Women Are Leading Pickleball's Big Boom
08.06.2022 - 22:29
/ glamour.com
By As a practicing attorney, entrepreneur, and author, Stacie Townsend has never had a lot of free time on her hands. But five years ago, she started devoting her precious few work-free nights and weekends to a time-consuming venture: pickleball.
The West Palm Beach-based Townsend learned about the —a mix of , racquetball, badminton, and ping-pong—through a relative and quickly became a fan of its fun sense of play and low barriers to entry. Before long, she was hitting the courts regularly, playing casually with friends, and eventually competing in tournaments against some of the sport’s biggest pros.
Within a year of picking up the game, Townsend was so inspired by the pickleball's tight-knit community that she launched , a site featuring strategies, player stories, and merch. Today, it boasts nearly 2 million readers, with a newsletter, podcast, shop, and more—all led by Townsend.The 34-year-old, who still works full-time at a law firm while devoting upwards of 20 hours a week to The Pickler, tells Glamour that she never expected pickleball to become such a major part of her life.
“I’m surprised at the level of involvement and engagement I’ve gotten from the sport,” she says. Yet Townsend’s journey is an increasingly familiar one for many pickleball fans, some of whom, like her, have quit jobs, started side hustles, or even moved cross-country to be closer to the game’s biggest hotspots.Take Catherine Baxter, a 31-year-old from Cincinnati who left her job as an executive at in March to focus full-time on , a pickleball paddle and gear company she founded in 2021.