Can pickleball go corporate in Canada?

Like many retirees, William Shim, 70, has embraced the sport of pickleball as a way of staying in shape and socializing.

But getting space on the court can be complicated and, often, has to reserve two weeks in advance.

“You have to be fast to get a place to play,” said Shim, who spoke with CBC News just before stepping on a Calgary court.

While the Pickleball rises popularityThe balance between supply and demand has been increasingly unbalanced.

Sometimes, the growing popularity of sport has caused tension among the passionate of the pickleball and other community members who are not interested in having their Tennis courts either Park space taken control. (A mayor in Pei even Leave your job by a dispute on the development of pickleball).

Now, an American company is committed to earning a lot of money with all those Pickleball Hambriento field players with a network of pickleball franchises on a roof in all important cities in Canada.

Picklr began in 2021, began to franchise in 2023 and currently has 26 locations from Alabama to Wyoming.

It is one of several Pickleball franchises that have opened to the south of the border in recent years and quickly exploded in popularity, said Todd Boss, Pickleball writer of Forbes magazine. (Some other big names include Kingdom Pickleball, Dill Dinkers and Ace Pickleball Club).

“These companies are basically going from zero to [owning] “From 10 to 12 facilities in a year and a half,” said Boss. “That is quite huge.”

But some say that Canada could be a more difficult market to conquer.

It is not that Canadians do not like the pickleball, but that this country does not have an excess of available commercial space that can easily become pickleball courts.

“You can be ‘hunger for space’, but if there is no food on the table … there is nothing to eat,” said Alex Edmison, Senior Vice President of CBRE, a commercial real estate firm. “It is a limitation of the offer.”

The space, the ‘greatest obstacle’

Within the conference room of a Toronto hotel, representatives of The Picklr recently began its launch in Canada with an event for possible franchisees.

Among them was Randy Kufske, a Kitchener-Waterloo retiree, Ontario, and a snow bird who hopes to open a pickleball club with his son. Kufske recently visited a location in Salt Lake City as part of the “Discovery Day” of the company’s franchise and says it was impressed by what he saw.

The complicated thing now, he said, is to find a place to house him. Kufske is looking for a central place that can attract players from each of the twin cities and is also divided into areas to allow sports sports.

“That is undoubtedly the greatest obstacle,” Kufske said.

Picklr said the business often looks for “second generation” retailers, basically, great stores that have closed their doors. The new promotions in search of anchor tenants are another good option.

Industrial spaces can also work, as long as they are not also Industrial, said Wood, co -founder of Picklr.

“We don’t want to be in a huge industrial park where semi -trailers enter and go out all the time,” he said.

Some pickleball courts have already achieved Mount a store in vacant spaces of Canadian shopping centers. But Chris Walker, director of development of the company, acknowledged that the United States is “very overdeveloped” compared to Canada and that the company will have to work harder in Canada to find the right space.

“The occupation will surely be a challenge, we will have to be creative,” Walker said.

Even so, the company is optimistic and tells CBC that it signed an offer to lease its first Canadian location in Winnipeg.

The spatial challenge may surprise some, since in recent years there have been many headlines on physical stores. closing and shopping centers dying.

Edmison, from CBBR, says that the population has grown in recent years and has promoted the demand for consumer and groceries, while high construction costs and interest rates have limited new constructions to some extent.

In addition, you can’t simply build a pickled cover court anywhere. A space has to be wide enough for several courts and high enough so that players are not constantly throwing balls into the sprinkle system. It has to be easy to access or at least have enough space to park.

The space between columns is another underestimated factor, said Randy Popplestone, general director of Calgary Pickleball Center. After all, he said, you don’t want players to crash against a pillar in the middle of the court.

“There are so many factors that make a location successful,” said Popplestone, who said that finding a space was “incredibly difficult.”

Now that it is open, the business, located inside an old plumbing supply store and HVAC, is busy. A recent Tuesday was full of activity in the middle of the day with players playing squeezed in a day game.

Work is still needed to boost sales. After all, there are many Pickleball players who are happy with the space of the court in their local community center and do not want to pay membership installments in a more specialized space.

“There really is no need for people to stop playing in these community associations for 2 dollars an hour, right?” Popplestone said.

“You have to motivate new people or the same people in a novel way, and that can be really difficult.”

Advantage of the franchise model.

Boss, the Pickleball writer, agreed that a great challenge for Pickleball Business owners is to deal with the cost per square foot and create a sufficient membership base to pay it.

Although the picklet is fashionable, it is not necessarily an infallible business. There have been some examples south of the border of facilities closing above trade.

But the franchise model that companies like The Picklr have advantages, Boss said. Individual franchisees can benefit from the brand’s recognition and have a model that has already worked in other places.

“They will give you a plane and a brand, and you will be ready and running as soon as you find a place,” Boss said.

Wood, co -founder of The Picklr, expects the model to arrive in Canada. In fact, imagine that The Picklr will eventually become a sports club in this country, but a kind of community meeting place.

“We really strive to create a lifestyle experience that becomes its ‘third place’,” said Wood, referring to a term coined by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg.

“You have a job, you have a house and then you have The Picklr.”