I play 50+ hours of pickleball a month. I know people who play double that and more. Somewhere in the last two years, pickleball went from a sport my parents got me into to one of the fastest-growing categories in the country, and I've gotten a front-row seat to watch an entire industry build its brands from nothing, in real time, from the other side of the net.
In 2020, about 4.2 million Americans played pickleball. By 2025, that number was 24.3 million, a 171.8% increase in three years. A sport with almost no history had to build an entire industry's worth of brands from scratch, in public, in about half a decade. What those brands did with that blank slate is a better branding lesson than most case studies twice its size.
Tennis and golf brands inherited decades of tradition to lean on. Pickleball brands didn't have that luxury, the sport itself barely existed as a business category before 2020. Three of the biggest paddle brands picked three completely different things to be known for, in the same tiny category, at the same time. From what I've seen over two years of playing, that's not just a research talking point, it plays out on the actual court. JOOLA seems to show up constantly, paddles, shirts, hats, bags, it reads more like a full gear brand than a paddle company, at least on the courts I play. Selkirk, in my experience, stays mostly in paddles and doesn't push as much gear, a narrower, more product-focused presence backed by their own R&D division, Selkirk Labs. CRBN stripped it down even further, building its whole identity around one material and one idea, pure carbon fiber, performance-first, nothing else.
None of those three brands are competing to be "the best paddle brand." They're not even really competing on the same axis. Each one picked a single, ownable claim and built everything, materials, marketing, even how much gear they put their name on, around proving it. That's the part most businesses skip. It's tempting to want to be good at everything. The brands that won pickleball's first five years picked one thing and made it impossible to ignore.
I got my current paddle, an Engage, as a gift from my dad, who plays a lot more than I do. I'm not married to it. I test out whatever I can get my hands on. Some players are like that, always trying the next paddle. Others pick one brand and never leave it. Both types exist on every court I've played, and the brands that won this boom built something that works on both: a clear enough identity that the loyalists stick, and a strong enough reputation that the try-everything players keep coming back to test the next one.
Clubs do this too, not just gear brands. I'm a founding member at the Picklr here in Greenville, and its identity was never about being the biggest or the fanciest location, it's a culture full of people actively trying to get better at the game. Walk in and you know exactly what kind of players you'll find. That's a brand decision as much as anything Selkirk or JOOLA made, it's just made of people instead of paddles.
Pickleball brands didn't have big ad budgets or decades of sponsorship relationships either. So the ones that grew fastest built armies of ordinary players instead. Holbrook Pickleball reported an 86% revenue boost from a grassroots affiliate program built around 173 brand ambassadors, regular players who share a discount code, not paid celebrities. Across the category, brands recruit ambassadors ranging from teenagers to players in their 70s, not for reach, but because a player who feels ownership over a brand becomes a more convincing advocate than any ad ever could.
I do this myself constantly, without thinking of it as marketing. If I see someone on a court wearing shoes I haven't tried or swinging a paddle I'm curious about, I ask them about it right there. That's the entire ambassador model in one interaction, no ad budget required, just a player whose opinion another player trusts enough to ask for unprompted. Multiply that by a few million players and you understand why the affiliate model outperformed traditional advertising in this category.
Walk through any pickleball court today and you'll see paddles that perform within a hair of each other on pure specs. What separates the brands that broke out from the ones that didn't isn't paddle performance, it's whether a player can say, in one sentence, what that brand is actually about. "Selkirk is the American-made control paddle." "JOOLA is what the pros use for power, and now what you wear too." "CRBN is just carbon fiber, no gimmicks." That clarity is the product as much as the paddle is.
Most businesses don't get to build their brand from a true blank slate the way pickleball brands did. But the underlying moves are the same regardless of category age:
Pick one clear, ownable thing before the market forces you to compete on price instead. The pickleball brands that picked a lane early didn't have to fight it out in a race to the bottom once the category got crowded, the slow movers did.
Treat your best customers like a marketing channel, not just a source of revenue. You don't need 173 ambassadors. You need a handful of customers who'd genuinely recommend you, and a reason for them to actually do it.
Don't wait for history to earn a strong identity. Pickleball brands didn't have ten years of brand equity to lean on. They made a decision and repeated it until the decision became the reputation.
The category, not the sport, is the lesson. Pickleball brands had to build a distinct identity fast, with no history to lean on and no ability to out-spend competitors on advertising. That's the same position most small and growing businesses are actually in, whether or not they know it.
No. Some of the fastest-growing pickleball brands grew through grassroots ambassador and affiliate programs built on existing customers, not paid advertising. The constraint that forced pickleball brands to get creative is the same constraint most small businesses already have.
Start with what you can prove, not what sounds good. Selkirk didn't claim to be the best paddle brand in general, it claimed American-made control and backed it with an R&D division. Pick a claim you can defend with evidence, not just a slogan.
Pickleball didn't have ten years to build brand loyalty the slow way. The brands that won did it by picking one clear thing to stand for and turning their own customers into the marketing department. Neither of those moves requires a category that's exploding, they just require a decision most businesses keep putting off. That's just been my own experience watching it from the court for two years, but the pattern has held up every time I've paid attention.
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