Nationwide Scouting
Some parks helped build pickleball. Others built communities around it.
We're looking for the next parks, players and stories to join Battle of the Parks.
Know one? Put it on our radar.
Put it on the radarScouting beyond New Jersey and New York City. Play in either? Those parks can join the current field, so field yours instead.
On our radar
Eight places we're watching, ranked by the history and stories that make each one different.
These are prospective communities, not Battle of the Parks™ locations. No event, league or partnership exists at any park below. We're scouting, listening and looking for the people who built them.
1965 · Birthplace
Founders Courts
Bainbridge Island, WA
Where pickleball began.
Pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island in 1965 by Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum. Decades later, local players raised money for the public Founders Courts at Battle Point Park, bringing the game back to where it all started.
The birthplace belongs in the Battle.
2012 · Pickleball takes root
Naples, FL
A local park became the home of the US Open.
In 2012, local players saw potential in an ordinary county park and began building a pickleball community. A roller rink became courts, the complex kept growing, and in 2016 East Naples hosted the first US Open Pickleball Championships.
From local play to one of pickleball's biggest stages.
2023 · The access fight
San Antonio, TX
1 court → 18.
Fairchild got its first pickleball court around 2015 and now has 18. When crowding outgrew the schedule, more than twenty players and the San Antonio Pickleball Association called the city for weeks until it moved. In 2023 the courts went from closing at 8:30 p.m. to open from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Players asked. Players organized. The park changed.
2023 · The noise fight
Denver, CO
Too loud to play. Too popular to disappear.
Denver shut down Eisenhower's four pickleball courts in 2023 after neighborhood noise complaints. Pickleball eventually returned with a catch: players had to use quiet foam balls.
A park caught in one of pickleball's defining growing pains.
2001 · Tournament history
Surprise Recreation Campus
Surprise, AZ
When 100 players was huge.
Surprise was part of competitive pickleball before most of America knew the game. In 2001, Earl Hill brought pickleball to the Arizona Senior Olympics at Happy Trails RV Resort in Surprise. One hundred players showed up, making it the largest known pickleball event to that point. That tournament was held at Happy Trails, not at the city complex that exists today.
Today, Surprise's recreation campus includes a 16-court pickleball complex.
2012 · Built for the game
St. George, UT
The players helped build it.
A local group of players approached the city with $50,000 of their own money to get a pickleball complex started. Little Valley opened in 2012 with 12 courts. Demand kept climbing: the city added 12 more in 2015, and the complex has kept growing since.
A community put its own money behind the courts.
2015 · Raleigh's first
Raleigh, NC
The courts that put Raleigh outdoors.
On April 11, 2015, six courts at Method became Raleigh's first permanent outdoor pickleball courts. They sit inside a park with a much older community story on the former grounds of the historic Berry O'Kelly school.
Pickleball history inside a park with history of its own.
2016 · Desert pickleball
Palm Desert, CA
From tennis lines to 12 pickleball courts.
Pickleball was being played on Civic Center Park's tennis courts by at least 2016, including the Palm Desert Senior Games. In 2023, the park added 12 permanent public pickleball courts.
A public park growing with one of America's biggest pickleball regions.
Your park
Does your park have a story we should know?
Maybe players fought for the first lines. Raised money for courts. Built open play from nothing. Convinced the city to listen. Or simply created a community people don't want to lose.
Tell us where you play and who made it happen.
We want to document the people behind these parks while their stories can still be told.
We'll review the park and its story for a future Battle.
Battle of the Parks™