Picklebay CEO Siddhant Jatia: Revolutionizing Pickleball in India with 650+ Courts, 50K Players & a Vision for Participative Sports

Siddhant Jatia is the founder and CEO of Picklebay, a SaaS-first platform powering the explosive growth of pickleball in India. A fourth-generation entrepreneur from a 120-year-old business family and an Indian School of Business alumnus, he launched Picklebay in May 2025 after spotting a massive opportunity.

Pickleball's accessibility, played on small courts with simple rules, makes it ideal for all ages and fits perfectly into urban India's space crunch. Four pickleball courts fit in the space of one tennis court, delivering far higher real-estate yield. In an exclusive interview with MyKhel, Jatia opened up on an array of things.

1. What gap did you spot in India's sports ecosystem that led to Picklebay?

What stood out to me early on was not the lack of interest in sport, but the lack of structure around participation.
India has always had strong sporting interest, but most of it has been skewed toward spectating rather than playing. When I started engaging with pickleball, I saw a rapidly growing community but a completely fragmented ecosystem. Players didn't know where to play, venues didn't have consistent utilisation, and tournaments were largely unstructured.

There was a clear information asymmetry - no single trusted platform that connected players, venues, and organisers. Everything operated in silos. Discovery happened through WhatsApp groups, bookings were manual, and there was no standardisation in formats or player progression.
That's where the opportunity was.

Picklebay was built to solve this exact problem - to create an operating system for participative sports, starting with pickleball. We wanted to bring together infrastructure, technology, and community into one unified layer.
Because for any sport to scale, you don't just need players - you need systems, pathways, and trust.

2. Why do you believe pickleball is more than just a passing trend in India?

Pickleball is not growing because it's new - it's growing because it fits perfectly into how urban India is evolving.
There are three structural reasons why I believe this is not a passing trend.

First, accessibility. It's easy to learn, not intimidating, and inclusive across age groups. Unlike many traditional sports, you don't need years of training to start enjoying it.

Second, efficiency. In cities where space is limited, pickleball's compact format makes it far easier to scale infrastructure. This makes it viable for residential societies, clubs, schools, and even hotels.
Third, and most importantly, behaviour. We're seeing a clear shift toward social fitness. People don't just want to work out - they want to engage, compete, and connect. Pickleball naturally delivers all three.

Globally, we've seen similar patterns play out, with participation scaling rapidly across demographics. India is now at an earlier stage of that same curve, but the underlying drivers are very strong. When a sport aligns with accessibility, infrastructure viability, and behavioural change, it tends to sustain. That's why I see pickleball as a long-term category, not a short-term trend.

3. Building a full-stack platform is complex, what was the toughest piece to crack early on?

The toughest part wasn't technology - it was bringing multiple stakeholders into one system.
We are essentially building for three different user groups simultaneously: players, venue operators, and tournament organisers. Each has completely different needs and behaviours.

Players want ease of discovery, seamless booking, and competitive opportunities. Venues want quality in court construction, utilisation and operational efficiency.

Organisers want structured tournaments, smooth execution, and visibility. Getting all three to interact within a single ecosystem, while ensuring a seamless experience for each, was the hardest challenge early on.
The second challenge was trust.

In a fragmented ecosystem, people are used to doing things informally. Moving them onto a structured platform requires not just functionality, but credibility. That takes time.

We solved this by focusing heavily on on-ground execution - running tournaments, working closely with venues, and building community trust before scaling the tech layer aggressively. Once that foundation was built, the platform started compounding naturally.

4. You've scaled to 650+ courts and 50,000+ players quickly, what's driving this growth?

The growth has been a result of three things working together - community, infrastructure, and consistency of experience.

Today, we have 650+ courts listed on our platform across 7 cities, with 5,000+ active users on the platform and offline access to over 50,000 players across India. To put that in context, India currently has roughly 2,500 pickleball courts, which shows both the scale we've already achieved and how early we still are in the ecosystem.
First, community. Pickleball is inherently social, and once a core group forms in a city, growth becomes organic. People bring in friends, colleagues, and family - and that creates a strong word-of-mouth loop.

Second, infrastructure expansion. The sport's compact format and relatively low cost of setup make it highly viable for venues - whether it's residential complexes, clubs, schools, or hotels. This viability is what is accelerating court creation across cities.

Third, structured engagement. Through tournaments, events, and consistent play formats, we ensure that players don't just try the sport once - they come back, compete, and stay engaged. We are still in the early stages, and given the low entry barrier and strong behavioural fit, I believe this growth is only going to accelerate significantly in the coming years.

5. Which cities are emerging as pickleball hotspots, and why?

Pickleball adoption in India is currently concentrated in urban centres, but we're now starting to see strong momentum building in Tier 2 markets as well. One of the most interesting outliers is Ahmedabad, which today has over 500 courts. It's probably the first market where pickleball has seen mass adoption at scale, almost becoming the first sport that Gujarat has collectively embraced in this format.

Among metro cities, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Mumbai have developed some of the strongest ecosystems - with quality infrastructure, active communities, and consistent tournament participation. These cities have the right mix of disposable income, lifestyle orientation, and openness to new formats.

Delhi NCR, Pune, and Kolkata are also picking up rapidly. Kolkata, in particular, is interesting because it combines a legacy club culture with new-age participation, while Pune and NCR are benefiting from strong young professional communities.

What's common across all these markets is a combination of urban density, limited space, and demand for social fitness experiences. Pickleball fits perfectly into this - it's compact, accessible, and community-driven.
As awareness increases and infrastructure becomes more standardised, we expect this adoption curve to expand deeper into Tier 2 cities, making pickleball a truly pan-India sport.

6. How does Picklebay balance monetisation while keeping the sport accessible?

This balance is critical, especially in the early stages of building a sport. If you monetise too aggressively too soon, you restrict adoption. If you don't monetise at all, the ecosystem doesn't sustain. Our approach has been to focus on value-led, layered monetisation while keeping the entry barrier low.

Today, our primary revenue driver is infrastructure - building courts for partners and venue owners. This works well because the demand for quality infrastructure is growing, and it doesn't directly impact player accessibility.

The second layer is tournaments, where we generate revenue through player registrations and brand sponsorships. While this is a revenue stream, it's also more strategic - we're effectively building IPs that will become significantly more valuable over time.

We also monetise through our proprietary Tournament Management System, which is being used by third-party organisers - allowing us to scale without being asset-heavy. Looking ahead, Picklebay-operated venues launching in 2026 will become a strong revenue driver, giving us more control over experience and monetisation.
The philosophy remains simple - expand participation first, build monetisation around value, and grow the ecosystem sustainably.

7. What role do brands and sponsors play in your ecosystem today?

Brands are a key part of any sport, but for a new sport like Pickleball their role is evolving. Earlier, sports sponsorship was largely about visibility - logos, banners, and basic branding. In pickleball, we're seeing a shift toward experience-led partnerships.

Brands today want to engage with communities, not just advertise to them. Through tournaments and events, we give brands access to a highly engaged, premium audience. This allows for deeper integrations - on-ground activations, product experiences, and community engagement.

For brands, pickleball offers a unique opportunity - it's early, fast-growing, and has strong lifestyle alignment.
For us, partnerships help enhance the overall experience while also unlocking new monetisation layers.

8. Are you working towards building a structured pathway from amateur to professional players?

Yes, this is a core part of how we're building the ecosystem. All our tournament IPs - Picklebay India Tour, Picklebay Zonals, and Picklebay Open - are designed with clear classifications based on skill levels and age groups. We have categories for beginners, intermediate, advanced, and pro players, along with age brackets like 30+, 40+, 50+, and so on. This ensures that players compete within their own level, making the experience both competitive and accessible.

What's been very encouraging is that we are already seeing real progression. Players who start in beginner categories are moving to intermediate, then advanced, and eventually into pro divisions over multiple events. That journey is what creates long-term engagement.

Beyond just competition, we're also creating visibility and opportunity. Our events are now among the most reputed in India, and we've seen multiple players get noticed and signed by paddle companies and sponsors after performing at our tournaments.

In that sense, we're not just organising events - we're building a platform for talent discovery and growth.
Over time, this will evolve into a more structured competitive pyramid, aligned with governance frameworks, giving players a clear and credible pathway from grassroots to professional play.

9. Do you see pickleball entering mainstream multi-sport events or even a franchise league in India soon?

We're not just seeing early signs - we're already in that phase. India today already has multiple pickleball leagues such as the Indian Pickleball League, World Pickleball League, and Global Sports Pickleball League. This indicates that the ecosystem is evolving beyond just participation into structured, broadcast-friendly formats.

At the same time, pickleball now has a recognised governing body in India - the Indian Pickleball Association (IPA) - recognised by the National Sports Federations and Government of India. This is a critical step because governance brings standardisation, credibility, and long-term legitimacy to the sport.

Globally, there is also a strong push toward Olympic inclusion, with 2036 being a key target, and India is well-positioned to be part of that journey given the pace of growth we're seeing. Having said that, for leagues and multi-sport inclusion to truly sustain, they need a strong grassroots base. Participation has to come first.

Leagues will accelerate visibility, attract brands, and create aspirational value - but their success ultimately depends on the depth of the ecosystem underneath. From what we're seeing today, both layers - grassroots and top-end formats - are starting to build simultaneously, which is a very positive signal for the sport's future in India.

10. What's the long-term vision? Are you building India's biggest pickleball platform or something larger?

Pickleball is our starting point, not the end goal. What we're building at Picklebay is a participation-led sports ecosystem.

The idea is to create a unified platform where discovery, play, competition, and community all come together. Once this model is proven at scale in pickleball, it can extend to other emerging sports.

The long-term vision is to become the operating system for participative sports, not just in India, but potentially across markets. Because the real opportunity is not just in one sport - it's in transforming how people engage with sport altogether.