(KRON) — The pickleball craze that is swept throughout the Bay Space and nation in recent times has apparently paid off, particularly for feminine athletes. In keeping with the Skilled Pickleball Affiliation, professional feminine gamers on the PPA Tour earned a median of $260,000 in 2024.
That is greater than best-paid athletes within the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (WNBA) — about $242,000 — and greater than twice the common wage within the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL) — $56,000.
The PPA known as the 2024 professional pickleball season a “pinnacle year” that kicked off with a merger between two main pickleball entities, Main League Pickleball and the Carvana PPA Tour. The game’s famous person, 17-year-old Anna Leigh Waters was dominant, incomes PPA World No. 1 rankings in singles, doubles and blended doubles, together with being named MLP season MVP.
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Greater than 320,000 followers attended PPA Tour and MLP occasions this yr — a 40% soar over 2023. The game additionally noticed explosive progress on the skilled degree with professional qualifier registrations for PPA occasions leaping from 7% in 2023 to 16% in 2024.
Collectively, professional gamers with the MLP and PPA earned greater than $30 million over the course of the season, greater than the WNBA, Premier Lacrosse League, and NBA G League. Professional pickleball can also be distinctive in that it provides equal pay and play for female and male athletes.
Within the Bay Space, leisure pickleball has seen explosive progress in recent times. Nevertheless, that progress has not been with out rising pains.
In San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood earlier this yr, a pair began a petition complaining of noise from a close-by pickleball courtroom. Nevertheless, it was later revealed that the mansion they lived in had a pickleball courtroom of its personal.
