The city of Bacoor in Cavite, the Philippines, has launched an official pickleball team carrying the city's name, the Bacoor Strikers. A signing ceremony with nine players was held on August 20, 2026, in Revilla Hall at city hall, with Mayor Strike Revilla himself as owner. Not a company, not a club: the city itself owns a competitive team. It is a setup not yet seen in Japan, with local government stepping up as the driver of pickleball's growth.
It may look like a story from far away, but the question of who leads the growth lands directly on anyone who wants more courts in their area, or who runs a club hoping to work with local government. What Bacoor is doing shows one answer.
Mayor Strike Revilla signs nine players and the Bacoor Strikers start with two squads
Joining Mayor Revilla at the signing were Vice Mayor Rowena Bautista Mendiola and councilor Karen Evaristo. The roster is split into two squads. Team A has four players: Ricarte Santos, Vince EJ Tugade, Christy Sanosa and Princess Lorbe Marie Catindig. Team B has five: Lorenz Quitala, Kent Octavo, Elyse Marie Gerls, Reikey Rey Sanosa and Claro Castillo.
At the signing, Mayor Revilla said this is more than sport: it gives players a stage to compete, to represent Bacoor with pride, and to be part of a movement spreading across the Philippines. A city signs players under formal contract and sends them out to tournaments, applying to pickleball the kind of structure in which a city owns a pro baseball team.
From a city-staff club to a competitive team, a year of groundwork
この公式チームは突然生まれたわけではない。バコールは2025年11月13日、市職員による「StrikeAs1 バコール市職員ピックルボールクラブ」を発足させ、庁内の健康づくりと交流の場としてピックルボール環境を整えていた。職員が仕事帰りに打つ流れを作り、そこから競技志向のBacoor Strikersが育ち、州外の予選大会にも出場するようになった。
What works here is that the same city designed the base, the staff club, and the peak, the competitive team, as one continuous path. Someone who started for fun has a road laid out from the beginning to compete under the city's banner. It is put together differently from Japan, where clubs tend to run beginner classes and competitive teams as separate organizations on separate budgets.
In the Philippines, cities and the federation drive growth together
This is not Bacoor's enthusiasm alone. At the end of March 2026, the country's first national amateur championship was held on courts in Las Pinas, sanctioned by the Philippine Pickleball Federation (PPF). In June, Davao City ran its own tournament as part of the Duaw Davao tourism program, capping each division at 40 teams with free registration and drawing players from neighboring provinces. The federation is also working on coach development, and in the Philippinesa growth strategy that certifies coaches in bulk before building facilitiesis moving ahead.an 80-player tournament sprang up in the provincial town of Iloilo right after a venue opened, and as that shows, the base for drawing people exists outside the big cities too.
Because government, the federation and the provinces are all moving at once, a city-level entry like Bacoor's does not stand alone; it connects naturally.
Japanese municipalities provide the place, Bacoor becomes the actor
Involvement by local government has started in Japan too. In Kanagawa,Chigasaki built free courts that need no reservation, turning them into a public base. Misato in Saitama has run a four-session beginner course in a gymnasium, and examples of government preparing an entry point are increasing. Most of them, though, stop at lending a space or running a class. There is still almost no case in Japan of a city going as far as signing players and sending them out to tournaments under the city's name.
That is the decisive difference from Bacoor. Lending space ends once the booking slots fill, but when a city owns a competitive team, wins and losses become the city's talking point and residents get a reason to cheer for a team that is theirs. The fuel for growth shifts from convenience to pride. When someone who wants more courts locally approaches the government, having a proposal ready for a team that becomes the face of the city, not just free public access, makes the conversation easier to move.
What Japanese players can take away
Here are the pieces of the Bacoor case that can be tried on the ground in Japan.
- Connect the entry point and competition under one body. Design the route from a beginners' class to the local team as a single line from the start.
- Propose ownership to local government. Beyond lending a space, show the option of a team or tournament carrying the name of the city or the chamber of commerce.
- 職場から広げる。市職員クラブのように、勤務先単位でラケットを配ることで、家族や地域への広がりが期待できる。
- Start from the provinces. A provincial city in the Philippines moved first, not the capital region; having someone to lead matters more than population size.
Bacoor signed its nine players on August 20, 2026. How the players carrying the city's name perform, and at which tournaments, will decide how persuasive the city-owned team model is. A club in Japan looking to work with local government would change its next negotiation by adding this card, a team that becomes the face of the city, to the usual petition for free courts.
