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HOW PICKLEBALL IN ENGLAND COULD BE AS BIG AS IT IS IN THE USA !
By Karen Mitchell
DIRECTOR , PICKLEBALL ENGLAND
The New Year holiday is
a time for reflection on the past year and to set goals and focus areas for the coming year . Pickleball England ’ s second Annual General Meeting ( AGM ) took place Jan . 3 via Zoom . We had more than 60 attendees representing all six regions , plus members from Wales , Scotland , and the USA ! We had three official member votes , which leveraged Zoom ’ s polling capabilities .
The feedback after the AGM was very positive in terms of content , progress and professionalism . It was a marathon to prepare for , but totally worth it to be able to share results against our 2020 plan and to share our 2021 plan with members .
One of the interesting data points revealed that the size of badminton in England is similar in size to pickleball in the USA ! USA Pickleball ’ s website estimates 3.46 million players in the U . S . in 2019 , with 7,926 places to play and a total of 30,238 courts . USA Pickleball membership was 39,722 ( 1.2 percent of the total ).
Badminton England estimates that 3.3 million adults play badminton , with 2,100 clubs and 24,000 courts across 8,000 facilities . There are 130,000 members of Badminton England ( 3.4 percent ) made up of 55,000 full members and 75,000 community members . So , we just need to convert all badminton players in England to pickleball players and we can match the size of the USA !
Another statistic is that badminton in England is a top-10 sport in secondary schools , with 563,000 players over 14 years of age playing badminton every week . I think we will look to connect with the badminton world to learn from them to see if we can fast-track our growth based on their experience . With 68 percent of members over 51 years of age , Pickleball England does need to focus on spreading the game to younger players , which is why one of our key focus areas going forward is getting the game into schools and universities .
So how did Pickleball England do against the plan ? Despite COVID-19 , membership increased 68 percent since the last AGM ( 800 in 2019 compared to 1,345 in July 2020 ). The number of clubs also increased from 52 to 139 . This probably sounds low to players in North America , but for an organization just two years old , it ’ s significant . It ’ s the equivalent of 35 percent of total estimated players . As we grow the number of players , we want to focus on attracting and retaining as many players as possible so that we can create a dialogue with them and hopefully get them to participate at some level .
Other things we can learn from badminton ? 1 . How to make the sport attractive to TV . Badminton England has 344 million TV viewers worldwide each year with total broadcast hours of 485 across 30 global territories ; 2 . Creating a performance program for athletes . Badminton secured £ 5.9 million of National Lottery public sector support for performance
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