BREAKINGMar 27, 20263 min read
Area Man Explains Pickleball Is 'Basically Tennis' For Seventh Time This Month
Friends, family, and coworkers report declining ability to maintain polite expressions
Read More
The Internet's Most Honest Pickleball Publication
FCKPICKLEBALL
"This generation's racketball"
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BREAKING: Local Man Explains Pickleball Rules For 45th Time This Week◆REPORT: Pickleball Still Not Tennis, Experts Confirm◆STUDY: 73% of Pickleball Players Own At Least One Moisture-Wicking Visor◆EXCLUSIVE: Racketball Files Restraining Order Against Pickleball◆SOURCES: Padel Slightly Better, Still Not Good Enough◆UPDATE: Tennis Courts Converted to Pickleball Courts; Tennis Weeps◆ANALYSIS: The 'Pop' Sound Is Not Satisfying, We Don't Care What You Say◆CONFIRMED: Pickleball Is What Happens When Ping-Pong Goes Outside◆ALERT: Another Retirement Community Discovers Pickleball, Declares It 'Revolutionary'◆DEVELOPING: Sport Invented in 1965 Claims to Be 'The Future of Athletics'◆OPINION: If You Wanted to Play Tennis, You Could Have Just Played Tennis◆BREAKING: Paddle Manufacturer Insists Product Is 'Premium' Despite Evidence◆BREAKING: Local Man Explains Pickleball Rules For 45th Time This Week◆REPORT: Pickleball Still Not Tennis, Experts Confirm◆STUDY: 73% of Pickleball Players Own At Least One Moisture-Wicking Visor◆EXCLUSIVE: Racketball Files Restraining Order Against Pickleball◆SOURCES: Padel Slightly Better, Still Not Good Enough◆UPDATE: Tennis Courts Converted to Pickleball Courts; Tennis Weeps◆ANALYSIS: The 'Pop' Sound Is Not Satisfying, We Don't Care What You Say◆CONFIRMED: Pickleball Is What Happens When Ping-Pong Goes Outside◆ALERT: Another Retirement Community Discovers Pickleball, Declares It 'Revolutionary'◆DEVELOPING: Sport Invented in 1965 Claims to Be 'The Future of Athletics'◆OPINION: If You Wanted to Play Tennis, You Could Have Just Played Tennis◆BREAKING: Paddle Manufacturer Insists Product Is 'Premium' Despite Evidence◆
01 — Latest Dispatches
THE NEWS
EXCLUSIVEMar 25, 20264 min read
Study Finds 94% of Pickleball Players Believe They Are 'Pretty Good, Actually'
Researchers note correlation between visor ownership and overconfidence in athletic ability
Read More
OPINIONMar 22, 20266 min read
The Pop Sound Is Not Satisfying. I Will Not Be Taking Questions.
A meditation on why the defining sound of pickleball is, objectively, the worst sound in sport
Read More
REPORTMar 20, 20265 min read
Padel Quietly Doing Better, Still Not Enough to Save Racket Sports
Padel acknowledged as 'marginally more legitimate' in landmark FckPickleball assessment
Read More
02 — A Manifesto
WE HAVE
OPINIONS.
The following positions are held sincerely and will not be revisited regardless of evidence to the contrary.
01
PICKLEBALL IS NOT TENNIS.
It is not tennis-adjacent. It is not 'like tennis but more accessible.' It is a different sport, played on a smaller court, with a plastic ball, and a solid paddle. The net is lower. The court is smaller. The ball has holes in it. These are not details. These are the entire argument. Stop calling it tennis. Tennis is calling its lawyers.
02
PADEL IS SLIGHTLY BETTER. WE SAID IT.
Padel has walls. Walls are good. Padel requires you to use the walls, which introduces a dimension of strategy that pickleball has not discovered. Padel players tend to be slightly less evangelical about their sport at dinner parties. This is meaningful. Padel still isn't tennis, but it is trying harder and we acknowledge this publicly.
03
PICKLEBALL IS THIS GENERATION'S RACKETBALL
Racketball had 14 million players in the 1980s. Everyone was obsessed. Everyone said it was going to be huge. Everyone had a membership. You know where racketball is now. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as a sport played in parking lots with a perforated plastic ball. We are simply here to document the cycle.
04
THE POP SOUND IS NOT SATISFYING.
The defining acoustic signature of pickleball — that hollow, percussive pop — is not satisfying. It is not the resonant thwack of a tennis ball. It is not the sharp crack of a squash ball. It is the sound of a plastic ball being struck by a solid paddle. We will not be taking questions on this.
05
WE WEAR OUR POSITION.
If you have read this far and you agree, there is merchandise. If you have read this far and you disagree, there is also merchandise. Either way, the shirt says what needs to be said.
SHOP THE MERCH →03 — By The Numbers
4.8M
Americans who play pickleball
and counting, unfortunately
1965
Year pickleball was invented
same year as the miniskirt. Coincidence?
0
Grand Slam events
we checked. twice.
∞
Times someone has said 'it's like tennis but...'
it is not like tennis
04 — Tell Us How You Feel
PARTICIPATE
Tell Us How You Feel — Drag to Disagree
THE RACKET SPORTS INDEX
Athleticism vs. Pretension Level — drag each sport to where you think it belongs
Grab any dot and drag it to your preferred position
PICKLEBALLThe ProblemATH: 34 · PRET: 87
Low athleticism. Very high pretension. Named after a dog. Insists it is the future of sport. This is the whole issue.
* Our positions are definitive. Yours are noted. The Reset button restores the truth.
RAGE
Tell Us How You Feel
PICKLEBALL RAGE-O-METER
CalmFull Rage
Blissfully Unaware
You've never heard the pop of a pickleball. Lucky you.
Tell Us How You Feel
SPORT LEGITIMACY INDEX™
PICKLEBALL
"This generation's racketball"Legitimacy Score23/100
Actual Difficulty31/100
Pretension Level89/100
Vibes44/100
Grandpa Approval97/100
* Data sourced from our internal department of made-up statistics. Methodology: vibes.
Tell Us How You Feel
PICKLEBALL FACT CHECKER
TRUE1 / 10
"Pickleball was named after a dog named Pickles who would chase the ball."
The sport is named after a dog. A dog. This is the sport's entire origin story and nobody seems bothered by it.
05 — Merchandise
WEAR YOUR TRUTH
The shirt says what the court couldn't.
Dispatches from the Bureau
GET OUR
DISPATCHES
Satirical news, new merch, and official grievance updates. Sent when we have something worth saying. Which is more often than pickleball deserves.
Official Grievances Filed
77,713AND COUNTING
Latest:
Someone in Scottsdale called it 'the new tennis'
Log Your Grievance →
Each grievance is reviewed with the seriousness it deserves, which is none.
06 — Official Complaints
FILE A GRIEVANCE
Official Intake — FckPickleball Bureau of Grievances
SUBMIT YOUR
GRIEVANCE
All grievances are reviewed by our editorial board, assigned an official case number, and filed permanently in the FckPickleball Bureau of Complaints. This does not change anything. It is still worth doing.