Ranking The Top 10 UK Counties for Pickleball

In case you didn’t know already, Pickleball is an indoor or outdoor racket/paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong. 

The sport has exploded on the world scene with the help of celebrities hitting the court and the craze has been rapidly growing in the UK recently with Scotland crowning its first national champion. 

Between 1965 and 2020, pickleball became a popular sport in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, and also began to grow in popularity elsewhere. 

In 2021, 2022 and 2023, it was named the fastest-growing sport in the United States by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, and by 2023 it was estimated to have over 4.8 million players.

Soon, pickleball could even be available on sports betting sites.

With that being said, the research team at Gambling.com decided to find out which UK county was best for playing pickleball. 

For this study, the team researched how many pickleball clubs there are in each UK county and worked out the potential participation (the population of each county factors into how many participants Pickleball could have there), before producing a final pickleball score for each county. 

We also decided to find out which part of the UK – and indeed the world – has the most online interest in pickleball. 

Top 10 UK Counties For Pickleball

In our findings, Kent came top with a total score of 12.3 while Surrey came in second place with a total score of 10.9. 

Surrey had the joint-second most number of pickleball clubs along with Hampshire, but had a slightly better pickleball participation score. 

Cumbria and Lancashire also made up the top five with final scores of 10.2 and 8.7 respectively. 

Where in The World Has The Most Online Interest in Pickleball? 

The growing popularity of the sport can be down to many factors but we agree with some online reports that this is mainly due to its short learning curve, its appeal to a wide range of ages and fitness levels, and its low start-up costs.

The United States leads the way in terms of being the standout pickleball market leader and it is clear they have significantly more interest in the sport (trends from the past 12 months) than their global competitors, but there are signs the rest of the world is catching up.

The UK mainstream media has regularly covered pickleball news since the start of 2023 and this is particularly evident online. 

It’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon, just pick up a paddle and join your local club – it could well be your next sport obsession. 

Methodology

Two different data points per UK county were measured in an index for the ‘Top 10 UK counties for Pickleball’ study; each county was then awarded a total score. The data points which were analysed were:

• Number of pickleball clubs
• Pickleball participation (number of pickleball clubs per county capita)
• The two data points were then ranked from highest to lowest from an average total score.

All data was collected on June 5, 2023. 

Data sources: Per Capita Calculator, Pickleball England, Google Trends.