Pickleball Participation Statistics (2026): Players, Courts, and Growth

Last updated August 6, 2026. Figures reflect SFIA 2026 reports (2025 participation year) and the USA Pickleball court database.

Pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States for five consecutive years, and the 2025 data confirms the trend has not slowed. According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), 24.3 million Americans played pickleball in 2025, up 22.8 percent in a single year and 171.8 percent over three years.

This page collects the most useful pickleball participation and court statistics for 2026, with sources, and explains what the numbers mean for anyone planning a facility. The figures below come from the SFIA Topline Participation Report and the USA Pickleball court database, the two datasets the industry treats as authoritative.

Pickleball participation at a glance (2025 data)

How many people play pickleball?

24.3 million Americans played pickleball in 2025, according to SFIA. That total breaks into 16.8 million casual players, who play one to seven times a year, and 7.48 million core players, who play eight or more times a year. The core group is the one that drives demand for permanent, well-built courts, and it grew 20.4 percent year over year.

The sport added roughly 4.5 million new players in 2025 alone. For context, that single year of growth is larger than the total participant base of many established sports.

Who plays pickleball?

Pickleball player demographics are no longer concentrated in older age groups. In SFIA 2026 Pickleball Single Sport Report data, teens and young adults ages 13 to 24 posted the highest participation rates of any age segment. Women accounted for 42.9 percent of all players in 2025, up from 38.6 percent in 2020.

The mix matters for facility planning, because a broadening base changes what a court program has to serve. A membership weighted toward core adult players wants reliable, bookable court time. A base that includes teens and young adults brings higher-tempo play, longer sessions, and evening use, which pushes on lighting, surface durability, and noise exposure to neighboring properties. We cover how those requirements are sized in our guide to planning a pickleball facility.

How fast is pickleball growing?

Growth has compounded rather than tapered. Participation rose 22.8 percent from 2024 to 2025 and 171.8 percent over the three years from 2022 to 2025. Over five years the base went from 4.2 million players in 2020 to 24.3 million in 2025, more than a fivefold increase. SFIA has named pickleball the fastest-growing sport in the country for five years running, most recently in its June 2026 Pickleball Single Sport Report.

A note of nuance for 2026: while participation continues to climb, some industry observers have flagged that the pace of new court construction may be starting to moderate in certain markets after the initial boom. The demand side, the number of people who want to play, remains strongly positive.

How many pickleball courts are there?

The USA Pickleball court database listed 82,613 courts across 18,258 locations as of 2025, after adding more than 2,300 new locations that year and 14,155 new courts in 2024. New courts are being added at a rate of roughly 39 per day.

Even at that pace, supply is behind demand. SFIA has estimated that keeping up with participation will require on the order of 25,000 additional courts and roughly 855 million dollars in construction investment over the next five to seven years. Florida (1,228 locations) and California (1,223) lead in places to play, while Arizona and Texas are expanding court counts more than 40 percent year over year.

Tennis court conversions

More than 4,000 tennis courts have been fully or partially converted to pickleball in the United States since 2021. A regulation pickleball court fits inside a tennis court with room to spare, which makes conversion one of the most common and cost-effective ways for a facility to add pickleball capacity. We cover the layout and trade-offs in the court layout options in converting a tennis court to pickleball.

What the numbers mean for facilities

Read together, the statistics describe a sport whose participation has outrun its infrastructure. Tens of millions of players, a court database growing by dozens of courts a day, and a multi-hundred-million-dollar construction backlog all point to the same conclusion: the constraint on pickleball is no longer interest. It is the quality and capacity of the places people play.

That is where the numbers stop being trivia and start being a planning problem. A court database that grows by 39 courts a day says nothing about how many of those courts were engineered for drainage, surface durability, or sound. The single most common reason new facilities face restricted hours or closure is not low demand. It is noise carried to neighboring properties from courts that were built without acoustic planning. The sport’s growth, in other words, is increasingly limited by how well the infrastructure supporting it is engineered.

For organizations acting on this demand, the useful question is not whether pickleball is popular. The statistics settle that. It is how a facility should be planned and engineered so that it performs, lasts, and stays open. We cover that in our guides to planning a pickleball facility, pickleball court construction, and reducing pickleball noise.

Frequently asked questions

How many people play pickleball in the United States?

24.3 million Americans played pickleball in 2025, according to the SFIA Topline Participation Report. That includes 16.8 million casual players and 7.48 million core players who play eight or more times a year.

Is pickleball still growing in 2026?

Yes. Participation grew 22.8 percent from 2024 to 2025 and 171.8 percent over three years, and SFIA has named pickleball the fastest-growing U.S. sport for five consecutive years. Some markets are seeing the pace of new court construction moderate even as player numbers keep rising.

How many pickleball courts are there in the U.S.?

The USA Pickleball court database listed 82,613 courts across 18,258 locations as of 2025, growing by roughly 39 courts per day. SFIA estimates another 25,000 courts and about 855 million dollars in investment are needed over the next five to seven years to meet demand.

How many tennis courts have been converted to pickleball?

More than 4,000 tennis courts have been fully or partially converted to pickleball in the U.S. since 2021. A pickleball court fits inside a tennis court footprint, which makes conversion a common, cost-effective way to add capacity.

Who plays pickleball, and how has the player base changed?

Teens and young adults ages 13 to 24 now post the highest participation rates of any age segment, according to the SFIA 2026 Pickleball Single Sport Report. Women accounted for 42.9 percent of players in 2025, up from 38.6 percent in 2020. Core players, those who play eight or more times a year, grew from 1.4 million in 2020 to 7.48 million in 2025.

Sources

• Sports & Fitness Industry Association, U.S. Pickleball Participation and the 2026 Topline Participation Report.
• Sports & Fitness Industry Association, 2026 Pickleball Single Sport Report, released June 4, 2026.
• USA Pickleball, Places to Play court database. Court and location counts as published by USA Pickleball for 2025.

Figures on this page are reported as published by the sources above. Where a figure describes a participation year, that year is stated alongside it.