Sport England has released further participation figures for pickleball which show that 27,000 people played the game at least once last year.
Sport England – the non-departmental public body under the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – collaborates with Ipsos annually to produce reports (one for adults and another for children and young people) measuring the nation’s activity levels.
Last month, their research for the period November 2022 – November 2023 showed that 20,000 adults (aged over 16) in England had played pickleball ‘at least twice a month’ (these two playing sessions need to have reached a minimum threshold of 60 minutes).
Additional figures for annual participation have now been published which found a base of 27,300 adults taking part in pickleball ‘at least once in the year during the survey period ending November 2023.’
For comparison, padel players across England totalled 51,000 (i.e. taking part in the sport at least once in the year) with 23,000 playing at least twice in the month in which they were surveyed.
This suggests that, although double the number of people had tried padel than pickleball last year, a much higher proportion of pickleball’s players played more regularly.
Participants were also asked when during the year they played these sports. The data shows a spike in pickleball participation in the last three months to November 2023, suggesting that the game had got more popular and opportunities to play increased as the year progressed.
Although this is the first time pickleball and padel have been included in Sport England’s Active Lives survey (and therefore there are no previous stats to benchmark against) it is clear to any industry observer that participation in both emerging sports is increasing markedly.
This contrasts with the four established racket sports, which have all shown consistent declines over the past seven years since the previous pre-pandemic Sport England research was published.
If there are fewer occasional racket sports players, there are fewer opportunities to convert them to more frequent players which can help boost public health.
Padel and pickleball are therefore both playing a critical role in introducing people to a racquet sport for the first time and encouraging racquet players to experiment with emerging sports.
With thanks to Ray Algar from Oxygen Consulting for his research and insights
Main pic: Paul Currie
