It’s Saturday. You just played three games, you’re texting the group chat—then you scroll. Tennis ball? Ping‑pong paddle? Radish. No pickleball emoji. Still.
The Numbers You Can’t Ignore
19.8 million Americans played pickleball in 2024—a 45.8% increase from 2023 and a staggering 311% growth over the past three years.
36.5 million people have tried pickleball at least once in the past year, representing 14% of the U.S. adult population.
The sport has maintained its status as the fastest-growing sport in America for four consecutive years, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.
That’s more U.S. participants than lacrosse, curling, and cricket combined (all with Apple‑approved emojis). This explosive growth underscores the cultural significance of pickleball and the need for its representation in digital communication—starting with its own emoji.
The Head‑Scratchers in iOS 18.4
Apple’s newest update added eight symbols: a paint splatter, a harp, even a face with under‑eye bags. Cool. But a paddle‑and‑perforated‑ball—the most requested combo on pickleball Twitter? Still missing.
Why an Emoji Actually Matters
- Emoji usage in nearly universal. Over 90% of the world’s online population uses them (per Emojipedia).
- Pickleball is here to stay. Businesses like Chicken N Pickle are expanding nationwide. Tennis courts everywhere are being converted.
- Emojis make digital communication more human. Emojis help express emotion, clarify tone, and build connection. They finish headlines, boost captions, and add emotion to texts. 🥒 🏓 isn’t cutting it.
- Pickleball deserves more representation. The sport’s not a fad—it’s a movement. And movements get emojis.
The Iconic Shapes of Pickleball
Emojis are at their best when they’re simple, recognizable, and iconic. And pickleball? We were built for this.
The Paddle
While pickleball paddles can vary in width, height, and thickness, one thing remains the same - their shape. There’s no confusing the rectangular form of a pickleball paddle with any other paddle or racket sport. It’s unique and immediately identifiable, a perfect fit for an emoji.
The Ball
The ball itself is equally recognizable thanks to its unique hole pattern and vibrant colors. Despite having a distant cousin in the whiffle ball, when placed next to the squared-off face of the paddle there’s no mistaking it – that’s a pickleball.
Our proposal + Design Considerations
Although the shapes of the paddle and ball make pickleball emoji unique and identifiable, thoughtful design choices are essential to ensure clarity, usability, and authenticity at emoji scale.
Color is a crucial factor.
- Visibility: The emoji must be visible in both dark and light backgrounds, staying sharp on any app or device theme chosen by the user.
- Accessibility: The chosen colors should retain enough contrast for those with common color blindnesses.
- Recognition: Color helps users instantly identify what an emoji represents. A bright yellow ball with holes? That’s a pickleball.
The design choices in our submitted proposal to Unicode reflect these priorities:
The dark gray paddle mirrors the most common real-world paddle while maintaining contrast on dark themes thanks to a lighter gray frame. The vibrant yellow ball stands out clearly but isn’t overly bright, ensuring it remains legible even on light backgrounds.
A Design Challenge: The Hole Pattern
At emoji scale—especially in messages—the pickleball’s signature holes risk becoming a blurry, illegible mess.
Our Solutions
To ensure clarity at small sizes:
We enlarged the pickleball relative to the paddle, a common approach seen in emojis like badminton and lacrosse.
We also increased the size of the hole pattern, making them clearly visible without losing the ball’s iconic look.
Dear Apple, A Simple Win
Pickleball needs one square: a yellow hole-patterned ball and paddle. You’ve already drawn shovels, radishes, and the flag of Sark—this one’s easier and reaches millions more people.
What to do?
Head over to Change.org to sign the petition to get Apple to add the pickleball emoji on all of our keyboards.
You can also share on Instagram and Facebook to get this movement going!
Bonus tip: Add the pickleball emoji to your Slack workspace
Even though the pickleball emoji hasn’t been officially added yet, you can download your own copy of our proposal and add it to any app which allows uploading custom emoji. Here’s how to do it on Slack!
First, grab the pickleball emoji image file from Google Drive and download it to your device. Or you grab the image from this article below.
- Click or tap your workspace name in the upper left corner of Slack.
- Go to “Tools & settings”
- Go to “Customize workspace”
- You’ll be brought to a webpage where you can now upload the image file of the emoji you downloaded to slack!
