History of pickleball, 1965–2026

Pickleball's early history rests on a few sources: USA Pickleball's timeline, a HistoryLink.org essay, Washington's 2022 state-sport law and the founders' families. They agree on the outline but differ on the name, the first company's start date and even the year of the first game.

Timeline

1. 1965, summer: the game is improvised on Bainbridge Island.
2. 1967: first permanent court, at Bob O'Brian's home.
3. 1968: Pickle Ball, Inc. incorporated (February).
4. 1976: first known tournament, Tukwila, Washington.
5. 1984: United States Amateur Pickleball Association formed; first rulebook.
6. 1990: played in all 50 states.
7. 2005: USA Pickleball Association (USAPA) established.
8. 2009: first USAPA National Tournament, Buckeye, Arizona.
9. 2019: two professional tours formed.
10. 2022: official state sport of Washington.
11. 2025: 24.3 million US players, per SFIA's 2026 reporting.

Summer 1965: a backyard improvisation

According to USA Pickleball, Joel Pritchard, businessman Bill Bell and Barney McCallum came back from a Saturday round of golf to Pritchard's home on Bainbridge Island and found their families sitting around, including Pritchard's "disgruntled" 13-year-old son, Frank. The property had a 44 × 20 ft badminton court, but no full set of badminton rackets could be found, so the men used ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball. The net started at badminton height, 60 inches, and was soon lowered to 36. Pritchard later served in Congress and as Washington's lieutenant governor, as the state's 2022 law notes.

HistoryLink adds that the rules were worked out over the following weeks so that adults would have no height advantage over children. McCallum went on to experiment with paddle designs in his father's Seattle basement workshop (Wikipedia). The first permanent court followed in 1967, in the backyard of neighbor Bob O'Brian.

The year itself is not quite settled. HistoryLink notes that USA Pickleball and Pickle-Ball, Inc. specify July–August 1965, but that Pritchard once said the summer of 1963 and Joan Pritchard wrote 1966.

How it got its name: four accounts

Pickle boat. In rowing, a pickle boat was crewed by leftover oarsmen. Joan Pritchard said the game's mix of other sports reminded her of it. Frank Pritchard's account on USA Pickleball's site says that since at least 1938, leftover "spares" from several universities had raced in a just-for-fun pickle boat race.

The dog. USA Pickleball's history page, drawing on Pickleball Magazine research and neighbor Paul Brown's memory of his family's puppy, Lulu, arriving the same summer, says Pickles was born in 1968, three years after the game was named. The Pritchard family has long held that the dog was named after the game, and HistoryLink reports that Joel Pritchard himself rejected the dog story. Frank Pritchard adds that a reporter from a national publication suggested going with the dog story because it was "cuter and more memorable," and that McCallum held to it until his death. USA Pickleball's website still carries an undated post presenting McCallum's version, in which he recalls saying, "what the heck, let's just call it pickleball."

Pickle Ball, Inc.: 1968 or 1972?

HistoryLink gives February 13, 1968, for the articles of incorporation of Pickle Ball, Inc., filed by Pritchard and friends including McCallum's son David. The first annual report followed on August 3, 1972, with Bell as a director, and Pritchard and others named 1972 as the year the business got underway. USA Pickleball's timeline lists 1972 as the year "a corporation was formed to protect the creation of this new sport."

From the Northwest to a national sport

After Tennis magazine's 1976 notice and the first known tournament that spring, the game spread through the national association formed in 1984. USA Pickleball's timeline credits Boeing industrial engineer Arlen Paranto with making the first composite paddle, and names Mark Friedenberg as the first president of the USA Pickleball Association established in 2005.

Pritchard died in 1997 at 72; HistoryLink reports that shortly before, at a party in his honor, he said he was most proud of the game. Bell died in 2006 at 83 and McCallum in 2019 at 93. The Pickleball Hall of Fame launched in 2017 with Pritchard and McCallum among its first inductees. Wikipedia credits Seymore Rifkind with founding it and notes that USA Pickleball started its own hall of fame in 2021 before the two agreed to unify in April 2023.

Pro tours and a state sport

Two professional tours, the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) and the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA), formed independently in 2019. USAPA became USA Pickleball in 2020, Major League Pickleball followed in 2021, and in 2023 the PPA and MLP merged under the United Pickleball Association. Internationally, the IFP, which USAPA helped establish in 2010, and the World Pickleball Federation (2018) agreed to merge in November 2024, and member nations affirmed the merger in June 2025.

In Washington, Senate Bill 5615 passed the Senate 46–1 on February 2, 2022, and the House 83–15 on March 4. Governor Jay Inslee signed it on March 28, 2022, on the original court on Bainbridge Island, according to USA Pickleball. It became Chapter 188, Laws of 2022, effective June 9, 2022. Its findings put US players at over four million.

How the player counts grew

The two 2023 rows do not match: USA Pickleball's timeline gives 8.9 million from SFIA's 2023 Topline report, while Wikipedia gives 13.6 million for play during 2023. Write-ups do not always say whether a year means the report or the season played. In SFIA's split, casual players played 1–7 times in the year and core players 8 or more. SFIA named pickleball the fastest-growing US sport for a fourth consecutive year in its 2025 report, and its participation page puts growth from 2022 to 2025 at 171.8%.

Bainbridge Island today

The Bainbridge Island Historical Museum documents the three founders and the sport through exhibits and programs. Its executive director, Brianna Kosowitz, told the Bainbridge Island Review that visitors arriving from around the country to see where the game began led the museum to host a fundraiser tournament. The first one opened on August 23, 2019, on the Bainbridge High School tennis courts, with six tennis courts repainted as 18 pickleball courts and about 265 players. In 2021 almost 400 people registered, with 70% of registration proceeds going to the museum. Museum volunteer Tom Arnold recorded a nearly two-hour oral history with McCallum, excerpted as a podcast in 2018, and the collection holds a 2019 tournament paddle McCallum signed.

Related: USA Pickleball, explained, court dimensions (still 20 × 44 ft), rules summary, pickleball terms.