Tennis legend John McEnroe is tired of hearing about how popular pickleball is

Tennis legend John McEnroe is happy to play a game of pickleball. He is happy that people like it and, by extension, are using it to get into tennis. He is even happy to promote it. Just do not tell him it is the fastest-growing sport in America. 

“I don’t look at pickleball like, ‘Oh my God this is great!’” McEnroe told the Miami Herald this week during the Miami Open tennis tournament. 

“If I hear one more time that pickleball is the fastest-growing sport I’m gonna throw up. I look at like, there’s the NFL and then there’s arena football. It’s hard to imagine something small like pickleball being great on TV. It’s like watching ping-pong on TV. Tough to see how that can really work. But I’ve had people say they started watching tennis because of pickleball. Hopefully, it’ll be a win-win for both.”

The great thing about that comment, aside from McEnroe's legendary brutal honesty, is that he made it while being paid to promote pickleball as he, Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Michael Chang will be playing for a $1 million prize in the inaugural Pickleball Slam in Miami on Sunday. 

To be fair, pickleball does seem to be getting a lot of hype recently. It is tough to swing a tennis racket without hitting somebody that plays pickleball or is telling you about their pickleball tournament this weekend. 

There has also been a wave of professional athletes including Tom Brady, LeBron James, Drew Brees and Kim Clijsters that have invested in professional pickleball teams. 

The NFL-Arena Football comparison might be a good one here. It is similar enough to the big leagues that it can draw from the same pool of fans, but it is still not quite the same and will never catch it in popularity. 

It's also all relative when it comes to the "fastest growing" sport. Football, basketball, hockey, baseball, tennis, golf and soccer all already have established fan bases and everybody knows enough about them that they either like them or they don't. 

It takes a lot to catch the attention of somebody new. Pickleball is starting basically from scratch and is still getting that early growth. Eventually it will plateau. Then McEnroe can stop hearing about its popularity.