Look out golf: Pickleball is coming for your corporate schmoozers.
While golf courses have long been hailed as the premier venue for closing deals and wooing clients, a growing number are finding that pickleball saves them time and money — while being more inclusive and easier to play for newcomers. Corporate bookings at pickleball clubs across the U.S. rose in June from the previous month, according to PodPlay, a sports venue booking platform.
Pickleball club operators back this up, saying that company events are increasing. Ace Pickleball Club, with locations in several states, has had a steady flow of corporate gatherings, co-founder Joe Sexton said, with event requests at locations piling up even before they open. Greg Raelson, chief marketing officer of Pickleballerz club in Chantilly, Va., said corporate bookings have tripled since 2021. New York’s Life Time health club is fielding 10 to 20 corporate booking inquiries per week — more than five times last year’s volume.
The pickleball court is becoming especially popular among lawyers, bankers and Realtors. In Rochester Hills, Mich., pickleball instructor Robert Dunn said he sees lawyers with clients, business types talking shop, and auto industry executives bringing suppliers and purchasers to play. “Even if the intent isn’t business, business is often a topic of conversation,” Dunn said.
Chicago-based real estate broker Colin Hebson said he’s observed a similar trend and has become a convert himself after using the golf course to entertain for 25 years. A key part of the appeal is that pickleball is much less intimidating than golf for those who haven’t played before.
“If you’ve never golfed before and I invite you on the golf course because I want to network with you and do business, it’s almost impossible to be able to keep up,” he said. “I can take someone onto the pickleball court who has never touched a pickleball paddle before, and I can show them how to play and they would have a good time in under 10 minutes.”
It’s also less time-consuming: Hebson can finish a couple of games of pickleball in under two hours, versus taking half the day to golf. To top it off, two hours at Hebson’s pickleball club cost $80, versus $600 to $700 to entertain on the golf course.
Mathew Norman, senior director of events at a South Carolina pickleball club called Crush Yard, said companies are seeing a better return on investment with pickleball. “Everyone involved spends more time with each other under one roof and the event time is a max of three hours instead of five,” he said. This allows executives to schedule events starting around 4 p.m., so staff can still work most of the day. So far this year, Crush Yard said it has already put on 10 events for companies that normally go to golf courses.
Golf, of course, isn’t going anywhere. The sport experienced a surge in popularity during the pandemic, and the National Golf Foundation said recently that on-course golfers have increased for six straight years, and that golf is gaining popularity with women and people of color. Even with those inroads, 74% of golfers are still men and 78% are white, according to the foundation. This has prompted some die-hard golfers to shift to pickleball in order to tap into a broader pool of clients, according to Richard Green, co-founder of pickleball club SPF Chicago.
After noticing that some of their colleagues seemed less than jazzed about an afternoon on the green, executives at one Chicago-based marketing company decided to host a pickleball tournament this year.
“They saw pickleball as a way of reaching out to get more engagement out of employees who don’t like to golf,” Green said.
Minneapolis-based life coach Jasna Burza began inviting clients to play pickleball when she realized it would help them to loosen up. Burza, who works with executives, lawyers and entrepreneurs, said it’s a welcome alternative to the golf course for many of the women she coaches. “A lot of my women clients are like, ‘I have kids, I don’t have time to spend seven hours on the course,’ ” she said.
It’s also been transformative for her relationships with clients who play golf, many of whom she used to walk the green with. “There are no pretensions. You see them miss a point. There’s so much vulnerability on the court,” she said. “What I love is that you see adult men and women engaging in trash talk. People are competitive, but it’s not as serious as golf.”