Like many retirees, 70-year-old William Shim has embraced the sport of pickleball as a way to keep fit and to socialize.
But getting court space can be tricky, and he often has to book about two weeks ahead of time.
“You’ve got to be quick to get a spot to play,” said Shim, who spoke to CBC News just before stepping onto a Calgary court.
As pickleball soars in popularity, the balance between supply and demand has gotten increasingly out of whack.
At times, the sport’s growing popularity has provoked tension between passionate pickleballers and others in the community who aren’t keen on having their tennis courts or park space taken over. (One mayor in P.E.I. even quit his job over a pickleball development dustup).
Now, a U.S. company is betting it can make big bucks off all those court-hungry pickleballers with a network of indoor pickleball franchises in every major city in Canada.
The Picklr started in 2021, began franchising in 2023 and currently has 26 locations from Alabama to Wyoming.
It’s one of several pickleball franchises that have opened up south of the border in recent years and quickly exploded in popularity, said Todd Boss, a pickleball writer with Forbes Magazine. (Some other big names include Pickleball Kingdom, Dill Dinkers and the Ace Pickleball Club.)
“These companies are basically going from zero to [owning] 10 to 12 facilities in a year-and-a-half,” said Boss. “That is pretty massive.”
But some say Canada could be a tougher market to crack.
It’s not that Canadians don’t like pickleball but rather that this country doesn’t have a glut of readily available retail space that can easily be converted into pickleball courts.
“You can be ‘hungry for space,’ but if there’s no food on the table … there’s nothing to eat,” said Alex Edmison, senior-vice president with CBRE, a commercial real estate firm. “It’s a supply constraint.”
American pickleball company The Picklr wants to build a network of indoor pickleball franchises across Canada, but finding empty spaces big enough for the courts might be a challenge.
Space the ‘biggest stumbling block’
Inside a Toronto hotel conference room, representatives with The Picklr recently kicked off its Canadian launch with an event for potential franchisees.
Among them was Randy Kufske, a retiree from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., and snowbird who hopes to open a pickleball club with his son. Kufske recently visited a location in Salt Lake City as part of the company’s franchise “discovery day” and says he was impressed by what he saw.
The tricky part now, he said, is finding a place to house it. Kufske is on the hunt for a central spot that could draw players from each of the twin cities and is also zoned to allow indoor sports.
“That is definitely the biggest stumbling block,” said Kufske.
The Picklr…
Read More: Can pickleball go corporate in Canada?
