Known for its family friendly atmosphere, Asheville Racquet Club boasts two beautiful locations in Asheville, NC. Like many other clubs, pickleball burst its way in by its popularity and easy-to-play nature. Now with over 7,000 members at ARC, pickleball rivals any other offering that the club has to offer. Michael Kinnear, the Director of pickleball at Asheville Racquet Club, gives us an inside scoop of this growing pickleball program.
Pickleball Club Mag: Can you please give a brief description of Asheville Racquet Club?
Michael Kinnear: Asheville Racquet Club (ARC) was established in 1974 as a tennis & fitness club now with two locations in beautiful Asheville, NC. ARC offers tennis, golf, pools, gyms, fitness classes, and beginning in late 2020, pickleball!
PCM: How many members do you currently have?
MK: The club overall has over 7,000 members. Around 700 members currently actively participate in pickleball.
PCM: Can you briefly mention some of the things that make ARC special?
MK: ARC is a family friendly club with great activities for everyone. Many of our members & staff grew up attending our summer camps and junior programs and now three or more generations in a single family have shared memories of fun and friendship at ARC.
PCM: How long have you had a pickleball program?
MK: We opened 8 dedicated outdoor courts in November 2020. That program was started and is currently run by Michael Kinnear. We have since added 4 dedicated indoor courts.
PCM: What kind of things do you offer pickleball wise?
MK: We offer structured drop in play for every level based on earned ratings, social play, private court reservations, private individual and group lessons, leagues, tournaments and multiple weekly rated round robins. We also have a juniors program that runs most of the year along with junior leagues. We also have pickleball as almost half of our summer camp activities which runs around 50 kids each week nearly all summer.
PCM: What led to the ultimate decision to add pickleball to your club?
MK: The club offered a special day to check out pickleball on some taped lines on a tennis court. 47 people attended that 2 hour session which showed there was significant interest in adding pickleball to the clubs programs.
PCM: What kind of response was there from your members when you added pickleball?
MK: Overall very positive. There is a great deal of tension between tennis and pickleball in the Asheville community largely due to a limited number of courts for both sports to share. ARC has a wonderful setup where many of the tennis lesson courts are in between the main tennis courts so noise is not a major hindrance and we have room for everyone.
PCM: If you could go back in time to when you first started the pickleball program, what would you do differently?
MK: In starting the program and with all decisions about the future direction, we do our best as a team to set the stage now for what we will need in the future. That is not always easy to predict and creates the need to pivot quickly and often. We began with 3 basic levels – beginner, intermediate, and advanced. It was necessary not to have too many levels so that we could get enough players at each session to be enjoyable (the bigger the crowd, the better). I would probably go ahead and start with broader ratings options to begin with (2.5, 3.0, 3.5, etc), and encourage higher level players to play down if they are not getting enough players in a given session. I would also start with a very clearly defined and also scalable system for rating players from the very beginning. We developed this over time but the implementation after a culture was established was not easy but absolutely necessary.
PCM: Did you convert some tennis courts into pickleball courts or build from scratch?
MK: All our courts were tennis courts originally.
PCM: Of your members, is there a number you can share (percentage or actual number) that engage in the pickleball program regularly (once a week or more)?
MK: I do not have exact numbers on this but my educated guess would be around 70% participate once a week.
PCM: Did you have any vendors that helped aid in creating your pickleball courts/program that you would like to give a shoutout to?
MK: Ethos Pickleball offers incredible cutting-edge paddles at very reasonable prices and is very easy to work with. No huge purchase minimums or contracts and awesome new styles, especially the pink versions just coming out.
PCM: How do you go about finding vendors to supply your pro shop?
MK: Tennis brands do well since we have many members coming over from tennis. We are looking for solid margins and reasonable terms, no huge minimums or contracts.
PCM: What kind of advice do you have for the clubs who are just starting out?
MK: Stay member focused and hire staff that love pickleball. Fill a niche nobody else is offering. Facilitate community building in as many ways as you can.
PCM: Is there anything else you would like to add?
MK: We have over 100 participants in our current 5-week leagues and run 6 or more leagues a year. We are also looking to expand pickleball into our downtown location as well. We don’t know exact numbers yet, but it will likely be a significant number of courts.
