Pickleball is all the rage, and CEO Jay Diederich says his new brand Ace Pickleball Club is the first indoor court pickleball franchise with a membership model, like a gym.
The Kardashians do it. Business icon Mark Cuban owns it, meaning the first team in the new Vibe league. Stephen Colbert hosted a comedy special about it. Even naked people at private clubs play it, at least if a blog called “The Pickler” can be believed.
“It” is pickleball, the cross between badminton, ping-pong and tennis and the fastest-growing sport on the planet with the distinctive (and reviled, by some) pok-pok-pok of the 26-hole balls. The first franchise of its kind, Ace Pickleball Club, is set to debut in March its indoor courts model.
Jay Diederich, founder and CEO of Ace, picked up pickleball when he and his wife were looking for something active to do during pandemic shutdowns.
“We would go down to the tennis facility, they were resurfacing the courts,” so they tried pickleball instead. “She about ran me off the court the first game, and immediately I was hooked, and she was hooked.”
Everybody can play the game, which is a big part of the appeal. “The second time we were playing, my partner was 70 years old, and her partner was 80, and we had a really competitive game again.” But his wife couldn’t take the heat, or the rain, or the mosquitoes.
“That’s when the lightbulb went off. Our team spent 10 years in the indoor trampoline world,” working for Jeff Platt and his father when they were developing Sky Zone, the first indoor trampoline park franchises, Diederich said. “I called Joe and said I think we should do indoor pickleball.”
That’s Joe Sexton, co-founder and president of Ace Pickleball Club, who worked with Mathnasium Learning Centers, Sky Zone and PetWellClinic. “It’s multi-generational. My mom, who’s grandma, plays with me, my sister, our kids. The three generations playing a sport together competitively is really interesting,” Sexton said.
Jay Diederich
Ace Pickleball Club will open its first unit, a corporate-owned venue, in Roswell, Georgia. It will be about 36,000 square feet with 14 indoor regulation size courts. Every court will have technology to allow for livestreaming and instant replay. Although their FDD was not yet complete in late January, they expect the cost to build the first corporate unit will be about $1.2 million.
“We believe we’re the first franchise offering with our model, yes,” Diederich said. “Everything that’s out there right now is chalked up to eatertainment, mirroring that TopGolf experience with a bar offering, so pickleball to drive traffic to their restaurants and bars. We’re looking at it as a pickleball gym model,” with monthly memberships around $89 to $129.
Their clubs will offer “optimal playing conditions. They’re never going to have a rained out session or extreme heat. There’s such a lack of courts across the U.S. in general,” Diederich said.
Last year 36.5 million people played pickleball, according to the 2023 APP Pickleball Participation Report.
“Eatertainment” pickleball concepts include Pickle & Social, Chicken N Pickle and Smash Park.
Franchise Gator lists American Pickleball Association as a franchise since 2019 with total investment of $35,000, in which owners build memberships, manage leagues and run tournaments, among other activities.
My Backyard Sports, founded in 2017 by Michael Kraner and his wife, Debbi Rapaport, builds more than 30 different kinds of sports courts in people’s backyards or community centers or the like, and lately has been doing more business in pickleball.
“It’s really just fun, it’s almost like giggling. So it’s a great game, there’s a lot of demand for it,” Kraner said, plus the courts are 44-by-20 feet vs. tennis courts at 120-by-60. “One full tennis court, you can fit three to four pickleball courts.” Cost of investment in a My Backyard Sports franchise ranges from $105,000 to $175,000.
Pickleball has its detractors, too, such as neighbors at River Canyon Estates in Bend, Oregon, where the constant pok-pok-pok of balls hitting paddles and dogs running loose caused the board of the homeowners association to ban pickleball from the community’s tennis courts.
And those celebrities in Colbert’s “Pickled” charity tournament poked plenty of fun. “You’re a little closer to your opponents, I like to see the fire in their eyes, I like them to see the fire in my eyes,” joked Murray Bartlett, a competitor who played the downward-spiraling hotel manager in HBO’s “The White Lotus.”
Kraner of My Backyard Sports takes it all in stride. “I think anything that brings people together, especially coming out of COVID and in a world full of strife, is a great thing,” he said.