Teach Pickleball Online
Fast-paced, fun, and growing more and more popular by the day, pickleball is a super sport for players of all ages. If you’re a passionate player of this game, you might like to share that passion with the world and teach Pickleball skills to new players.
Best of all, you don’t necessarily need to train people in person. You can teach pickleball online, via video courses, or other means. This guide will cover all you need to know about teaching pickleball to beginners online.
Teach Pickleball Online – The Benefits
Before looking at exactly how to teach pickleball online, let’s first focus on why you might like to do so:
- A fun way to work: Teaching pickleball to beginners is, quite simply, a dream job for those who love this sport. It allows you to make money while playing and engaging with the game you love, and it can be so rewarding to see your students build their skills and have fun on the court.
- A growing audience: As touched on in the intro, pickleball is a fast-growing sport, gaining new fans with every passing day. That means there are lots of prospective students out there, just waiting for your instruction.
- Accessible and convenient: As long as you’ve got a good knowledge of the game and a bit of basic hardware – like a good computer and camera set-up – it’s easy to teach pickleball online. You don’t need any fancy or expensive equipment to get going.
- Flexible to suit you: As with a lot of online teaching jobs, teaching pickleball to beginners is flexible. You can be your own boss, set your own schedule, and decide how you want to work – it’s all up to you.
How to Teach Pickleball Online – The First Steps
We’ve covered the benefits. Next, let’s see how you can start to teach pickleball, beginning with the initial steps to follow before you start seeking out your first few students.
Understand the Game Well
Naturally, if you want to get paid to teach pickleball, you need to know the game well. You can’t just be a casual fan with only a vague understanding of the rules.
The best pickleball instructors are passionate about this sport and have often been playing it for years. They know the rules, understand key techniques, and even follow the game at a professional level, keeping up with pro players and tournaments, or even participating themselves.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to be a pro-level player. But you do need to have expert-level knowledge of pickleball. That’ll give you a certain sense of authority in the eyes of your students, and it’ll also help you motivate and engage them through your classes and courses.
So, if you haven’t done so already, learn the game well! There are lots of helpful resources online to teach you all about it. You can also watch videos, play the game in your free time, join a local club, and watch pro players to deepen your knowledge.
Train Up and Get Yourself Certified
Passion will take you so far in your journey to teach pickleball to the masses. But, if you want to attract students easily and establish yourself as a trusted, reputable pickleball coach, you’ll also need some official credentials.
Fortunately, there are plenty of courses you can take and workshops to participate in, hosted by leading pickleball associations, like Pickleball Coaching International (PCI) and Professional Pickleball Registry (PPR).
Look up learning opportunities, either online or in-person near you, and sign yourself up. You can also study independently, using the wealth of online resources mentioned earlier. But, ideally, you’ll want some sort of certificate from a trusted authority to prove that you’ve got the skills and knowledge needed to teach pickleball properly.
Prepare All You’ll Need to Teach Pickleball Online
You’ll need some equipment if you intend to teach pickleball online. That includes all the basic pickleball supplies – like paddles, balls, nets, etc. – as well as some hardware if you plan on, for example, making videos or hosting live streams.
You’ll require a computer and some software for making and editing your videos, along with a good camera and microphone so you can film yourself and explain the principles of the game.
You might also need to bring in a couple of other players – family or friends might help with this, or members of your local pickleball club – to demonstrate the sport in action.
Devise a Plan of Action
Last but not least, forge your plan of action. Ask yourself key questions, like “How am I going to teach pickleball online?” and “How will I get my first student and market myself to my target audience?”
There are several ways you can go about teaching pickleball to beginners, as we’ll explore in the next section. So, review your options and find one that suits you best. From there, plan out your next steps, and don’t forget to focus on self-promotion. You’ll need to market yourself effectively to attract your first students and give them reasons to choose you over other pickleball coaches and courses.
Teaching Pickleball to Beginners Online – 4 Methods
With the initial work out of the way, you can move on to deciding exactly how you intend to teach pickleball online. As mentioned above, there are several ways to do this. Here are four examples:
Make Your Own Video Courses
One of the best ways to teach pickleball online is by creating and selling video courses on the sport. You can, for example, record an entire series of “Pickleball for Beginners” clips, teaching new players the rules, explaining how the court is laid out, going over some basic techniques, and so on.
Then, on platforms like BlurBay, you’re able to publish, share, and make money from those video courses. This can be very profitable if your content is good enough and you do a decent job of marketing it well – top BlurBay creators make considerable money from their content.
This method is also very flexible. You’re free to make videos at your own pace, in your own style, and use your own marketing methods to promote them. For instance, if you’ve got decent social followings, you can encourage your followers to check out your courses and make sales that way.
Host Live Online Classes
Another interesting way to teach pickleball is via online classes, which you can livestream directly to your audience. This allows you to potentially reach quite a broad audience of players all over the globe, at a time and place that suits you.
However, this method requires a bit of prep, along with some decent technology. You’ll need to set aside time – and possibly bring in some friends to help – to host an informative and engaging online lesson, and ensure your tech setup is strong enough to stream it all.
It may be hard to find viewers in the early stages, which is why, once again, promotion is key. Market yourself wherever you can to get people interested, using social media platforms and other tools to reach a big crowd.
If your online classes work out, you could eventually branch out to offering in-person training for local players, too.
Share Videos and Social Content for Teaching Pickleball to Beginners
Given that live lessons can be a little complicated to host, you may prefer to simply record your own videos or create social media content focused on pickleball instruction. This is yet another fun, creative, and flexible way to teach pickleball to first-time players.
As long as you’ve got a good camera, you can record yourself playing and talking about the game, or demonstrating different techniques. You could even go in a different direction, analyzing pro-level pickleball matches to show more intermediate players how to improve their game.
In short, there’s a lot of flexibility here. You don’t even need to make full-length videos. Short clips of only five minutes or so can suffice, or you could share photos, infographics, and other visuals on social sites like Instagram to train young players in the game.
Write Guides and Articles on the Topic of Pickleball
One final way you might like to break into the world of pickleball teaching and coaching is through written content, rather than videos. You could, for instance, write guides, e-books, and articles on the topic of pickleball, instructing users on techniques, strategies, rules, and so on.
There’s a lot of scope for creativity with this method. You could write newbie guides to the game, for example, aimed entirely at those who have never picked up a pickleball paddle before. Or, you could go in a different direction, and write about advanced strategies or pro-tier gameplay.
For those who maybe aren’t quite as comfortable in front of the camera or people who like to write, this method could reap dividends.
But you’ll have to find ways to get paid for your content if you hope to teach pickleball as a career or side hustle. You could set up a blog, for example, and ask for reader donations, or publish e-books and charge a fee for each download.
Teach Pickleball Online and Share Your Love of the Game
All in all, if you’re a pickleball fanatic, teaching the game to beginners is a wonderful way to put your passion to good use. You can make money, inspire young players, and help to promote the sport you love, all at once. And, as this guide has shown, there are lots of ways to go about it, from live classes to selling video courses. Find your favorite method and start to teach pickleball today!
Jürgen is a tech entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in the industry. Jürgen is passionate about tech, media, entertainment and enjoys helping readers by providing up to date blogs in his areas of expertise.