Photo: Unsplash | jha900
Walmart has partnered with racquet sports booking platform Break the Love to invite customers and associates to play pickleball, an emerging sport described as a combination of badminton, ping-pong and tennis.
Under the program, 125,000 reservations to book playtime at pickleball venues nationwide will be free to Walmart customers and associates. Walmart+ members earn first access at peak reservation times, co-branded swag and meet and greets with pro pickleballers. There’s also a shopping link at www.breakthelove.com/x/walmart.
“We are always looking for ways to create meaningful experiences that encourage our customers to interact with Walmart in new ways,” Casey Schlaybaugh, VP, brand marketing and strategy for Walmart U.S., said in a press release.
The sport has been around since the mid-1960s but has ranked as the fastest-growing sport for the last three years, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Participation jumped 85.7 percent in 2022 to 8.9 million participants in the U.S. Tennis had 23.6 million.
Easier to learn than tennis, with less court space to cover at a slower speed, the sport’s approachable nature attracts a diverse group of younger and older participants. Also driving appeal is low startup costs and the average game lasting only about 20 minutes.
The sport has stoked controversy as pickleball often takes over tennis court space. Many towns seek to restrict play or block the development of new pickleball courts because of the noise from pickleball paddles. Its emergence as a spectator sport, however, is further elevating awareness with the arrival of thousands of pickleball tournaments, two professional tours and one professional league.
Walmart appears to be the first mass chain to launch a pickleball initiative, but Fila, Nike and K-Swiss are among heritage activewear labels targeting the sport.
A recent New York Times article noted that many designers are coming out with pickleball lines with the informality of the sport leading to more playful fashion takes than tennis.
“You are just playing with paddles and a plastic ball — pickleball is never going to have the sophistication, I think, of a sport like tennis,” the fashion designer Norma Kamali told the Times. “But people actually like that.”