We’ve been hearing a lot more that telltale wood on plastic dink sound emanating from converted tennis courts and parking pads across the country but would you believe more people played pickleball in 2023 than went skiing?
According to Sportico, Pickle overtook skiing for total participants last year with 13.6 million players next to the 13.1 million who went downhill skiing. Pickle participation is up an incredible 52% year over year making it by far the fasting growing sport.
Wintersports saw bumps in participation across the board in 2023, snowshoeing +17%, snowboarding +10% and nordic skiing +10% each and downhill skiing with a smaller increase of 2%.
It’s easy to understand why more people played pickle last year than went skiing as the racket sport’s barrier to entry is next to nothing and going skiing is no small matter. Thoughts on the current trend?
images from WikiCommons TheVillagesFL