September 8, 2025 | Mark Luis Foster
The fastest growing sport in America is purportedly pickleball, and if you look around your own cities and even local neighborhoods, you’re likely to see a new pickleball court going up somewhere. And if you’ve played the sport or watched it, you get the real sense of not only the action and fun it can be, but also the noise it produces. As I see HOAs popping up in record numbers, I’ve noticed pickleball courts being built in favor of tennis courts, or being converted from said courts, and the proximately to homes seems dubious at best. I must admit: I likely would not buy a condo close to a pickleball court despite my (and my wife’s) passion for the game. It’s the noise, noise, noise.
In Tampa, an HOA is now suing over the issue. And a famous actor is in the center seat. From the Tampa Bay Times:
Robert Davi is known most famously for his big-screen roles in “Die Hard,” “License to Kill” and “The Goonies.” Turns out, he also plays a convincing pickleball. “Pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong, pong,” he repeated, loudly, at the Aug. 20 Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners meeting. “I could spend three minutes doing that. Would you like that next to your community?”
He has a point. If you’re not playing the game, the constant noise can be incessant, and that doesn’t even count the yelling, screaming, occasional boombox music and other distractions that come with the game.
Davi and fellow residents of the Andalucia community in Apollo Beach filed a lawsuit Aug. 15 against their homeowners association over its decision to convert clay tennis courts to pickleball courts.
Converting tennis courts to pickleball courts is a sign of the times. Remember when all those shoulder-sweater-wearers used to show up with their oversized sports bags for a friendly game of tennis? Those days are gone. And some converted courts are now pretty close to populated townhomes.
They argue the sport, America’s fastest growing and one of its loudest, is unsettling nearby homeowners, some of whom are military veterans living with PTSD. One house, the suit says, sits within 100 feet of the courts, others within 200.
Turns out a law in Florida that was recently passed limits the ability of local governments to do anything about it.
“The state has the sole authority for the regulation of HOAs. This board does not have that authority under Florida law,” county attorney Christine Beck told commissioners. She warned that defying SB 180 could expose the county to lawsuits and attorneys fees.
Seems to me that it would be too hot to play pickleball in Tampa for much of the day, but perhaps the action is confined to mornings and evenings when most folks are home. Who knows? Such first world problems we have.
Read the story HERE.
