Which States Have the Biggest Pickleball Court Gaps?

California, Texas and New York have thousands fewer listed courts than they would if their court supply matched the 50-state population-weighted rate. That is a benchmark gap — not a claim that those states “need” exactly that many courts.

What the benchmark measures

We started with the Pickleball Cosmos U.S. Court Infrastructure Database — a dated August 12, 2026 snapshot of listed courts and locations normalized by U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates. The 50-state aggregate contains 87,121 listed courts for 341.1 million residents, or 25.54 courts per 100,000 people.

For each state, we calculated how many courts it would have at that same 25.54-per-100,000 rate, then compared that benchmark with the state's listed count. Positive values mean the state is above the national benchmark; negative values mean it is below.

Largest absolute gaps below the 50-state benchmark

Largest gaps above the benchmark

Do not read this as a construction target

A benchmark gap is not the same as unmet demand. It does not measure participation by state, utilization, public versus private access, indoor versus outdoor inventory, seasonality, pricing or planned facilities. California being 2,697 courts below the population-weighted benchmark does not establish that California should build exactly 2,697 courts.

The value of the calculation is narrower: it identifies where listed infrastructure is unusually thin or dense relative to population and gives researchers a reproducible baseline to combine later with participation, utilization and investment data.