If someone asked you what the fastest-growing sport in America is, there are likely a few answers that would jump to mind. Maybe you would think of basketball or baseball, some historically well-known sports in the United States, or maybe you would think of soccer, which seems to be on the rise. However, the fastest-growing sport in America is none other than pickleball. Pickleball is a paddle sport most similar to tennis, which grew 51.8% from 2022 to 2023 and 223.5% in four years since 2020. This meteoric growth has been spurred on by people all across the country and across different age groups, and, as of last semester, has even seen its reach expand to the College of William and Mary with the introduction of the College’s very own Pickleball Club.
Club co-Presidents Ryan Blackburn ’26 and Ben Rakatansky ’26 founded the club in the spring of 2024 after not only seeing how they both were interested in the sport, but also how there wasn’t an existing way for students at the College to play recreational pickleball.
“When I got to William and Mary, I was really bummed that there was no club or anything like that,” Blackburn said. “So I had it in the back of my mind where I was like, ‘Man, we should start a club,’ and then I found Ben, and then we got to playing, and now we’ve just been playing together ever since.”
In line with the aforementioned statistics, many club members, such as Rakatansky, only started playing pickleball in the last few years, after playing other similar sports. However, Rakatansky began to really enjoy it once he started to play.
“I played competitive tennis for a while, I played varsity tennis in high school, and then one of my teammates and friends from my varsity tennis team introduced me to pickleball two or three summers ago,” Rakatansky said. “Then, after I met Ryan and we started playing pickleball together, that’s really when I started playing mainly pickleball.”
One of the main appeals of the club, and what Blackburn and Rakatansky noted as a possible reason for the sport’s overall growth, is its easy and more forgiving learning curve compared to other similar sports. Specifically, they noted how its less-challenging nature lends itself to being a great community-building exercise.
“The biggest thing is both the accessibility and social factor of the sport,” Blackburn said. “With pickleball, it’s primarily a doubles game, which is kind of unusual. So you’re constantly just chatting, you’re having a good time. If you make an awesome shot, you get three people around you who are gassing you up. So I’d say it’s generally more of a relaxed atmosphere.”
Rakatansky specifically juxtaposed pickleball with tennis, and he agreed with Blackburn’s sentiment that pickleball’s relative ease made it something that cultivated a lot of interest.
“People who have never played can’t just go pick up a tennis racket and play tennis, because the technicality required to perform those strokes is much harder for a beginner compared to pickleball,” Rakatansky said. “I think that’s why so many people gravitate towards pickleball.”
Pickleball Club member Dipin Khati Ph.D. ‘26 echoed this notion, adding about the appeal of improving in the sport.
“It’s very easy to get started and difficult to master,” Khati wrote in an email to the Flat Hat.
Blackburn pointed out how this lower barrier to entry does not only lead to more people playing, but it also can lead to incredible friendships being made.
“I think the biggest thing is the community; this is just the quintessential community sport,” Blackburn said. “This is a great way to get out, be active, be with friends and make new friends. It’s such an awesome sport, and I can’t help but gush about it.”
To this end, many members of the club, especially those in higher-up positions, have even gotten to know people from other universities from inter-collegiate pickleball games and tournaments. This has not only served as a way to build friendships, but also, for those on the organization’s executive board, it has provided a way to learn about other parallel clubs and build up the College’s own Pickleball Club.
“I played in a couple of tournaments over the summer, and there was one tournament where I actually met the former president of the UVA Pickleball Club,” Rakatansky said. “There was also a couple of JMU guys and some Virginia Tech guys, so I met them and talked about how we were still a small club, but growing.”
For the upcoming fall 2024 semester, the club is looking to regularly hold two to three practices per week, with a couple of hours of open play where members can play with anyone else in the organization who shows up, with an emphasis on holding designated games and sessions for more serious players to allow casual and competitive players alike to find fun in the experience.
“Even if you’re not a competitive player and you’re just looking to play once a week or so, we’re open and we want everyone from all skill levels to come,” Rakatansky said. “We’re looking for anyone who has any sort of interest at all in the sport.”
Those higher-level players who not only played during last semester but also over summer break saw only further proof of the sport’s growth at their local, hometown courts. Blackburn noted how it would be a rare sight to see them not completely full, with there often being people of all ages joining in on the fun.
“It’s a very accessible sport that anyone can play, and you can have fun games with pretty much anyone,” Blackburn said. “I go down to my local courts and I’m playing with people who are literally 80 years old, and we’re laughing and having a good time.”
In fact, Rakatansky noted how so many people enjoyed playing at his local court, that there would often be a queue formed in order to play.
“Sometimes when it gets busier, you have people putting their paddles in the fence holes above the racks, in queue, so it gets crazy,” Rakatansky said. “The amount of people who are playing pickleball, and the growth I’ve seen compared to a year or two ago, I don’t really see how it wouldn’t stop growing.”
Above all else, the College’s Pickleball Club encourages interested students to simply give the sport a chance if they haven’t already.
“This sport will surprise you. There’s a reason why it’s growing so quickly,” Blackburn said. “We just want people to come out, and truly, we want to build a community around this sport.”
