Pickleball is a paddle sport invented in 1965, and Google Shopping interest for the keyword pickleball sits at 28 of 100 for the week of August 29 2026. That reading is down 3.45% from 29 on August 22 and up 86.67% from 15 on August 1, per Trends MCP get_growth on google shopping pulled September 3 2026. The 261-week series opened at 3 on September 4 2021 and peaked at 100 on May 23 2026, so 28 is 72% under that spring high and a climb off a July trough of 15. Same-week 2025 was 18. Amazon for the same keyword is 51.2 on July 31 and down 34.69% over 30 days, so this page charts shopping.
About pickleball
Pickleball is a racket sport invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, by Joel Pritchard, Barney McCallum, and Bill Bell, in which two or four players hit a perforated plastic ball over a 34-inch (0.86 m) net on a badminton-sized court with a 7-foot kitchen that bans volleys. Washington named it the official state sport in 2022, and Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill on March 28 2022 on the original Pritchard court.
USA Pickleball formed in 1984 and still publishes the official rulebook. The Sports and Fitness Industry Association, in a June 4 2026 release, said 24.3 million Americans played in 2025, up from 4.2 million in 2020, with core players at 7.5 million. USA Pickleball's annual growth report, updated January 30 2026, lists 104,828 members for 2025, 18,258 court locations, and 82,613 known courts. Strava is the fitness-tracking neighbor that sits next to racket-sport shopping in the same late-summer window.
What the time series shows
Google Shopping interest for pickleball is 28 for the week of August 29 2026, up 86.67% from 15 on August 1, with get_growth also printing -3.45% over 7 days from 29 on August 22, on a 261-week series that peaked at 100 on May 23 2026. Last eight weekly prints are 19, 17, 15, 15, 18, 24, 29, and 28. 90-day change from 58 on May 30 is -51.72%, because that window still includes the spring spike.
The last two years are a slow grind, then a 2026 spring mountain, then a late-summer rebuild. Same-week 2025 was 18 and 2024 was 7. 2026 hit 100 on May 23, then 82 on June 27 before July printed 15. August rebuilt 15, 18, 24, 29, and 28. 28 is 55.56% above the 18 same-week mark on August 30 2025. Week-over-week percent-change sample standard deviation on the last 52 weeks is 26.97%. The Google Shopping trends page is the source behind every percentage on this page.
Why the page charts Google Shopping
Amazon is the native retail source for a product people buy, and it fails the mover bar on pickleball: get_growth prints 51.2 on July 31 2026, minus 34.69% over 30 days from 78.4 and minus 36.32% over 1 year from 80.4, with only 49 points and a collapsed 7-day window. Google Search printed 70 on August 29, minus 7.89% over 30 days from 76 and minus 1.41% over 1 year from 71, so search is a household-name wiggle, not a breakout. Google Shopping is the 261-week series that still clears +25% over 30 days and +15% over 1 year.
Same-day Google Shopping neighbors in the racket and running cluster rose with pickleball, which is why the related grid points at gear and fitness topics. pickleball paddle printed 22, plus 120.0% over 30 days from 10. wilson printed 41, plus 64.0% from 25. selkirk printed 35, plus 45.83% from 24. hoka printed 28, plus 40.0% from 20. nike printed 30, plus 15.38% from 26. strava printed 39 from a 30-day baseline of 0, so that growth figure is omitted. Garmin Fenix is the GPS-watch shopping page that shares the same outdoor-gear season.
The Trends MCP calls for this keyword
get_time_series with source google shopping and keyword pickleball is the call behind the chart, returning 261 weekly points from 2021-09-04 through 2026-08-29 stored as {date, value} with no smoothing, which is the only series this page is allowed to quote. get_growth on the same pair, windows 7D and 30D, is the headline math: 29 to 28 (-3.45%) and 15 to 28 (+86.67%). Those tools have to share a source. Mixing the Amazon 51.2 with the Google Shopping 28 would invent a story the APIs do not tell. get_top_trends on Google Trends by Category Sports listed college football, the United States Open, and club matches on September 3 2026, not the shopping query.
A copy-paste pair for Claude or Cursor:
get_time_series source="google shopping" keyword="pickleball"
get_growth source="google shopping" keyword="pickleball" percent_growth=["7D","30D"]
REST is the same body at https://api.trendsmcp.ai/api with Authorization: Bearer and mode set to get_time_series or get_growth.