Pickleball’s Players Keep Coming. Why Are Some Clubs Going Broke?

For several years, opening a pickleball facility looked like a straightforward investment proposition. Participation was rising, empty retail buildings offered space for courts, and investors wanted a share of America’s fastest-growing sport.

The difficult part was working out how many people would pay to play, how often they would return and whether their spending would cover the lease.

Those questions have become more urgent. Picklr, Inc., the corporate parent behind The Picklr franchise system, filed for Chapter 11 protection on 9 October. According to reporting by the International Association of Pickleball and Padel Facilities, the company announced a $4.5 million financing commitment, subject to court approval, and said clubs were continuing to operate. The corporate filing follows a separate bankruptcy involving a multi-location franchisee group.

This is a significant setback for a prominent operator. It also raises a wider question for racket sports: how much of the investment in new facilities was based on sustainable local demand, and how much assumed the extraordinary growth of recent years would continue?

The warning before the closures

A recent Fan Equity analysis argues that the warning appeared in attention data before it showed up in the industry’s financial difficulties.

Its proprietary index compares pickleball’s attention growth with a basket of other major sports. The adjusted score fell from +38% in December 2023 to below zero in November 2024, reaching −17% by September 2026.

That measures relative momentum. It does not mean pickleball lost 17% of its players.

Fan Equity’s contention is that investment continued after the sport had stopped gaining attention faster than its competitors. It is a useful argument, although one retrospective case study cannot establish how reliably the index predicts facility performance. National attention also tells an investor little about the customers within driving distance of a particular building.

At Racket Business, we would treat that signal as a reason to revisit forecasts. A weakening indicator should prompt harder questions about a proposed site, even while the participation headlines remain positive.

Growth is continuing, but the pace matters

The participation figures give good reason to remain optimistic about pickleball itself.

SFIA reported 24.3 million American players in 2025, compared with 4.2 million in 2020. Its “core” population, defined as people playing at least eight times a year, reached 7.5 million. Players aged 13–24 had the highest participation rates of any age group.

As SFIA research director Alex Kerman explained, the story increasingly concerns the “broadening and diversification of the player base.”

However, SFIA’s August mid-year release reported that pickleball growth had moderated to 1.3% in the first half of 2026. Kerman cautioned that “we cannot take continued growth for granted.”

A club’s forecasts need to accommodate that possibility. Its lease remains payable whether membership grows rapidly, slowly or stops growing altogether.

And even the “core” definition deserves attention. Someone playing eight times a year is an engaged participant for research purposes, but may have little reason to buy a monthly indoor membership.

Expansion was easier to measure than profitability

The Picklr’s figures illustrate how quickly a young business can expand before it has a substantial operating record.

According to IAPPF’s review of its 2026 franchise disclosure, the network grew from 22 to 56 franchised outlets during 2025. Only 12 facilities had been open for a full year and qualified for the disclosed mature-club performance sample.

Those clubs recorded median annual gross sales of approximately $938,000, while the estimated initial investment for a franchise ranged from $1.25 million to $2.08 million. Gross sales reveal little about what remains after operating costs and debt payments.

Co-founder and CEO Jorge Barragan offered a candid description in a public LinkedIn post: “we were growing faster than we could operate.”

That is a more useful explanation to examine than simply declaring that pickleball has peaked. A popular sport can support an unsuccessful facility if the rent is too high, the opening costs too large or the membership assumptions too optimistic.

There is also a difference between a busy evening and a productive day. Operators need programming that gives customers a reason to visit outside the most desirable hours, while keeping pricing attractive enough for them to return.

Affordability cannot be treated as an afterthought. Across the activities surveyed in SFIA’s mid-year research, 26.9% of participants said out-of-pocket costs had affected how they participated. That finding covers sport and fitness generally, rather than pickleball alone, but it matters to any operator planning premium membership prices.

What Racket Business thinks

We remain positive about pickleball’s commercial potential. We would be much more cautious about using national participation growth to justify an expensive local development.

A convincing proposal should explain who will pay, what alternatives they have and why they will keep choosing that club. It should show what happens if membership builds more slowly than expected, and whether the business can survive that period without another injection of capital.

The restructuring may preserve viable operations. IAPPF CEO David Johnson welcomed the prospective funding, saying investors’ “belief in the company through a significant financial commitment should be reassuring to franchisees and Picklr members worldwide.”

Padel investors should examine the same questions. SFIA’s mid-year release reported 14.5% growth for padel, in only its second year of tracking the activity. That is encouraging, but it provides limited history on which to base a long lease or an ambitious expansion programme.

The most useful lesson from pickleball’s difficulties is that demand needs careful interpretation. Interest brings people through the door; programming, service and sensible economics give a club a chance of keeping them.

For the next phase of racket sports investment, we would like to hear less about territories sold and more about customer retention, court use across the week and the money left after the bills are paid.

Developed from Fan Equity’s analysis, with additional industry reporting and Racket Business commentary. Updated to include The Picklr’s October corporate bankruptcy filing.