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Pickleball Fever: Why Indian Celebrities Are Falling for the Sport
Startups, celebrities and socialites rally together as pickleball enters India’s sports landscape — and even finds a future here.
It’s early evening at a South Mumbai club, and the courts are buzzing. Under the lights, laughter bounces between serves, selfies are snapped mid-rally, and neon paddles gleam. The sport isn’t cricket or tennis. It’s pickleball — and celebrities aren’t just joining the game, they’re leading it.
In a country where cinema and sport have long revolved around cricket, a new kind of courtship is taking shape. Pickleball, a fast-paced blend of tennis, badminton and ping-pong, is becoming a cultural obsession — and Bollywood isn’t just endorsing it, it’s shaping its story.
From gated communities in Bengaluru to rooftop clubs in Ahmedabad, from corporate offsites to birthday parties in tier-3 towns, India is in the throes of a pickleball boom. Its rise here, unlike in the US, hasn’t depended on legacy institutions or national broadcast deals. Instead, it’s thrived on urban convenience, grassroots participation — and star power. When Aamir Khan took to the court during a World Pickleball League match, it signalled the sport’s growing traction within the entertainment industry. His appearance wasn’t a one-off — it reflected a broader shift, as more public figures lend credibility to a game once seen as niche. It was the combination of fun, fitness and social fuel — that drew actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu to it. A familiar face in wellness circles, Prabhu became one of the first franchise owners in the World Pickleball League with her team, the Chennai Super Champs, launched in January 2025. “It ties into my larger dream of getting people moving,” she says.
Filmmaker Karan Johar now finds himself spinning the ball on the court. As a brand ambassador for Global Sports Pickleball ahead of the India Open 2025, Johar brings both marquee value and cultural relevance. “I realised pickleball is more than a sport. It’s contributing to pop culture,” he said in an interview with Forbes India. He further explains the connection between the film industry and sport, “The movie industry has always contributed to the face value of sports. As you see with the Indian Premier League (IPL) in cricket, the biggest movie star in the country has a team.”
Director Shashank Khaitan, also associated with the India Open 2025, who reportedly brought Global Sports to Johar’s attention, said in an interview with MoneyControl that, “I have a background in tennis, so I immediately took to the game (pickleball). I also saw the potential in the game and then decided to partner with Global Sports to grow the game.” All this interest isn’t just because pickleball is a lucrative business today. Prabhu plays at least twice a week and is deeply involved in organising the upcoming Chennai Championships.
For her, the franchise investment was as emotional as entrepreneurial. “Chennai is home. So, whatever I do will begin in Chennai,” she says. “And I do know this city loves sports — I had to have the Chennai franchise, and I am a nerd, I’ve always wanted to own a team.”
However, it is the easy, low-barrier accessibility that is central to the sport’s appeal. In Bengaluru, where the startup ecosystem meets a broader urban wellness wave, GoRally cofounders Abhinav Shankar and Sam Sancheti set up India’s first dedicated pickleball facility in February 2024. “We were looking for a sport that’s accessible to everyone,” says Shankar. “Pickleball turned out to be the perfect fit.” GoRally has hosted everything from singles mixers to corporate leagues. “Whether you’re new in town or just looking to meet people, pickleball fits right in,” says Sancheti. “It’s fun, it’s versatile, and surprisingly emotional for something so casual.” If wellness is the engine, then community is the accelerant. “Pickleball doesn’t feel like a tournament,” Prabhu reflects later. “It feels like a gathering. It fits into your life. It makes you show up.”
Part of that inclusiveness is structural. “It feels like it was designed — intentionally or not — for the modern world,” Shankar adds. The light plastic ball used in pickleball keeps things slow enough for everyone to enjoy, even beginners. “Sam even spotted courts while travelling with his family in Rajkot. That’s when we realised it wasn’t just a tier-1 phenomenon — tier-2 cities were embracing it too,” says Shankar.
That spirit of improvisation is familiar to Vrushali Thakare, a silver medallist at the World Pickleball Championship’s Bali leg in October 2024. Raised in Chopda, a small village in Maharashtra with just two synthetic courts, Thakare first played the sport with makeshift equipment — wooden paddles crafted by local carpenters and shared balls that cost ₹400 each. “We didn’t have proper facilities,” she says. “We adjusted badminton nets and just made it work.”
What started as a workaround has become a full-blown career. Thakare now lives in Pune, and represents India internationally and plays for the Bengaluru Jawans, a franchise owned by filmmaker Atlee and his wife Priya. The team clinched the title at the first World Pickleball League, hosted at Mumbai’s CCI between January and February 2024. In a video posted by the WPBL and Bengaluru Jawans Instagram page, Atlee admits, “Being an owner...it’s a completely different language.” As a filmmaker, he’s used to taking control — but here, he has none. Despite that, he confesses that his biggest inspiration is Shah Rukh Khan, who has been his “godfather in cinema”, and someone he admires for what he has achieved with Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL.
Atlee’s team played alongside teams like Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh’s Pune United, Rishabh Pant and Swiggy’s Mumbai Pickle Power — and, of course, Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s Chennai Super Champs.
For the latter, the interest in the sport connects to her broader investment in wellness. With stakes in brands like Nourish You, a superfoods label, and Secret Alchemist, which offers aromatherapy-based healing, Prabhu sees pickleball as part of a larger philosophy. “Everything I’ve invested in recently is connected to health and wellness,” she says. “I put my time, energy and money into what I find purpose in.” She’s not alone in that belief. For Adit Patel, who also competes in paddle— a tennis-style sport popular in Europe — and racketlon, a four-sport challenge combining table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis, pickleball’s ascent is hard to ignore. “Tournaments in cities like Mumbai are offering million-dollar cash prizes,” he says. “That kind of money is rare — even in badminton.” Much of the sport’s momentum, he adds, comes from IPL-style leagues and the celebrity attention they bring.
And the celebrity interest is growing. Today, influencer-led tournaments, celebrity matches, and brand partnerships are pushing pickleball into its next chapter. “Anything that builds community will attract entertainment and pop culture,” Prabhu says. In India — where cricket has long monopolised the space between sport and cinema — pickleball is offering a new kind of fusion: less stadium, more club; less spectacle, more participation. That shift is being guided by figures like Sunil Valavalkar, the founder of the All India Pickleball Association (AIPA). He first encountered the sport in 1999 while staying with Canadian athlete Barry Mansfield during a youth exchange. Inspired, he launched AIPA in 2008. “People laughed and asked, ‘Who will play this?’ ” he recalls. “But I was convinced — pickleball was inclusive, affordable and addictive.”
Fifteen years later, AIPA has over 10,000 registered players. India has won medals in international events from Bali to Rome. “This growth is a wildfire,” says Valavalkar. “If it’s not governed well, it won’t sustain. We’ve seen this before — with racquetball.”
Still, optimism runs high. “Pickleball offers potential on both fronts — recreational and professional,” says Thakare. “That balance is rare and exciting.”
Pickleball is now doing what golf once promised but rarely delivered: making networking feel natural. Unlike golf’s country-club exclusivity, pickleball is fast, democratic and communal. “I’ve been to singles mixers, birthday parties, even farewell events — all centred on pickleball,” says Patel. “You come for the game, but you stay for the people.”
The cultural crossover is evident on-screen too. Hollywood romcoms like Mother of the Bride and The Idea of You feature nods to the game. There’s even Princess Pickleball, a 2023 indie film built entirely around the sport. As in real life, pickleball on-screen has become shorthand for modern affluence, social ease, and low-key luxury. For both Bollywood and Hollywood, the message is clear: Pickleball isn’t just a game, it’s a lifestyle — intimate, aspirational and culturally loaded. And in India, it’s not just finding fans. It’s finding a future.
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