How Pickleball became an election campaign tool

Last month, a sports promotion company announced the formation of a brand new professional pickleball league in India with a $10 million investment promise.

The sport is gaining in popularity and is currently played by over 10,000 players in close to twenty states across the country.

Such has been the sport’s adoption that in the recently concluded general elections, pickleball made a rather interesting appearance.

Election ploy

“The government has issued tenders for promoting sports in schools,” said Dilip Yadav, the proprietor of a Meerut-based sports equipment manufacturing company.

Speaking to The Bridge, he said that such is the popularity of the sport at the moment that schools across the northern belt are considering including pickleball into their sporting curriculum.

“Pickleball paddles were distributed during the election,” he said with a smile.

Freebies being handed to voters on the campaign trail is a known ploy employed by political parties. That said, while goods of household utility are the most common giveaways, the handout of sporting equipment is a rather unique occurrence.

“I can’t tell you which party it was but we supplied them as it is a product we deal with and there is a demand for it,” added Yadav.

Rising demand

With shades of tennis, badminton, and table tennis, pickleball is a rather easy sport to play and for this reason, has gained momentum over a short period.

Paddles are today in great demand and retail anywhere between INR. 1,300 and INR. 6,000. Visibly, the sport's adoption has now created a whole new product category.

"We manufacture about 10,000 paddles in a month. And we sell them all,” said Yadav, who boasts of a pan-India customer base and has Sania Mirza’s academy on his client list.

The ease of play notwithstanding, the school holiday season has also contributed to a spurt in paddle sales.

Last month, Bangalore hosted a pickleball tournament that saw 400 players, both young and senior, converge from 17 states for competitive action.

But will the demand stay constant?

“Nothing can be said in sports but demand (for paddles) will be there,” concluded Yadav.

That political parties took note and used the sport as a campaign tool indicates that the sport is making all the right noise. But only time will tell if pickleball can sustain its upward momentum.