ANABA WINES IS set on 16 acres of beautiful Sonoma land, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. It offers “premium Rhône-style blends” and wood-fired pizza; a bottle of their 2018 WestLands Pinot Noir costs $74. It also has a pickleball court. People in high-fashion athleisure refine their serves, returns, and dinks in pickleball lessons led by a certified instructor as golden hour settles over the Sonoma Valley. Later, a wine educator leads them through a wine tasting paired with an artisanal cheese board.
The scene looks a little different where David Litman learned to play pickleball: the rec yard of a federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. Both Anaba Wines and the Federal Medical Center in Lexington are mentioned in the January/February 2023 issue of Pickleball Magazine, which says of Litman that the sport “enabled him to avoid conflict with fellow inmates—as long as he would continue to excel on the court, win his matches and cover the bets that were a daily ritual.” It helped him pass the eight months of time he served. The court can be seen on satellite images available on Google Maps, not too far from the prison’s fences.
Pickleball is everywhere, and yet not everywhere enough. It started as a sport popular with the retirement crowd, but now has just as many fans among the young. Pickleballers can be found in swanky wineries and federal lockups. It started on backyard courts and neighborhood streets, but now faces overwhelming demand in public parks.
The sport has grown large enough to have its own economy. Shoemakers, like Acacia Sports, make specialized pickleball shoes, designed to aid in the game’s quick and frequent side-to-side movements. Podcasts like PicklePod (hosted by Zane Navratil, a pro player, and Thomas Shields, founder of a pickleball media company) cover news from the world of competitive pickleball. Magazines and other media forms recommend the best paddles, balls, bags, glasses, and ball machines for training.
There are professional pickleball influencers, like “Pickleball Barbie” Sydney Steinaker, who posts pickleball outfits, workouts, and sponsored paddle unboxing videos. The sport even has a celebrity couple: Steinaker and her boyfriend, Collin Johns, one of the top professionals. There are pickleball lifestyle brands like Recess Pickleball, founded by two friends who wanted “paddles that looked as fun and approachable as pickleball itself.” There are countless local clubs and leagues, and successful players can make extra money teaching private lessons. If players get tired of playing at their public parks or local schools, they can travel to pickleball camps in Key West and Scottsdale, get a full pickleball vacation package at Club Med, and play pickleball at sea on cruise ships.
Professional pickleball players might not be household names, but their employers are. Among the part owners of Major League Pickleball (MLP) teams are Dierks Bentley, Tom Brady, Mark supporter) Steve Kuhn says, “but the steak is, we have a lot of owners who are financially successful, who own teams of various sports leagues. We have people who are amazing businesspeople, and it’s a mission.” Those celebrities may not be engaged in pickleball daily while their primary careers are in crunch times, but their business teams and partner owners are, and they all see pickleball as a good investment. Another major league, the Association of Pickleball Players, has sponsorships from Discount Tire, Skechers, and, naturally, Vlasic Pickles.
