The story of pickleball's BIG problem

We editorialized a bit in the last issue, talking about the infamous pickleball noise problem in a way that seemed to resonate with many of you.

Now, we’d like to take a step back to examine how we got to the point where this is such an issue in the first place; how a scattered local annoyance turned into lawsuits, planning fights, and bigger questions about where and how the sport can actually grow from here.

→ This Week: How noise became a planning issue | An absurdly good erne | Singapore starts making space

Pickleball noise has moved from pesky nuisance, to lawsuit magnet, to governance questions in the span of less than a decade. The sport is no longer just asking where it can fit; communities are deciding that in advance. By and large, that change is expected to help pickleball actually stay in communities it finds footing in.

Here’s the clearest way to understand how the pickleball noise story has changed over the past decade:

2016–2020: The scattered complaint stage. For a while, noise fights looked like isolated neighborhood flare-ups: a court conversion here, a few angry residents there, and local officials assuming the issue would pass. But even then, the warning signs were there. In West Linn, Oregon, residents objected to noise from converted courts at Skyline Ridge Park, and in 2020 the city’s parks board recommended restoring the site to tennis and finding pickleball locations that would not “adversely impact the neighborhood.”

2021–2023: The problem reaches a head. Once participation surged, the complaints stopped looking anecdotal and started looking national. SFIA now says 24.3 million Americans played pickleball in 2025. By 2023, KPBS reported that one attorney had handled more than 25 pickleball noise disputes, while one acoustics firm had handled about 80 pickleball noise consultations since 2010. That is the moment the issue stopped being a parks headache and became a real legal and consulting niche.

2024–2026: The focus shifts to land use. The most important shift is that planners no longer frame this as just “annoying sound.” The American Planning Association now argues that ordinary noise enforcement often fails here, and that better answers are zoning, setbacks, conditional-use permits, and smarter siting before courts go in. Even USA Pickleball has leaned into quieter equipment and acoustics guidance, which is its own admission that noise is now part of the sport’s growth story.

The American Planning Association notes that pickleball can generate up to 900 hits per hour per court, and that converting one tennis court footprint into four pickleball courts can mean roughly 3,600 sharp “pops” per hour.

That helps explain why what once looked like a few isolated neighbor complaints has hardened into a much bigger question of where, and under what conditions, pickleball actually belongs.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen an erne like this…

His foot is dangerously straddling the line but clearly still off it, and because he was able to predict his opponent’s move so early, he’s just…there, waiting with a spring-loaded arm. Beautiful.

The new JOOLA Pro V line is built around a simple idea: not every winning style looks the same.

Perseus brings the classic elongated shape Ben Johns made famous. Scorpeus offers the wider standard profile for players who want stability and fast hands. Hyperion adds an aero-curved elongated feel for speed through contact. Agassi leans into a racket-style elongated shape with real tennis DNA. And then there’s Kosmos, JOOLA’s new hybrid silhouette, trusted by Federico Staksrud and Tyson McGuffin, blending reach and forgiveness in one very intriguing package.

Same Pro V pedigree. Different ways to cause problems.

That’s how much ActiveSG pickleball bookings increased in Singapore between 2023 and 2025.

Source: The Star.

Interesting tidbits from within the pickleball community:

Can you guess where we’re headed? Respond to this email with your guess. First one to get it right will receive something nice!

Here’s a hint:

Last issue, we took a pretty direct stance on pickleball noise, and a lot of you seemed to connect with it. This time, I wanted to zoom out a bit.

Because the bigger story is not just that pickleball can be loud. It’s that the sport has now grown enough to create real tradeoffs. Space, access, land use, neighbor tolerance, court planning, even national-sport infrastructure — these are no longer side conversations.

That is what makes this issue interesting to me. We are watching pickleball move from scrappy growth to managed growth. Whether you see that as frustrating or necessary probably depends on where you live. But either way, it is a sign that the sport is becoming too established to ignore.

Do not hesitate to email Adam or connect with him on LinkedIn with questions, concerns, or story ideas!