Tickled by Pickled?
Stephen Colbert hosted a prime time celebrity pickleball tournament — but not everyone was happy about it.
Last week my pickleball-heavy social media was inundated with ads and reminders for the upcoming show PICKLED. For those who might have missed it, PICKLED was “TV’s hottest pickleball tournament hosted by Stephen Colbert and features eight celebrity teams competing to benefit Comic Relief.” In the days leading up to the show, people were getting pretty amped up about pickleball being featured during prime time on a major television network. We posted a reminder about the show on our Facebook page and got WAY more shares than we typically do which showed us just how fired up about it people were.
The thing was, while some were eagerly anticipating PICKLED, others were already ready to dismiss it…
I watched all of PICKLED (though sped through the commercials). Before I tell you what I thought, let’s see what the internet had to say!
While not everyone felt this way, a quick survey of Facebook comments made it pretty clear that many of you landed somewhere between slightly offended all the way to fully triggered.
“This is the worst pickleball I’ve ever seen!!!! Awful!”
“Terrible Not even how the game is played. Turned it off after 5 minutes.”
“Should have put the real professional Pickleball players on the show. Pickleball sport is no Joke!!!”
“The sport should be played friendly and some of the women stars in this show were rude. Throwing the ball at someone…”
Kelly Rowland & Emma Watson joined a cast of celebrities to raise money for Comic Relief. 📸 People.
It’s true that nobody on PICKLED was actually a strong player. In fact, most were somewhere in 2.5 land at best. Will Ferrell and Emma Watson stood out to me as having some potential but the others were mostly pretty uncoordinated and/or had poor racquet/paddle skills. Sugar Ray Leonard was alright at putting away easy balls but don’t count on him for much more than that. Will any of these people be quitting their day job anytime soon to try to turn pro? No.
PICKLED was full of the usual tropes and puns associated with the game.
A common criticism I saw wasn’t just that the players were weak, but that the show as a whole was making fun of pickleball. It’s true that there was no short supply of pickleball puns — most of which were real groaners — and that the whole show had an air of silliness to it. But you know what? That’s ok!
All sports are inherently silly: you take some weird objects, give them prescribed roles or functions, paint lines on a field or hard surface, and assign a task like moving that object past a line or placing it in a hole or hoop. Don’t forget the arbitrary rules that prevent certain ways of completing the task.
ALL SPORTS ARE INHERENTLY RIDICULOUS!
Pickleball, of course, is no exception. The name alone is begging for a good ribbing. But what does it say about us, as pickleball players, if we can’t take the joke? Are we so insecure about the game we love that we go to pieces just because people make fun of it? The apoplectic response so many people had to PICKLED makes me think that there is some deep-seated doubt in some of you that it’s ok to love the game. Pickleball is a weird sport — just like all sports are weird — and that’s ok!
All sports are inherently silly: they are unnecessary challenges combined with arbitrary rules.
Let me propose an alternate reading of PICKLED: pickleball has now reached a point in popular culture that it can’t be dismissed. Major networks are spending serious dollars to put it in front of people because it is in the ether and people are curious. PICKLED showed how much fun the game can be — even for those who haven’t played before and are minimally athletic. More than anything, pickleball was presented as a game that is approachable to the average person and, I would argue, highlighted why it is popping up throughout mainstream culture — it’s damn fun to play!
Do I wish that the level of play was a little higher? Sure. It would have been nice to see a few more quick exchanges at the net or an athletic move once in awhile. I also think it would have been smart to incorporate a little bit of PB education into the show to help the audience (and at times, players) better understand what was going on. But I’m not losing any sleep over these omissions. And I’m definitely not offended that during a televised fundraiser to fight inter-generational poverty, hosted by an A-list comedian, pickleball wasn’t presented as “serious”. My confidence in pickleball is not so fragile that it can’t handle a joke.
Pickleball is a game and games are meant to be fun. It looked like most people on PICKLED were having a great time even with minimal preparation or experience with the sport. And that, I think, is a win for us. Yes, PICKLED was a little bit ridiculous. But you know what? That’s ok. The world is a tough place right now and there are lots of things that need to be taken seriously. Pickleball, thankfully, isn’t one of them.
Mark Renneson is a professional pickleball coach and is the founder of Third Shot Sports and Pickleball Coaching International. He can be reached by email at mark@thirdshotsports.com.