$450 paddles and millions in prize money: has pickleball sold out?

Pickleball has several, rival professional leagues. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

In Frank Pritchard’s telling, it was only meant to be a bit of fun. Or rather, a lot of fun.

Pritchard was there in the summer of 1965 when his father, the congressman Joel Pritchard, and two friends devised the game of pickleball at the house they rented for the summer on Bainbridge Island in Washington state.