Photo credit: ALTEREDSNAPS
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
USA Pickleball, the national governing body for the newly popular sport, just announced the launch of its “quiet category” for pickleball equipment. The new category will promote products that are 50% or less of the current acoustic footprint of modern pickleball equipment. It will also include specific guidance for manufacturers. As reported in many news articles, pickleball noise is a major problem for those unfortunate enough to live near the courts. Pickleball noise is snappy and high-pitched, because both the ball and racquet are hard.
While pickleball has grown in popularity, tennis has shrunk in popularity. As a result, tennis courts around the country are being converted to pickleball courts. Four pickleball courts can fit into a single tennis court. And, pickleball is played with two more players than in most tennis matches. So there are a lot more hits of the ball — thousands per hour. While the sound isn’t loud, it is annoying to most neighbors.
There no published articles yet in scientific literature about pickleball noise, so I have not been able to comment on this problem from an informed perspective. I hope that will change after a special session on this topic at the Acoustical Society of America’s next meeting. The Quiet Coalition and Quiet Communities are aware of the problem and are following this issue. In the meantime, there is a Facebook group that offers support for people concerned about pickleball noise.
And now, there is a quiet category for pickleball products. We hope these products become mandatory for amateur use, because a quieter world will be a better and healthier world for all.
