Pickleball was invented in the summer of 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, by three friends: Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum.

Quick Scoop

  • The game began in 1965 as a backyard family activity at Joel Pritchard’s home on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle.
  • Pritchard, Bell, and McCallum improvised using a badminton court, table tennis paddles, and a perforated plastic (wiffle-style) ball.
  • The first dedicated pickleball court was built a couple of years later, in 1967, in a backyard on Bainbridge Island, helping the game move from casual pastime toward an organized sport.

In other words, when someone asks “when was pickleball invented,” the key date is 1965 , and the key place is Bainbridge Island, Washington , with those three neighbors credited as the sport’s co-creators.

TL;DR: Pickleball was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, by Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum as a fun, family-friendly backyard game that later exploded into a global sport.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.