Pickleball is setting itself up for a licensing spree as it grows in popularity.

That much was underscored when basketball stars LeBron James, Draymond Green, and Kevin Love recently joined an ownership group buying a team in the one-year-old Major League Pickleball. The league is expanding from 12 teams to 16 teams in 2023 and playing in six cities.

This focus on licensing is also reflected by equipment supplier Baddle striking licensing deals with Vera Bradley (racquet covers), NHL (paddles) and U.S. Army (racquets), while fellow supplier Joola has an agreement with one of the top men’s players in Ben Johns (racquets). CitiPickle also has plans to open a 10,000-square-foot pickleball facility in Staten Island, NY in early 2023 that will pair four courts with a full-service restaurant.

Pickleball is drawing so much attention from the licensing industry in part because the sport is in its early stages, which means there are no long-standing partnerships or precedents.

A number of sporting goods brands like Franklin (balls), Sketchers, Wilson, Head, and Fila (footwear) have made strides in the sport while retailers are carving space for pickleball equipment on their shelves, with Dick’s Sporting Goods merchandising it in stores alongside other racquet sports. And there’s no uniform per se, except in leagues with teams, which means apparel appears ripe for licensing along with eyewear, footwear, nutritional products, and the full range of equipment.

Baddle Pickleball sought a Vera Bradley license because it meshed well with Baddle’s “look good, play good” brand proposition while, in the case of the NHL, pickleball has proved popular with hockey players, said Baddle co-founder Steve Leder.

“Pickleball is following a similar trajectory as other ‘mainstream’ sports and, like them, licensing can play a key role in quickly legitimizing and lending credibility to not only the sport but also the brands that are a part of it,” Leder said. “That’s what you’re seeing here, with licensing you can tie known brand entities—and with it their accompanying positive brand perceptions—to a newer sport like pickleball to accelerate traction and acceptance with the mainstream audience.”

The evidence of popularity, a key for licensing, also can be found in the sports’ numbers. Pickleball grew 39% to 4.8 million players between 2019 and 2021, with an average age of 39. More than 60% are “core” players who partake eight or more times a year, and there are more than 9,500 facilities in the U.S.

“As far as fashion [goes] it is a huge opportunity and with paddles there are new ones coming out every day,” said Alita Friedman, founder and CEO of Alita’s Brand Bar and a pickleball player. Players wear a variety of apparel, she said, including everything from running shorts and tank tops to athleisure. “It’s going to morph into a style. You have a tennis outfit, and you really don’t have that yet for pickleball, but it’s coming.”

It remains to be seen, however, whether pickleball can overcome the obstacles that hampered eSports in licensing. Activision Blizzard Entertainment launched the Overwatch League through affiliate Major League Gaming in 2018, and made a push for licensing with the hire of former Mattel executive Tim Kilpin to head up the effort. But with most teams generating only regional interest and the lack of nationally known teams and players, retailers were resistant to carry products chainwide.

Similar issues have arisen with other new professional leagues as they try to pursue the licensing strategies long championed by the likes of Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL, and the NBA. Major League Soccer, for example, labored for several years in licensing before breaking through with distribution at national retailers.

“As pickleball grows in popularity, I think it is going to move faster than eSports because this is an actual physical sport where you have equipment and a big fandom,” said a sporting goods licensee. “There are also so many existing sporting goods companies that already have distribution and if it makes sense to add this, they will.”