Aa pickleball popularity soars, Washington cities are creating public play spaces for the state’s officials sport—hoping to boost the local economy while fostering community engagement and health.
Story by Jennifer Krazit
If you’ve spent any time around a resort, an athletic club, or a municipal park in the last five years, you’ve no doubt heard the hallmark dink dink dink of pickleballers volleying back and forth to score their next point. In cities all across Washington, that sound is only becoming more common. There’s no question: Pickleball is having a moment.
Pickeball paddles at Bainbridge Island’s Island Life Artisan Gifts. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Its growth in popularity in recent years is unprecedented. For the third consecutive year, pickleball was the fastest-growing sport in the United States; in 2023, 13.6 million Americans played pickleball, rivaling the popularity of outdoor soccer.
And although pickleball has a reputation for attracting seniors, in 2023, some 2.3 million players ages 25–34 dominated the sport; more than 1 million children under the age of 18 began playing from 2022 to 2023 as the sport was added to curricula at public and private schools and summer camps.
Of course, all those newly anointed pickleheads need somewhere to play. And that means new challenges for Washington cities as they try to meet the sudden demand for welcoming and accessible pickleball facilities, while also creating opportunities to fuel economic development, promote community engagement, and improve public health.
A game of spare parts
Pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island in 1965. As the story goes, Joel Pritchard, a Washington state legislator (and future lieutenant governor) with a vacation house on the island, and his friend and neighbor Bill Bell returned from a day of golf to find their kids bored and frustrated with the gloomy weather. So they grabbed a couple of old ping-pong paddles and a wiffle ball, headed out to a badminton court in the yard, and started dinking around. Two more neighbors, Dick Brown and Barney McCallum, soon joined in and the four began creating and refining the rules. When they found their ping-pong paddles lacking, McCallum, who had a bandsaw in his basement, went home and cut a few versions of a larger, sturdier wooden paddle. One model, which he called the M2, stuck and served as the prototype for the paddles still in use today. Joel’s wife, Joan, is credited with naming the sport—a reference to the ad hoc “pickle boats” at crew races on Lake Washington that are made up of a mix of non-starting rowers.
The first thing visitors see when stepping off the Bainbridge Island ferry: Pickleball souvenirs for sale outside Island Life Artisan Gifts. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Pickleball eventually moved off the island and gained popularity in Seattle, then spread organically throughout the country as curious onlookers tried it and found the game to be more fun than badminton and easier to master than tennis. But its roots in Washington still run deep. In March of 2022, as pickleball’s popularity soared across the country, Governor Jay Inslee signed a decree making pickleball the official state sport. At press time, a specialty pickleball Washington state license plate was under consideration by the state legislature.
Home court
Perhaps nowhere is the energy around pickleball felt more keenly than in its birthplace of Bainbridge Island. “Pickleball is part of the fabric of our community at this point,” says Ashley Mathews, Bainbridge Island mayor and city councilmember.
Bainbridge Island Mayor Ashley Mathews at Wing Point Golf & Country Club, where she plays pickleball with her husband and 75-year-old father. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Pickleball, she adds, has been a galvanizing force for islanders of all ilk to coalesce around the goals of physical fitness, community-building, and economic growth.
“One really cool thing about it is all the different age groups that play. It gets our seniors out, active, and playing,” says Mathews, who plays pickleball with her husband and recently recruited her 75-year-old father to take up the sport.
“I also think many of us are dealing with a loneliness epidemic and a lack of connection, and it’s one of those things that gets folks out and together, and that’s great for both mental and physical health,” she says. “As a community leader, it’s great to have something positive that, especially in these times, can get folks out together, connecting, playing and communicating, instead of engaging in activities that further polarize and divide us.” Today, pickleball is played at five locations with 21 public courts on Bainbridge Island, but that wasn’t always the case. The game was invented on a family’s private badminton court, and for the most part, private courts are where the game was played for decades. As pickleball grew in popularity in the 2010s, conflicts between pickleball players and tennis players arguing over who got to use public tennis courts became more common. It was clear pickleballers needed a dedicated space to play, but getting those courts built took a bit of doing.
"Pickleball is part of the fabric of our community at this point”
– Ashley Mathews
On Bainbridge Island, parks are managed by the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District, which consists of five elected commissioners and operates independently of the city council with a budget funded by city taxes. Parks get additional support from the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that raises funds, facilitates trail acquisition, and organizes volunteer work parties to help maintain parks and trails.
Without sufficient funding for a new dedicated pickleball facility, the Park & Recreation District couldn’t push the project forward, and without it being a city-approved project, the Parks & Trails Foundation couldn’t raise money for it. So a grassroots group of pickleball fans organized to form a new nonprofit and began raising funds from private donors.
“It was a chicken-and-egg thing,” says Melissa Bang-Knudsen, chairperson of the nonprofit Bainbridge Island Pickleball (BIP). “If we wanted courts, we needed to raise money. But we had no way to raise money for new courts because it wasn’t a parks project, and we couldn’t be a parks project until we raised the money.”
Melissa Bang-Knudsen at Bainbridge Island’s Founders Courts. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Together, BIP and the Park & Recreation District funded the project, and Founders Courts at Battle Point Park (named in tribute to the local founders of the game) officially opened in the summer of 2020. Today, the facility includes six permanent pickleball courts that are free to play on, with community equipment available for those just getting started.
Bainbridge Island’s Founders Courts complex. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
The Park & Recreation District handles insurance, maintenance, and trash for the facility, and BIP volunteers pitch in to help care for it by pressure-washing the courts, pulling weeds, and organizing play and competition schedules.
“You don’t have to be a serious player to come and play and be part of the community,” says Bang-Knudsen. “That’s why we like working with Parks, because pickleball really does belong to the community.”
A plaque commemorating the sport’s local founders at Founders Courts. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
It’s also clear that pickleball is attracting players from outside the community.
“We receive a ton of inquiries from people who would like pickleball tours, who want to play here, or who just want to learn more about the history of the sport,” says Lindsay Browning, executive director of the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce.
Without an official museum dedicated to pickleball, and since the badminton court where the game was invented sits on a private residence, the Founders Courts serve as an unofficial mecca for pickleball fans making a pilgrimage to play in the sport’s hometown. In the equipment shed at the Founders Courts, a world map that invites people to place a pushpin on their home courts is riddled with pins across the United States and as far away as Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America.
A map with pushpins designating visitor hometowns at Founders Courts. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Local businesses help serve visitors who want to celebrate pickleball’s heritage too. Just off the Seattle ferry landing, shops sell books about the sport’s rules and history, shirts advising people to “Dink responsibly,” as well as pickleball-themed totes, hats, stickers, paddles, balls, and other merch.
Murder on Court #1: The quiet pickleball case by David C. Cissell. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Pickeball-themed souvenirs (including a 60th anniversary collection of merchandise) at Bainbridge Island’s Island Life Artisan Gifts. “My pickleball collection has been a huge success,” says proprietor Alex Sanso. “People from around the world visit and learn that they’re at the birthplace of pickleball.“ (Photos by Chona Kasinger)
One indication of how closely connected pickleball is to Bainbridge Island’s ethos: The annual Founders Tournament is put on, not by any athletic organization, but by the Bainbridge History Museum. Last year’s five-day event netted $42,000 and attracted 542 competitors and an estimated 2,000 visitors. This year’s tournament, scheduled for August 13–17, will likely be even bigger: It’s honoring the sport’s 60th anniversary.
Meanwhile, local investment in the sport is not slowing down, with even more opportunities for players on Bainbridge Island being developed. The Bainbridge Island Pickleball nonprofit has raised money and is partnering with the Park & Recreation District to expand the Founders Courts complex even further, converting two existing tennis courts into six new pickleball courts, as well as upgrading fencing and entrances and adding picnic tables. BIP is also fundraising to build covered courts in another park so pickleballers have a place to play year-round.
Players at Founders Courts complex. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
Equipment at Founders Courts. (Photos by Chona Kasinger)
Partnered up
Bainbridge Island might boast the longest history with the game, but the largest facility in the state is in Kennewick.
Lawrence Scott Park, a 26-acre public sports complex just a few blocks from the Columbia River, was home to five pickleball courts (three regulation-size and two that were undersized), as well as baseball, softball, and soccer fields; basketball, tennis, and volleyball courts; a children’s playground; and a walking path.
Nick Farline at Kennewick’s Lawrence Scott Park pickleball complex. (Photo by Kim Fetrow)
In a scenario that has become familiar in communities throughout the country, the rapid rise in pickleball’s popularity meant more demand for public court time than courts available to support it. Meanwhile, run-down tennis and volleyball courts often sat unused.
Similar to the strategy taken on Bainbridge Island, a group of pickleball players in Kennewick formed a nonprofit organization to begin advocating with the city for new public courts so they’d have a reliable place to play. The group, called Club 509 Pickleball, solicits donations and sells branded merchandise and modestly priced annual memberships ($15/year for individuals, $25/year for couples, $30/year for families) to collectively raise the profile of pickleball among the local government and business community and to invest in local facilities and events.
Club 509 argued that the Tri-Cities area needed one central location where pickleball players throughout the region could come together to play.
“Around the Tri-Cities, there were little pockets of courts— two, three, four, maybe five courts—or oftentimes you’d see pickleball being played on tennis courts,” says Nick Farline, City of Kennewick Parks, Recreation & Facilities director, “but there was no hub with dedicated courts.”
“Bringing all those different people to the table was challenging, but it was also very regarding...”
– Nick Farline
It was deep collaboration between pickleball enthusiasts, local businesses, and the city that ultimately made a new facility possible.
“We had a lot of different funding sources that came together, so we’re really proud about that,” says Farline.
In May of 2022, the city council agreed to spend $1.3 million on construction of new pickleball courts as well as other amenities that would benefit all park users. Funding for the project included $800,000 in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, $250,000 from the city park impact fees, $210,000 in corporate sponsorships, and $70,000 from Club 509 members.
“Bringing all those different people to the table was challenging, but it was also very rewarding, because each and every one of the partners had a different goal, and you have to be able to meld those goals together with the outcome being a recreational complex for the community,” says Farline. “We did that well.”
Completed at the beginning of 2023, the new wheelchair-accessible facility has 15 dedicated pickleball courts. As part of the project, the city also replaced an existing decades-old restroom and installed a 74-by-45-foot picnic shelter, which provides shade during tournaments and is also now available for users to rent for large-group gatherings.
In the spirit of continued collaboration, a year after the initial buildout, a Club 509 member came forward and offered to sponsor the cost of adding lights to four of the courts to accommodate evening play. A local electrical union then volunteered the time and labor required to install the lights.
As part of the initial agreement, Club 509 gets some dedicated court time exclusively for its members each week, but the courts are otherwise open to the public and free to play. The club hosts sessions with a volunteer coach twice a week to teach beginners the fundamentals of the game, and it handles some basic maintenance.
The facility at Lawrence Scott Park is large enough that it draws players from all around the Tri-Cities area, and it serves as the venue for the 509 Summer Classic, a three-day tournament for ages 12 and up that’s now in its third year.
Since the facility opened to the public, Farline says he has received numerous calls from cities and parks departments from around the state asking how Kennewick succeeded in getting it built. While the pickleball courts do bring people to the area for big events like tournaments, a public facility like this is unlikely to be a big economic driver. So collaboration is key.
“Rarely do municipalities want to add staffing and maintenance costs and all those things that will be associated with a new facility,” he says. “You’ve got to find somebody that can engage and invigorate the community to not only express a desire for pickleball courts but to bring something to the table and help offset those costs. You’ve got to partner and find a community champion.”
Advancing the game
As Washingtonians of all ages continue to adopt pickleball as their passion, cities throughout the state are working to meet the moment and provide their residents with places to play.
The city of Deer Park earmarked funds for two pickleball courts in its 2025 budget. In November, Spokane completed a renovation at Underhill Park that included two dedicated pickleball courts, renovated basketball courts, new sidewalks, ADA ramps, and other improvements.
Although pickleball has won over legions of fans in recent years, one aspect of the game people don’t always love is the noise associated with it. Because the game uses a hard plastic ball instead of the rubberized, felt-covered ball used in tennis, it comes with a louder, more distinctive sound. Giving careful consideration to the location of public courts seems to be key to avoiding potential conflict. On Bainbridge Island, the city hasn’t fielded noise complaints from its Founders Courts complex. The larger problem on that front, according to Mayor Mathews, is the dozens of private courts situated in people’s backyards, which do occasionally generate noise complaints from neighbors. And in Kennewick, the park with the 15-court complex is in a commercial district, right off a major highway and adjacent to a large mall and shopping complex. That central location makes it easy to access and means there aren’t many neighbors around to bother.
A pickleball. (Photo by Chona Kasinger)
There is an element to pickleball that is getting more serious—as evidenced by the development of professional leagues such as Major League Pickleball, and organizations like USA Pickleball and the World Pickleball Federation, which are dedicated to advancing its growth and recognition globally. But for the most part, the game maintains a reputation for being low-key, welcoming to beginners, and playable at all ages—largely due to the small court size, short games, and easy-to-learn rules.
That makes pickleball a welcome addition to public parks and a natural priority for cities looking to foster community engagement and public health.