Best Pickleball Podcasts

Quick Answer: The best pickleball podcasts split into four lanes: pro tour news, gear testing, strategy coaching and pure entertainment. PicklePod covers the pro world, Pickleball Studio covers gear, Pickleball Therapy covers the mental side, and Bad Calls covers everything with less filter. Pick by lane, not by ranking.

A pickleball podcast is simply a recurring audio show about the sport, and there are now enough of them that podcast directories track more than 70 active titles. That is a lot of listening, so the useful question is which lane you want.

Which podcast should you start with?

Start with the one that matches why you are listening.

If you want to follow the pros, start with the tour coverage shows. If you want to know whether a paddle is worth the money, start with gear. If you keep losing matches you should win, start with the coaching and mindset shows. If you just want company on a drive, start with the entertainment end.

Almost nobody listens to all four lanes. Picking one and going deep beats sampling twelve shows and finishing none of them.

What are the pro tour and news podcasts?

PicklePod is the most established show in this lane, hosted by Thomas Shields and Zane Navratil. Navratil is a former top pro, which shows up in the analysis. Coverage skews toward tour news, roster moves, rule debates and interviews with players you see on the broadcast.

The tradeoff is that it assumes you already follow the pro game. If you cannot name four current players, some episodes will lose you. Our explainer on Major League Pickleball and our comparison of the PPA and APP tours will fill in the background quickly.

What about gear and equipment podcasts?

Pickleball Studio Podcast, hosted by Chris Olson, is the reference point here. The show works through paddle releases, core construction, surface materials and the testing behind the claims manufacturers make.

It is genuinely useful before a purchase and genuinely exhausting if you are happy with your current paddle. The honest drawback is that listening to gear content regularly makes you want gear you do not need. I have bought exactly one paddle because of a podcast episode, and I regret roughly half of that decision.

Which podcasts help you actually improve?

The coaching and mindset lane is smaller and easier to recommend.

• Pickleball Therapy. Short, weekly, focused on the mental side of competing. Handles nerves, expectations, partner dynamics and the between point reset better than anything else in audio.
• Coaching and strategy shows. Several instructor led podcasts break down single skills across an episode, which suits listening on the way to a session and trying one thing when you arrive.
• Interview formats. Pro interviews often contain more usable tactical detail than dedicated instruction episodes, because players describe what they actually look at.

The limit of audio instruction is obvious. You cannot see a grip or a paddle angle through headphones. Use these to understand decisions and patterns, and use video or a coach for technique.

What if you just want to be entertained?

Bad Calls, hosted by Graham D’Amico and Travis Rettenmaier, is the loosest of the well known shows. Unfiltered takes, arguments, and a fair amount of nonsense between the actual pickleball talk. There are also happy hour style shows built around casual conversation rather than analysis.

This lane ages fastest. Entertainment shows come and go, so check the release date before you subscribe to something that stopped publishing a year ago.

How do you find good ones on your own?

Check three things before committing. Look at the last publish date, because a large share of pickleball podcasts are dormant. Look at episode length, since 20 minute shows and 90 minute shows suit completely different routines. Then listen to the most recent episode rather than the first one, because early episodes rarely represent the current show.

Podcast directories that rank pickleball shows use review counts, ratings and publishing consistency. Those rankings are a reasonable starting filter and a poor final answer.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most popular pickleball podcast? PicklePod is consistently ranked at or near the top across podcast directories, based on review volume, ratings and listener counts.

Are pickleball podcasts good for beginners? The mindset and coaching shows are. Tour news shows assume a lot of context that new players do not have yet.

Are there podcasts about pickleball gear specifically? Yes, Pickleball Studio Podcast is the best known, and several paddle review channels run companion audio feeds.

Where can I listen? All the major shows publish to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Most also post video versions, which helps for any episode that demonstrates a shot.

How many pickleball podcasts are there? Podcast directories track more than 70 titles, though a meaningful share have stopped publishing.

Do pros host their own podcasts? Several do. Zane Navratil on PicklePod and Travis Rettenmaier on Bad Calls are the most visible examples, and player hosted shows tend to have better access to guests.

Is there anything for watching instead of listening? Yes, and our roundup of films about the sport covers the video side.

Do any podcasts cover the amateur and club side? A few, usually regional. Club newsletters and local leagues tend to be a better source for that than national shows.

Podcasts fill the drive to the courts nicely, and the coaching lane is the one most likely to change your results. If you would rather have someone watch you play than talk in your ear, browse the instructors in our pickleball media and digital directory for the creators and shows covering your part of the sport.

Written by the Pickler Junction Team.