Hebi, in Henan Province, China, a city that grew on coal and the chemical industry, is turning itself into a major pickleball hub. World Pickleball Magazine, the global pickleball outlet, reported on September 15, 2026 that roughly 1,600 courts have been built across county, district, township, village and residential community levels, and that more than one million people in total have taken part in its outreach programs. Why would a regional city long dependent on natural resources stake its future on a paddle and a plastic ball? For regions of Japan wrestling with idle land and industrial transition, there are lessons here too good to overlook.
It began with a claim to be China’s pickleball city
Hebi turned in earnest toward the sport in 2023. At first it was no more than a niche pastime, but the city government led facility building and outreach program after program until Hebi was calling itself China’s pickleball city. It did not simply lay courts. More than 280 competition-level players have come up locally, and over 380 coaches and referees have been trained. Widening the base of players while thickening the layer of coaching and organizing that supports them, at the same time, is what marks the effort out. In August 2026, 24 American teenagers visited Hebi on a youth exchange, a sign the city is building contacts abroad rather than staying a domestic outreach hub.
The coal chemical legacy became the sport’s industrial base
What makes Hebi interesting is that it tied its old core industry to new demand rather than discarding it. According to reporting by People’s Daily and Xinhua, the city built on the polypropylene feedstock capacity developed through coal chemicals to form an industrial chain running from raw material through to high-value equipment manufacturing. The ball is plastic (polypropylene), and paddles use resin components as well. A chemical industry cluster and pickleball equipment manufacturing are, in fact, a good fit. Heavy industrial assets usually written off as declining were reread as the upstream end of a growing market.
Henan Geli Sports Goods, a local company, entered equipment production in 2024, and its pickleball-related sales in 2025 rose 50% year on year to more than 25 million yuan. It expects to reach 50 million yuan in 2026. Converted at about 23 yen to the yuan (as of mid-September 2026), that is about 575 million yen for 2025 and about 1.15 billion yen for the 2026 outlook. For the city as a whole, the reporting also cites China’s domestic pickleball equipment market passing 1.8 billion yuan (about 41.4 billion yen) in 2025, with a forecast of 47% average annual growth over the next five years. One company’s sales are climbing in step with the spread of the city as a whole.
Hebi and China’s pickleball market in numbers
| Metric | Figure | Yen-conversion guideline |
|---|---|---|
| Courts in Hebi | About 1,600 | — |
| Total participants (Hebi) | More than 1 million | — |
| Regular players in China | 8 million | — |
| People in China who have tried it at least once | 20 million | — |
| Domestic equipment market (2025) | 1.8 billion yuan | About 41.4 billion yen |
| Geli Sports sales (2025) | More than 25 million yuan | About 575 million yen |
| Tourism spending during the tournament (2025) | More than 15 million yuan | About 345 million yen |
Across China, 8 million people play regularly and 20 million have tried it at least once. Bai Xilin, who heads the tennis administration center, puts the potential playing population as high as 30 million. He describes the appeal of the sport as three lows and three highs, setting the low barrier to entry and the modest cost alongside high sociability and health benefits. That the national tennis governing body is driving it, and that the China Pickleball Circuit, run jointly with the Chinese Tennis Association, is already under way, are further reasons for the speed of growth.
The money a tournament leaves in the city, and what follows
The effect of building courts does not stop at the sport itself. At the national championships held in Hebi in 2025, tourism spending during the event topped 15 million yuan (about 345 million yen), and visitors to tourist facilities in the city rose 42% from the same period a year earlier. Players, the people with them and spectators stay, eat and buy souvenirs — the familiar way a sports event ripples into a local economy, happening in a city trying to move beyond resource dependence. On the professional side, PPA Tour Asia and Major League Pickleball (MLP) Asia are extending their footing into China, and the China-based Dragon Warriors are on the list for MLP Asia’s first season.How a Japanese team made its moves in MLP Asia’s first draft, read alongside this, shows that the shape of pro leagues across Asia is firming up.
What regional Japan can take home from Hebi
鶴壁のやり方をそのまま日本に移すことはできないが、抽出できる原則がある。第一に、既存の産業資産を新需要の川上に読み替える発想だ。化学工業の街が用具の原料と製造で稼いだように、日本でも地場の素材産業や加工技術を、成長するスポーツ用品の供給側へ接続できる余地は残っている。第二に、コートという「箱」だけでなく、指導者と審判、大会運営という「人」を同時に育てた点。ハードとソフトを両輪で回したからこそ、累計100万人という数字が現実味を帯びた。
In Japan too, moves to turn idle space into courts and make it pay have begun.The case of an asset manager with 5 trillion yen under management coming into the sport as a title sponsoris an attempt that takes on the question of making unused space earn as a court head-on. In the United States, meanwhile, the backlash from overinvestment has broughta correction in which pickleball facilities are going up for sale one after another. Riding the growth in demand without piling on too much supply — that sense of balance comes through from both Hebi’s momentum and the American pullback.
How it spreads through the market, and what to watch next
If the forecast of 47% average annual growth in the domestic market over five years comes true, the reach extends beyond equipment makers to court construction, facility operation, tournament promotion and tourism. Asia is now one of the fastest growing regions in the world.The fact that the ten fastest-growing countries are all in Asia, with Japan among the leaders, suggests that Hebi’s move into an industrial chain is not just one city’s success story but a possible starting point for redrawing the supply chain across Asia. From supplying materials to running events, which layer can Japanese strengths be inserted into? The regions and companies that can draw that out concretely will be the ones to take the next opening.
Summary: the next move
What Hebi showed is that connecting a city’s assets to demand for the sport matters more than laying courts. Answering the same question in Japan starts with taking stock of the idle land, materials industries and coaching talent in your own area, then working out which of them can be connected to the supply side of pickleball. Raw material for equipment, empty space that could take a court, people who can teach — redefining the resources already at hand is the lesson from Hebi, a city of resources that became a city of the sport.
