Pickleball Boom Brings Major New Indoor Facility to Yorktown

By Elaine Clarke

When Marni Rose took her first lesson in 2021, she discovered a sport that can grab you and refuse to let go. Once it takes hold, an ever-growing number of devotees say, you’re hooked.

“People really get obsessed with the sport, myself included,” Rose said. “You get bit by the pickleball bug and you’re forever infected by it.”

The Tarrytown resident began teaching friends to play, building a local pickleball community while honing her own skills with lessons from coaches. Her passion for the game eventually led her to become a USA Pickleball ambassador—and opened the door to a role with Sportime Pickleball.

Sportime Pickleball is a branch of Sportime Clubs LLC, a company that owns and operates tennis, pickleball, and sports clubs across the New York tri-state area. As part of a larger focus on pickleball clubs, the company will be opening a new indoor pickleball facility in Yorktown next month, where Rose will serve as general manager. Originally working in healthcare, she was happy to pivot her career toward pickleball.

“I was lucky enough to have the opportunity for this position, and decided to kind of pivot away from health care into something that I’m really, really passionate about and so far a job that I really love,” she explained.

While construction is still underway, the 30,000-square-foot pickleball center is aiming to open around Sept. 20–21. It will offer much more than its 12 state-of-the-art courts, including rentable party rooms, a pro shop, and areas to lounge and socialize with other players.

Rose said the facility will also host tournaments and offer programming to beginners and kids. She emphasized how much she loves to introduce new players to pickleball.

“It’s the fastest growing sport in America for several years now,” Rose said. “Its just pretty incredible to see how it’s taken off.”

Popularity Boom

For a game that was invented in 1965, pickleball has seen an explosion in recent years—with a 311% growth in the past three years as of 2024. As its popularity continues to increase, public and private facilities can only try to keep up with the hiking demand.

Stan Chin, a retired resident of Eastchester, had never even heard of pickleball until one of his friends reached out looking for more players in 2019. Now in 2025, he plays six to seven times a week—sometimes even twice in one day.

“There are days I will play three, four, sometimes five hours a day,” he said. “I’m totally addicted to it.”

Chin said in 2024, he played pickleball more than 250 days out of the year.

John Beyler of White Plains is another retiree hooked on the sport. He mentioned in the past, pickleballers used to have difficulty finding other players. Now, however, players aren’t as hard to come by as court time.

“One of my coaches talked about three years ago, he would drive up to an hour just to find a game to play with other pickleball players,” Beyler explained. “Now there’s a lot more courts, but still not enough, based on the number of people that want to play.”

Rose, who first picked up the sport during the pandemic in 2021, believes COVID was a factor in the growth of pickleball.

“It did have this kind of explosion during COVID times and it was kind of a sport that was easy for people to kind of casually pick up,” she said. “People started just buying nets and playing in their driveways during COVID is just like something to do outside that seemed relatively safe.”

Beyler believes the current boom was also influenced by the growth of indoor courts, especially in the Northeast where seasonal weather makes it difficult to play year-round.

“I’ll play outside into the low 40s, but a lot of people won’t,” Beyler said. “And then if it gets windy or if it’s cloudy, it’s hard to be outside. So these indoor courts, I think will be a real benefit.”

The recent influx of pickleballers has not only created an increase in private companies investing in courts, but also local municipalities. In Briarcliff Manor, Chilmark Park now offers six courts for pickleball. In Leewood Park in Eastchester, four courts sit ready for play.

Ken Sherman, the director of the Department of Recreation for the Town of Cortlandt, said the town needed to open five new pickleball courts after the original four they renovated from an old tennis court in 2021 were not enough.

“We just recently made our hockey rink down in our youth center into five pickleball courts. Just because the popularity has just boomed and we saw the need for five more,” he said. “We were running out of parking spots at the site at Croton Avenue. We also had a lot of non-residents using them at that point.”

Sherman said to meet the demands from players, the town supervisor saw it necessary to transfer the hockey rink into courts, which will now rotate seasonally between different usages.

Baller Benefits

Each of the players mentioned the social aspect of the game. Not only do the small court sizes make the sport more accessible to all levels and ages of players—it also is more accessible for conversation. Chin compared pickleball to other sports he regularly plays, like basketball.

“I play basketball on a weekly basis, and I play with great guys, but on the court with four players, it’s more intimate,” Chin explained. “You could talk before the game, after the game—the bonding is just so quick.”

Beyler emphasized open play, where new players show up with their paddle and are rotated into a game with strangers, allows players to easily meet each other.

“I don’t travel as much as when I was working, but when I travel, it’s very easy to just take my paddle with me and go find a local game,” Beyler explained. “I like to say that the hardest thing about pickleball is remembering the names of all your new pickleball friends.”

All three of the players had become friends through pickleball. Rose similarly mentioned that she has made over a hundred new friends that same way.

“It’s such an interesting sport that it’s just like naturally social, and it’s just a great kind of community builder,” she said. “Another thing that I love so much about it is that pretty much anybody can play it.”

Rose explained she sees players in a wide age range, from little kids to people well into their 90s. She emphasized pickleball is easy to pick up—you don’t need any racket sport experience to play.

“Once you understand the basics of the rules, you’re good to start playing, and then you can continuously just refine your skills,” she said. “People who may have never played a sport growing up or in their adult life are now able to compete and have a great time.”

It is also good for your health, mental and physical, according to Rose. She says that players can play hours every day without getting fatigued.

“It’s great for improving your balance and your coordination and keeping you agile,” she said. “Pickleball is here and it’s here to stay, and I think it’s only going to continue to grow. People really, really love this sport.”