expanded and you see people coming and having fun and playing pickleball which is what the sport is all about. It’s really great to see that.”

Navratil said that even during COVID, some people had only just learned about the sport. He said now people are actually going out and trying it for the first time.

“I think we’re going to get people to play more and more,” Navratil said. “A ton of new people picked it up because it was something that you could do again within your family. You could go outside and play and people were looking for something to do during that time.”

Members of the pickleball community hope to see the sport be integrated into schools.

“My hope for the game is that we can get as many people playing as possible,” Hagans said. “It’s just such a beautiful game and I think everyone should get to play. I hop we see it coming into high schools, coming into colleges, and more tournaments coming around.”

Professional athletes are actively promoting the sport. According to Navratil, the sport will eventually be included in the olympics.

“I’ve been saying this for a while, but I think pickleball is a no–brainer school sport,” Navratil said. “Whether that’s high school, college, I also think it will be an olympic sport as some point. There’s now real pro tours. The pro tours emerged in 2020 and it’s making this a legitimate professional sport.”