Saw this in The Philadelphia Business Journal. John George wrote about a couple of entrepreneurs who are opening the region’s first indoor Pickleball facility, in Malvern:

“Called Bounce Pickleball, the more than $4 million facility will feature 16 courts, a teaching pro, and instructors and programming that will include court rentals, open-play events, tournaments, leagues, one-on-one and group lessons, clinics, drills sessions, and “facilitated play” where members can experience playing against some of the country’s top players.

Singer and Davis aren’t limiting themselves to one center. They plan to open up to six Bounce Pickleball centers in the region over the next two years, and eventually expand to as many as 18 facilities stretching to the Jersey Shore.”

As you know, too many young people are turning to pickleball. It’s a sport for seniors and nobody under the age of 50 should be playing it. This facility should be built in Florida, where the 70 year olds with dwindling lateral movement can play glorified ping pong and stay in shape while keeping those reflexes sharp.

The fact that pickleball is proliferating like this is concerning. It’s like when the spotted lanternfly was a big deal a few years ago. You kind of brush it off like “ah whatever, pickleball is just a fad right now,” and then the next thing you know they’re trying to build 18 facilities from here to South Jersey. We should have taken the warnings seriously, but we didn’t, and now pickle is here and we can’t stop it. It’s like the fungus from The Last of Us video game and television series. Pickleball is the sporting version of Cordyceps.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with pickleball, it’s just that pickleball is for your dad. It’s not for 27 year old you. If you’re playing pickle at 27, you should be playing tennis, or basketball, or flag football, or something more physically demanding, something that matches the athletic capabilities of a sub-40 man or woman who probably does not yet have kids. You’ve got the rest of your life to be fat and out of shape and then transition to pickleball, so you gotta challenge yourself now. Golf and swimming and pickle and the various country club sports can wait.

Unfortunately it’s probably too late. Pickleball is already here, and it’s spreading like a plague.