Pickleball is poised to become one of the most prominent sports in India,” said AIPA President Firstpost

Indians love their sports, but the country's sporting consciousness is dominated by cricket. However, it could all change soon, with the introduction of pickleball.

Pickleball, a sport that originated in Washington DC, USA in 1965, is a combination of tennis, table tennis and badminton. The sport started gaining popularity in India during the COVID-19 pandemic and has quickly turned into more than just a pastime in the country.

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One of the ways in which popularity has increased in India is the World Pickleball Championships, with Mumbai currently hosting the Indian leg of the tournament. The tournament will take place from November 12 to November 17 at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) in Mumbai, with around 650 players from seven countries including Australia, Poland and Singapore participating.

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That tournament will also provide the platform for the launch of the World Pickleball League (WPL) in January 2025.

Arvind Prabhoo, the president of the All India Pickleball Association (AIPA), spoke recently First message about bringing the sport to India, the ongoing World Pickleball Championships and more.

Fragments:

In a country dominated by cricket and football fans. How do you see the growth and development of pickleball in India?

So, cricket is a religion in our country and no other sport can even compare itself as a competitor to cricket. Football also has a huge legacy in India, with all the clubs doing great work in India. That said, India now has 65% of its population young. The young population is looking for newer sports.

And Pickleball is a very easy to learn, easy to adapt, age and gender agnostic game. It is a competitive game, but it can also be a recreational game. Therefore, because of its appeal to the young, middle-aged and elderly, I think it is more of a community-building game. Pickleball will really have its portal in India in the coming years.

Pickleball is still a new sport in India and introducing something new comes with challenges. What are the challenges the Indian pickleball association faced while bringing the sport to India?

So, the All India Pickleball Association has been around since 2007 and previously it was a challenge because there is no funding available for new sports in India. Even today we still struggle to obtain financial resources.

But because of the passion that all of us at the All India Pickleball Association share and the common vision that pickleball is the game of the future, we all work diligently to promote the game. The challenge we face is that it is not in the School Games Federation of India. It is not in the Fit India movement. Even in a state like Maharashtra, this is not the case and is therefore not recognized by the government. So parents find it very difficult to adapt their children to pickleball. But slowly but surely, with the help of the media and with the help of social media, we can spread awareness about all the positives that pickleball brings to someone's life.

It's more of a community game. A father can play with his son and yet, you know, and a mother can play with a daughter or the other way around. And it's a very community game, which I think Indians, because of the way we're structured, will adapt the game. And that is certainly what is happening.

One of the other challenges, as I said, was the availability of equipment, which previously, about four or five years ago, was all imported equipment: the paddles, the bars and the beds. But now Indian manufacturers have started taking the panels and equipment and making them more affordable. And now you can see that every sports equipment is available. So some of our challenges have been mitigated and we are now set on a course where the pickaxe will continue to get stronger.

Can you tell us about the Pickleball World Championship? Who will participate and how will it help?

So the World Pickleball Championship has a large number of internationally acclaimed players coming to play. In Mumbai we have more than 50 top players coming to play and it gives the top Indian players and the Indian pros an opportunity to see how good they are and test their skills against the best in the world.

So I think it's a great opportunity for all Indian players to see how good they are. And yes, it was a challenge to bring all these things together because of the logistics of foreign players coming to India.

But I think the top players will enjoy the tournament and it will be a benchmark for all tournaments to come in the future, which will help establish India as a pickleball powerhouse in the Asian region.

Can you tell me about monetization? What is the source of income for the tournament and what about the sponsors?

So, as you know, in sports, revenue is generated through the sale of tickets and through the broadcast rights through which they make money. But unfortunately for Pickleball, as it is still not established in India, the revenue streams are not yet coming in.

Looking at sponsors, we have approached sponsors and companies who have now started to take an active and significant interest in the sport. And that's why I think that from now on we will get enough sponsorship and support from the business community.

Okay, who are the stakeholders involved in the development of sports in India? And can you describe what support they provide?

The All India Pickleball Association is a highly structured organization. It has a presence in 23 states of the country and each state has its own association and its own staff that promotes the game. At this point, the stakeholders are actually the association.

We were fortunate enough to get Skechers as the kit sponsor for the Indian team and that was one of our first sponsors to sponsor through Apple. We hope that many more will follow suit and sponsor the Indian team or sponsor the grassroots development of the game in India, which is so desperately needed for us at this time.

So that's why everyone from the companies to the government and schools and colleges are all stakeholders in this. And I think collectively we're all going to promote pickleball. And pickleball will become one of, if not the top sport, one of the sports to be reckoned with in our country.