The American obsession with pickleball rages on. Last year, nearly 14 million people played pickleball in the U.S., according to a 2023 study by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. That’s a growth rate of almost 224% over the past three years, easily making pickleball the fastest-growing sport in the country since 2020.
Entrepreneurs and professional athletes have gotten in on the craze, and now, the travel industry is trying to capitalize. From cruise lines and traditional resorts to pickleball-specific vacation planners offering coaching in paradise, everyone seems to want a piece of the pickle pie.
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Here are some money-saving tips and top places to look if you want to dink, drive and drop away from home.
1. ‘Dink’ on a pickleball cruise
Nowhere is the growth of pickleball more evident than on cruise ships.
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In 2022, Carnival Cruise Line installed a dedicated pickleball court on the Carnival Conquest ship. Other companies have followed suit. Norwegian Cruise Line offers dedicated courts on the Norwegian Prime and Norwegian Viva vessels, and Regent Seven Seas has dedicated courts on the Splendor, Explorer and Grandeur.
Those dedicated courts are important for experienced players looking to get in as many games as possible. Many of the bigger cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Princess and Celebrity, offer pickleball, but only for a set period each day on mixed-use courts with other sports like volleyball and basketball.
Holland America, the “exclusive cruise line of the Professional Pickleball Association,” has outfitted their entire fleet of cruise ships with dedicated pickleball courts on the top deck. That means you can practice your drop shot against a glacial backdrop in Alaska’s fjords or while cruising across the Mediterranean Sea. The cruise line offers complimentary beginner’s lessons and organized tournaments throughout your time at sea.
If you prefer river cruises, AmaWaterways has a dedicated pickleball court on the top deck of its boat AmaMagna, allowing picklers to play while floating down the Danube River through central Europe.
If you don’t want to travel with your own paddle and balls, most facilities offer public paddles. But let’s be real — if you’ve made it this far, you’ll probably be taking your own paddle.
How much does it cost?
Cruises will vary in price based on duration and amenities. A seven-day cruise with Carnival could cost under $700 per person, whereas a seven-day luxury cruise on Regent Seven Seas could cost nearly $7,000.
If you’re looking to help offset that cost, consider a travel rewards credit card that earns flexible points you can redeem for cruises. If you have a card that lets you redeem points against travel purchases, pay for the cruise with your card and use your miles or points to offset that charge and receive a statement credit. Or if your card issuer has a travel portal, see if you can redeem points and reserve travel directly through the portal.
2. ‘Drive’ at luxury or all-inclusive pickleball resorts
If floating resorts aren’t your thing, consider taking your pickleball swag south of the border to an onshore tropical paradise.
Sandals Resorts in Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Lucia, and Antigua all offer dedicated pickleball courts. And new courts are being installed at other locations. Many of the resorts organize tournaments and have in-house pros to provide instruction during your trip. The entire Sandals Resorts portfolio is all-inclusive, so you can put more thought into your dink and worry less about where to find your next fruity umbrella drink.
Or check out Turks and Caicos, where you can find permanent courts at the Beaches Resort, Club Med Turkoise and Seven Stars Resort and Spa. Pickleball has become such a draw that it’s even mentioned on the “things to do” page of the islands’ tourism website.
You can also find pickleball courts at resorts across Costa Rica, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. If you’re traveling with a pickle crew, try calling the company to negotiate a group rate for the stay.
How much does it cost?
The cost of a resort stay will vary depending on the room you book, amenities offered, location and stay duration. A seven-night stay at a Sandals Resort can cost $4,000 to $7,000 for two people, but non-inclusive resorts will often cost much less.
Similar to cruises, if you want to book a pickleball-based resort stay for a fraction of the cost, consider grabbing a credit card that earns rewards you can use to offset travel costs.
3. ‘Drop’ on a group pickleball vacation
The activity-based travel industry is expanding to meet demand for the fastest growing sport in the country. That includes the rise of numerous white-glove vacation organizers helping to bring picklers together.
“The only thing you have to worry about is your flight,” says Georgia Johns, operations manager for Pickleball Getaways, a pickleball-centric vacation organizer. Once you book your trip through their website, the company will handle the rest, including ground transportation, food, beverages and lodging at your destination.
The company was started by professional pickleball players Ben Johns and Dekel Bar with the aim to combine the fun of international vacations with high-quality pickleball coaching and competition in locations that include Portugal, Spain, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Antigua.
How much does it cost?
Seven-day trips with Pickleball Getaways cost between $2,500 and $4,500 per person depending on the location, which can include up to 80 guests in addition to four to seven professional players or coaches to provide instruction.
Since flights aren’t covered, consider using airline miles to help keep your costs down. The easiest way to earn miles is with a co-branded credit card from an airline that serves your local airport. Many airline cards offer a huge slug of miles as a sign-up bonus, which can be used to get you to your pickleball rendezvous.
Darts, kabaddi, and pickleball: Exploring the new popularity of these sports in the US
Darts, kabaddi, and pickleball: Exploring the new popularity of these sports in the US
The American sports landscape has been fairly well-defined for the past half-century. The NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL have entrenched themselves as the four major sports in the US from a popularity and profitability standpoint. Because of their inventory of games, television contracts, and the marketability of their stars, they have set the American standard for sports. In the next tier is the PGA Tour, whose majors draw millions of eyeballs as they did this spring for the final round of The Masters (12.06 million). Then you have the MLS which is attempting to close the gap on the NHL in terms of television ratings and profitability. While they’re nearly there in terms of sponsorship dollars, the MLS is far behind in franchise value and TV viewership.
Reasonable minds can disagree on where the sports hierarchy, from a popularity and profitability standpoint, will sit in 10 years. For example, roughly the same amount of Americans play soccer as they do baseball. Will that translate to better ratings and higher valuations for MLS franchises in the future? That’s difficult to say. A far more interesting conversation is which sports are arriving on the national radar for the first time. Just as lacrosse slowly worked its way up the sports ladder in the US, including the launch of the Premier Lacrosse League in 2019, there is still room for new options in the American sports landscape.
OLBG looks at the next wave of sports in the US to gain momentum and captivate audiences with their unique gameplay and growing popularity. Here are three sports to keep an eye on in the coming years.
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Darts
Darts received a major boost during COVID, with sports networks scrambling for live content to replace their major properties (NFL, NBA, MLB) during the lockdown. It may surprise many to learn that 17 million Americans play darts, which is a 5 times larger player pool than ice hockey. The American Darts Organization has 100,000 registered players. The global darts market size was valued at $615.38 million in 2022 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.43% during the forecast period, reaching $798.09 million by 2028. While the average darts player in the U.S. only earns $350 a month, the upswing in sports betting on the sport may lead to higher television ratings and prize purses moving forward.
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Kabaddi
A massively popular sport in India and South Asia, kabbadi is more or less a professional version of tag, albeit much rougher. Each team is comprised of seven players, with the goal being for one player or “raider” to run onto the opposing team’s floor, touch as many of their players as they can in 30 seconds, and then return to their own half of the floor. Additionally, the raider is trying to do all of this without being tackled by opposing defenders who are gunning for them. Each player tagged by the raider registers a point, while the opposition can earn a point for stopping the raider. That is the crux of the game. The US Kabaddi League is set to launch, seven years after the US entered its first Kabaddi World Cup in 2016. Time will tell if it can rise quickly in terms of US popularity or be left on the scrap heap with other failed leagues like Slam Ball.
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Pickleball
While the first two sports on this list need things to go just right to experience a major jump in popularity, pickleball is already on its way. Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the US in the last three years. Pickleball participation has grown an average of 158.6% over the last three years according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA). There are an estimated 36.5 million pickleball players in the United States according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals. Of those 36+ million players, 8.5 million people played eight times or more in the past year, and 45% say they plan to play more pickleball in the next 6 months than they did in the prior 6-month period. From a demographic perspective, 18-34-year-olds make up the largest percentage of pickleball players at 28.8% nationwide. There are currently 10,320 pickleball courts in the United States, which has aided the explosive growth of the sport. The pickleball paddle market size was estimated at $152.8 million in 2021 and is forecasted to grow at 7.7% CAGR through 2028.
Methodology
All sports data, ranging from TV ratings and franchise profitability to participation statistics and growth estimates were gathered from sources including CNBC, The Guardian, Reuters, and USA Today. We also referenced quotes made on the record by official sports organizations including USA Pickleball and the National Kabaddi Federation and cited research projects from outlets like MarketWatch.
This story was produced by OLBG and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.
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The article 3 Pickleball Travel Destinations to Dink Away From Home originally appeared on NerdWallet.
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Publish date : 2024-09-29 04:30:00
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