Popping Pickleballs

The sport of pickleball has become more than a passing fad. The equipment involved in the game, which include a hollow plastic ball perforated with holes, create some pretty unique sounds. In this episode we talk with Kathleen Romito and Jamie Banks (Quiet Communities) about their research into how pickleball noise affects bystanders. 

Associated paper: Kathleen M. Romito and Jamie Banks. "A survey of the community impact of pickleball noise: A pilot study." Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 60, 040001 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002238.

Read more from Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA).

Learn more about Acoustical Society of America Publications.

 
Music Credit: Min 2019 by minwbu from Pixabay. 

Transcript

ASA Publications (00:25)

The sport of pickleball has become more than a passing fad. Some of you may even play it yourselves. The equipment involved in the game, which include a hollow plastic ball perforated with holes, create some pretty unique sounds. Today I'm talking with Kathleen Romito and Jamie Banks about their article, “A survey of the community impact of pickleball noise: A pilot study,” which published in POMA and, as the title suggests, explores how pickleball noise affects bystanders. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. How are you?

Kathleen M Romito (00:52)

Thanks so much for having us, Kat.

Jamie Banks (00:54)

Yeah, thank you, Kat. Happy to be here.

ASA Publications (00:56)

So, first tell us a bit about your research backgrounds and about the Quiet Communities organization.

Kathleen M Romito (01:02)

Sure, so I’m a retired family physician. I practiced family medicine for 30 years, including a decade where I specifically was focused on reviewing evidence-based medical research. As pickleball became more popular in my community, I became concerned about the effects it was having on a couple of communities here in my city, and that led me to work with Quiet Communities on this research.

Jamie Banks (01:24)

Thanks Kathleen. So I'm a health and environmental scientist with education and experience in health outcomes, health economics, environment, and policy. I've been involved with various forms of research on noise and related pollution for the past 13 years. And I also chair the noise and health committee of the American Public Health Association, where I led the effort to develop its updated policy statement on noise, entitled “Noise as a public health hazard.”

I'm also the founder and president of Quiet Communities. Quiet Communities is a national nonprofit organization, a 501c3. We work to reduce noise and its harms on the public, its health harms, its environmental harms, and also work to promote quiet as a valuable natural resource. We work in all kinds of areas of noise and do a variety of things, from research to strategy to education and awareness events and so forth.

ASA Publications (02:31)

Very cool. I've seen quite a few publications from Quiet Communities individuals before, so it's great to actually get to talk to some of you. So what is pickleball and what makes it so much of a noise concern?

Kathleen M Romito (02:43)

Sure so, pickleball is a relatively new racket sport. It's played on smaller courts than tennis courts. And like you mentioned, Kat, it's played with these hard paddles and plastic balls. They're perforated, they're like wiffle balls. It's super fun, it's easy to learn, and it's becoming extremely popular. I think there's one estimate that up to 36 million people in the United States last year actually picked up a paddle to play. So you have kids out there; you have grandparents; it's a very accessible sport, lots of fun. 

Each hit, each time that racket hits that wiffle ball, it creates a sharp pop. It can create over 900 per hour on a single court, and most of the time, there are gonna be two, four, six courts in any given complex. In fact, we have a sound file of what this sounds like. The sound file comes from four courts in active play.

[pickleball recording]

And as you listen to that, I think what's really interesting is, so that that recording was taken about 60 feet from courts. And what's not so important is actually how loud the sound is, but what that repetitive pop over and over, how that impacts us.

With the popularity of the sport, the courts are often busy from dawn to dusk, and sometimes even later if you have lighted courts. And these outdoor courts located near homes can really create significant impacts for neighbors. People can think, I don’t know, it's a fun thing. It's a silly thing. Even the word, saying the word “pickleball” sounds a little silly. It's a super fun game. And that makes it easy, I think, to trivialize the noise it produces and the impact it's having on the neighbors who are exposed to it. This repetitive pop can be heard inside nearby homes. It can be heard inside with some people reporting exposures of more than 70 hours a week. So there's really, it becomes very difficult to escape this impulsive pop, pop, popping that catches our attention even when we're trying to shut it out. It’s… Our brains are not wired to ignore sharp, popping noises. Our brains are built to actually pay attention.

Jamie Banks (05:12)

Yeah, so I'll just add a little bit to what Kathleen said. It’s sometimes hard to convey to people that pickleball noise is causing distress in communities. It just sounds kind of unbelievable. But when you think about it, hearing those sharp popping sounds day in, day out, for hours a day… Let's say you hear it, you go out, you have a break, you come back, it's still going on. You, you know, want to put your child down for a nap, it's still going on. You leave again, you come back, it's still going on. It's that constancy and the ability to hear it in your homes that really starts to make a difference. And people become very, very sensitive to this type of noise.

ASA Publications (05:58)

Yeah, it sounds like it's one of those things where, like you said, it's like, “It's pickleball! It's just cute and funny!” But listening to that popping sound all day, every day, sounds like it would be quite aggravating, especially if you have to be around it all the time. So what was the goal of this study?

Kathleen M Romito (06:14)

So, you know once we started to recognize that it was impacting neighbors across the country, possibly in terms of some significant health impacts and in terms of their daily lives, we really wanted to learn more about how the noise was impacting people's lives. We had anecdotal reports, but we really wanted to start to measure the impact, to start to

define the true impact.

Jamie Banks (06:41)

Yeah, so just building on what Kathleen said, the standard metrics that are used and the regulations based on those metrics really don't account properly for this type of noise, either the impulsive nature or the constancy of the exposure, no less its impacts on people's health, well-being and quality of life. This type of exposure causes stress, and stress and chronic stress is certainly not good for our health. It's associated with increased risk of cardiovascular, cardiometabolic, psychiatric diseases, and so forth over time, when that noise just doesn't go away and you're exposed day after day. So our survey was designed to help characterize the lived experience of this type of noise and its determinants in ways that just having, for instance, a decibel metric would not convey.

ASA Publications (07:43)

Okay, okay, so can you tell us about your survey? Who did you interview and what did you ask?

Kathleen M Romito (07:48)

Sure. So we did something called a purposeful survey. This is a type of survey that's used in public health research. It's purposeful, it's intentional, and what we're trying to do is to help define the nature of kind of a new type of public health issue. We purposefully or intentionally reached out to impacted communities and asked them about the effect of the noise on them individually and on their communities. We reached 440 participants across the country, in more than 200 distinct communities. 

With the survey, we gathered information circumstances, things like many courts are nearby? How far are they from your home? Are there geographical features that might be playing a role here? Are the courts public? Are they private, meaning they're run by an HOA or a neighbor next door, even private business? How long have you been exposed? How many years? How many hours per week? And then we gathered information about their perceptions of the noise. Did describe the noise as loud? Or was it repetitive? Was it unpredictable? We were trying to get... You know, the common assumption is that loudness is the primary issue. So many of our metrics rely on decibel readings, and that sound pressure level is important, but we were wondering, is that really the issue here? Is it the loudness or is it the fact that it's this kind of unpredictable but chronically repetitive popping noise? So we wanted to see how residents were describing the noise. 

We also asked a lot of questions about the extent of the impact. We asked questions like, does it affect your ability to be calm or relaxed at home? And if so, how much? Does it affect your ability to communicate or socialize when you're at home? Does it affect your ability to sleep? Do you have concerns about health impacts? Have you had to move? Are you planning to? So those were the types of questions that we used to look at the individual impact. We also looked at the community impact in terms of how this was affecting relationships both within the household, but also relationships with friends, neighbors, other community members, relationships with community leaders. So we were interested in both the individual impact, but also the impact on the community itself. 

And finally, we asked questions that are linked to the non-acoustic factors that can affect the human impact of noise. Specifically, we ask questions like, have you ever been harassed for speaking up about the noise? Are you afraid? Can you hear the noise inside your home? Have you lost trust in public officials? So there's a lot of overlap there between some of those non-acoustic factors and the potential impact on community.

ASA Publications (10:38)

Okay, okay. So what acoustic and non-acoustic factors seem to affect community members' perception of pickleball noise?

Kathleen M Romito (10:45)

That's a great question. So, obviously, loudness, the decibel level, is a factor. About two-thirds of survey participants described pickleball noise as loud. And there's a lot of work that goes on with mitigation to try and reduce the loudness. Interestingly, though, almost nine out of ten described the noise as a repetitive popping. So more people actually use that adjective than describing it as loud. We know from previous acoustics research that impulsive noise is more irritating, and that's why acoustic experts will recommend adding a 5- to 12-decibel penalty for impulsive noise. 

You also asked about non-acoustic factors. The non-acoustic factors are those things that you can't directly measure about the sound itself. It's not the decibel level. It's not the impulsivity. It’s not anything that you can measure with a meter. They are non-acoustic factors. These are things like, can you hear it inside your home? Do you hear it at night? Is there social conflict, harassment, fear? It goes to the non-acoustic components or factors related to this type of news that significantly contribute to the human impact.

Jamie Banks (12:03)

So it's this issue of powerlessness that happens when you try shutting your doors or windows, but it doesn't keep the noise out. And this leaves people basically powerless to control their own acoustic environment and prevents their enjoyment of property unless, for instance, they use noise-canceling headphones. That's hard to wear for eight hours a day or six hours a day, whatever time you're being exposed to the noise. So this powerlessness is really a form of stress that sets off that stress reaction in the body and endangers our health over time. There’s other concerns that people have when they're being exposed to this kind of noise. They may be concerned for others in their family. That could mean children. It could mean their pets. It can mean elderly relatives, or people living with them, or neighbors that they know are sick. You may also be concerned over loss of value in your home. If you're trying to sell your home and you want to move, are there buyers who are going to want to move in if they realize, oh, there's a pickleball court nearby and guess what? They're playing, you know, eight hours a day, ten hours a day, and so forth. And then, you know, based on what Kathleen was just mentioning, you may have a fear of being stigmatized by your neighbors or others in your community as a complainer, or you may be scared about getting threats and being harassed by others, as Kathleen alluded to.

ASA Publications (13:39)

Right, right. How has pickleball noise impacted survey respondents' daily life?

Kathleen M Romito (13:44)

We were really surprised to find out that almost three out of four respondents report being able to hear the noise inside their homes. It's one thing to have it be at the edge of your property and it's just there an hour or two a day, but almost 75% said they can hear the noise inside their homes, often with windows and doors shut.

More than eight in ten respondents reported that they are either frequently or always unable to talk, relax, or concentrate in their homes because of the popping noise. That's really significant. Some people report having to leave their homes for hours at a time when people are playing pickleball. And that's a pretty big intrusion on daily life.

Lots of people left comments. People have stopped playing outside with their kids. Retirees report having to leave their homes multiple times a day to avoid the noise. And many people actually left comments that this interferes with their ability to rest or just talk with their family inside their homes. Parents are often reporting that children are developing ticks or behavioral issues when at home and exposed to the noise. I mean, the number of comments, this was a Survey Monkey survey. We were collecting statistics, numerical responses, but the number of people who left open response comments in addition to the standard survey responses was really pretty stunning. 

Sleep is also commonly affected. So play can extend past 10 p.m. in some areas, which obviously would directly affect one's ability to sleep. But sleep also appears to be being disturbed by this phantom pop effect. And what is that? Close to 40% of people are reporting hearing phantom pops; that means they hear the popping noise even when no one's playing outside. And people are waking up in the middle of the night, hearts racing, kind of just kind of leaping out of bed thinking they hear the pops of pickleball, but no one's actually outside playing. Well, and needless to say, they're so stressed then that they can't fall back asleep. 

So I could go on and on. Almost half of all respondents report being harassed by players after they spoke up about the noise issues. I mean, this is a very, very popular sport. It’s brought so much joy and pleasure to so many people that when someone speaks up about the noise, it can be perceived as threatening. And so there's a lot of social conflict here. Almost three-quarters of the respondents report being afraid of being harassed, afraid of speaking up. So I think that, finding this is incredibly stressful for nearby neighbors. There’s a lot of fear about speaking up. And I think the impact is really pretty significant.

Jamie Banks (16:37)

And for players that are enjoying the sport, I’ve had the experience of talking to some, and it's the problem that they really don't understand the experience of people being exposed to the noise. They know that they love the sport, it's good for them, it's social. And having people then complain kind of threatens the existence perhaps of their courts or their ability to play when they want and it's… You know, they kind of wave their hand and it's like, “How bad can it be?” You know. “It's so much fun and these are people that are just, you know, complaining, you know, and trying to affect our ability to play the sport.”

ASA Publications (17:21)

Right, right. Are there any health concerns associated with the presence of pickleball noise?

Kathleen M Romito (17:27)

There are health concerns being reported. In the survey, more than 90% of the respondents reported at least one health concern that they directly relate to pickleball noise. Specifically, the noise appears to be triggering elevated blood pressures, racing heart symptoms, problems sleeping, and severe anxiety. None of that is too surprising because there's well-established research that shows that chronic noise activates our unconscious fight or flight response, which sets off this whole cascade of serious issues in our bodies over time. 

Like I mentioned, about 40 % of participants are reporting hearing these phantom pops, often waking them up at night. Some people are reporting even hearing these pops months after moving away. And we aren't quite sure what is causing this phenomenon of phantom pops. They may reflect a type of noise-induced tinnitus, or they be part of a trauma response. But either way, the problem, the symptom is concerning. 

And that also raises the question of could there be a true possible trauma-like response to this inability to escape this percussive popping noise in your home? It's interesting, two-thirds of the survey respondents reported intense reactions to the noise or to reminders of it, intense emotional or physical reactions. And we specifically asked this question because in earlier research, more people described the pickleball noise as torture or like PTSD than simply stressful. So saying something stressful is pretty significant, but more people actually use terms like torture or like PTSD, which kind of raises these interesting questions about, wow, how bad can it be? We don't yet have enough research to be definitive about it, but I think these early findings are very concerning. Obviously, the true definition of torture requires being exposed to these extraordinary, unpleasant, sensory perceptions with no escape, and torture is by definition intentional. Of course pickleball noise is not intentional. But I think there's possibility that it's creating a harsh environment with continuous unpleasant sensory input, which neighbors can't escape. And I think it's something needs to be taken seriously and considered.

Jamie Banks (19:59)

Yeah, Kathleen, I want to add that it's also important to recognize that there are certain populations that are especially vulnerable to harm from noise and this type of noise. And examples are people that are neurodivergent, including children with autism, the elderly, people that have pre-existing diseases, like cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disorders. people who need to sleep during the day, like our emergency room providers, other medical providers, and veterans and others with post traumatic stress disorder. And when you think about it and add these populations together, it may constitute a pretty significant portion of a community. So it's not like these populations are rare. We know that they're out there, and that that's something that can really cause distress to these populations.

ASA Publications (20:59)

And also, like, even if they're considered perhaps outliers, sometimes solving a problem for an outlier will also be beneficial to other people who are not considered outliers, who are within the bell curve, right? It is interesting that folks have such extreme reactions to the noise. Like, that does, the fact that it's more than just, you know, a couple people who are like, “Oh, it's traumatic!” The commonality of that is very interesting. 

Kathleen M Romito (21:27)

It is. And you know, Kat, you raise an interesting point, Kat, because our survey by intention was purposeful. We were trying to define the extent of the… to define the nature of the problem, not necessarily define what percentage of people are impacted nearby. 

But I do, I do think it's interesting to note that recently the city of Martinez, California was dealing with a conflict around pickleball courts that had been placed too close to homes. And they actually did a definitive survey of all residents living within 500 feet of the courts. And almost half of all the respondents said that the noise was negatively impacting their lives. So… we don't yet have peer-reviewed research. We haven’t, that has not been pursued as a research avenue yet. Just one small city doing a survey. But I think those results are very interesting to consider, especially when combined with the nature of our survey.

ASA Publications (22:28)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You've talked about how pickleball noise can actually impact the community itself and how folks, you know, fear raising any complaints about the noise and so on. But can you go into that a bit more for us?

Kathleen M Romito (22:41)

Yeah, sure. In addition to bringing to light the amount of fear and harassment, the threats that have out there, I think it's interesting to note that about seven in ten survey respondents reported that pickleball noise is causing stress on relationships with neighbors or friends. That's community. And that's a lot of people reporting issues related to pickleball noise. Almost half of all the participants noted that pickleball noise was causing stress on relationships within the household. And I think having spoken to so many people who have been affected, it comes from one person in the household being a little bit more affected than the other. Perhaps one person is working at home, one person works outside the home, the person working at home is much more impacted. And like Jamie's mentioned earlier, this can be, if you haven't been exposed to this type of stimulus, it can be hard to empathize completely with the effect on it. And so we have spouses or families that are under a great deal of stress because of this noise. 

You know, community also extends out to the relationship between neighborhoods and their community leaders. And with so many tennis courts converted, especially during the pandemic, to pickleball courts, so it was a quick and easy fix at the time, but we've got pickleball courts now that are located 20, 25 feet from homes, kind of an untenable situation, but the genie’s out of the bottle. It's this popular sport and these courts are incredibly popular. Eight out of ten respondents in this survey reported that they've lost trust in their local authorities or decision makers because of this issue. You know, and I think that there's this basic assumption or belief that hopefully our community leaders are trying to ensure that we are safe from harm. But they aren't closing these pickleball courts that are 20, 25, 50 feet away from homes. And it's a really tough situation.

Jamie Banks (24:38)

Yeah, you know, I just want to add that it's very challenging when people are not exposed to a certain noise, like pickleball noise. Getting them to really understand the impact it's having on others is difficult. And I'm just thinking, you know, hypothesizing that if there was a noise machine that could mimic the sound of pickleball constantly, you know, putting it outside the homes of people who don't live near pickleball courts and having them understand what it's like, might be a way to get them to empathize. But that's a problem that we hear about with all types of noise. People that don't experience it tend to say, “Oh, how bad can it be?” And then in some cases, we've had people who weren't exposed at one time become exposed and saying, “Oh, now I get it.” They understand what it's like to have that kind of chronic exposure.

ASA Publications (25:43)

So based on the survey results, what noise mitigation strategies would you recommend for those adding pickleball courts to their community (or for those with pickleball courts already in their community, I guess)?

Kathleen M Romito (25:54)

You know that that is a, that is a really great question, Kat. And that was you know kind of a secondary goal of our survey because we asked so many questions about what are the characteristics of your specific situation because we wanted to identify success stories. We wanted to be able to begin to recommend combinations of mitigation that seems to lead to a lessening impact on neighbors. 

In one word, it's setbacks, setbacks, setbacks.

Setbacks! 

At this point, we have not collected any success stories yet where courts are located within 350 feet of homes, unless they're located completely inside an enclosed building. And while proportionally fewer neighbors complain at greater distances, we still have many neighbors up to 700, 800 feet away still reporting severe impact. Of course there's going to be extraneous factors like the geographical features, are you above the courts, are you below the courts, those sorts of things. Beyond 1,000 feet, in most situations, the concerns really seem to be more minimal. I won't say never, but it's, you know, that 1,000 feet seems to be a pretty safe place. 

Many communities are trying acoustic sound barriers, quiet equipment, and limiting the hours that the courts are open to play. So in our survey, we specifically asked about those, looked at the effectiveness of those mitigation techniques. And to be honest, those techniques don't seem to be helping. In the 61 places where they've tried thick vinyl acoustic sound barriers, 59 communities said that they weren't helping. Our recent statistical analysis of this data really confirmed this finding that, even though we may be reducing the decibel levels somewhat with these barriers, we are not reducing the overall human impact of the repetitive popping. I think that's a really key finding because municipalities are still spending 20-, 30-, 40,000 dollars trying to put up these barriers on courts that are 25, 50 feet away from homes. And I think the latest research now is showing that that's not a good use of resources. There may still be a role at greater distances where you have courts 700, 800, 1,000 feet away. We're going to need more research on that. 

People are also trying quiet equipment, like quiet paddles or foam balls. And the quiet paddles reduce the decibel levels, similar to the way that the acoustic barriers do. But again, I think once a community is sensitized to the popping, the decibel reduction alone with the paddles doesn't really seem to reduce the impact. Foam balls are interesting. They have been designed to play the same way as the plastic wiffle balls. They function the same way, but serious pickleball players don't like them because they miss that

that signature pop that comes from a successful hit. Pickleball players usually play for a half hour, 45 minutes, maybe a little bit longer. So they're not exposed for endless hours. And they really, I think, get some positive reinforcement from the pop. Anyways, the foam balls do seem effective if they are used full time with monitoring, enforcement, supervision, that sort of thing. I do know of one community in Denver, a municipal area where there is full-time supervision, and the use of the foam balls does seem to help. It does not seem to help when they are recommended because the players won't use it without supervision. 

And then many communities are actually trying to reduce the hours of play, hoping that perhaps one or two quiet days will be enough to soothe the neighbors’ concerns. But unfortunately, in fact, what seems to happen is after the community is sensitized to the noise, is that, when given those quiet days, one or two days a week, it only reminds the community of everything they've lost, and stress levels do not seem to improve at all. It's interesting to note that Martinez, California, that city that I referred to earlier doing the community survey, they even tried cutting the hours of play to 20 hours a week on their public courts. They made a big public investment building these courts. They cut their hours back to just 20 hours a week. But after a trial of a few months, the neighborhood survey still showed that close to half of all neighbors were still being negatively impacted, and the courts had to finally be closed. 

So I mean, to sum this up, limiting hours after a community has been exposed, limiting hours does not seem to work. Quiet paddles and acoustic barriers are not seeming to work, especially when the courts are located within 350 feet of homes. I think there's more research that can be done for courts that are at greater distances. And I think supervised use of the foam balls continues to be an interesting option.

ASA Publications (30:52)

So what are the next steps for this research?

Kathleen M Romito (30:55)

So our survey that we published in January used descriptive statistics. Since then, we've completed an in-depth statistical analysis as we were trying to more clearly identify the combination of factors that might lead to successful mitigation of the noise at less than 1,000 feet. So we're excited to begin sharing those results.

 You know, it's interesting. Acoustics Today just published a great article by two researchers from Boston, Dr. Peters and Dr. Grady, titled “Sounding the Alarm on Public Health and Noise.” And there's a reason that public health researchers are reaching out to acoustics researchers. I think there's increasing recognition that noise can be very impactful on health. And it's by working together across disciplines that we'll be able to make the most significant advances. Generally, with all types of noise-related health issues, and then more specifically with pickleball noise. 

In general, there's been very little research about the impact of impulsive noise on humans, other than hearing loss in occupational settings. So if you think about military settings or construction settings with nail guns or artillery ranges, that's where most of the research on impulsive noise has been is with hearing loss. Residential neighborhoods have never been exposed to essentially non-stop impulsive noise inside their homes that has no end. A construction project may have gone on for a couple months, but this pickleball noise is going on for years. And I think the health impact, as we've described, appears to be very significant. I think further research in this area would be helpful. 

Another unique aspect to study with pickleball noise is the role of non-acoustic in-factors in the impact of noise on humans. As many people know, the ISO technical specs that just came out, I think it was about a year ago now, confirmed that non-acoustic factors may be responsible for up to 30% of the variance in human annoyance to noise. So it's not just decibels. And given the extraordinary amount of social conflict that accompanies the local debates about pickleball noise, I think it's an area ripe for further study.

Jamie Banks (33:03)

Yeah, Kathleen, if I could just interject. The problem of environmental noise is growing. You know, whether it's pickleball, it's noise from data centers, other forms of industry, transportation, and so forth. There's an understanding of the impacts that noise and various characteristics of noise, and as Kathleen mentioned, these acoustic factors, have on health. A bridge between the acoustics profession and the health profession is really needed so that each can really develop an enhanced understanding of how noise affects people and can inform the kinds of things we can pursue with regard to mitigating the impacts. It's not just based on, for instance, the A-weighted decibel, but on other aspects as well. We think that with problem comes opportunities. And it is time to really get that conversation going.

ASA Publications (34:01)

Yeah, totally agree. Do you have any closing thoughts?

Jamie Banks (34:04)

I was just going to say, with regard to the survey, it's great to have a technical report, but we want to have that report either read or find ways to convey the findings in the appropriate language to different audiences, you know, that help them understand that something that may sound trivial, like pickleball, can actually be a serious health issue. We're also considering ways to effectively disseminate the information to the acoustic community, as well as to health professionals, planners, decision makers, and the public.

Kathleen M Romito (34:40)

Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about pickleball, and I say this as a physician that worked with patients for 30 years trying to encourage them to exercise and find community. It's an amazing new form of recreation. It is getting people out there moving and having fun. At the same time, when courts are too close to homes, it's causing harm to people living near the courts. 

So leaders have faced challenges like this before. We think about cigarette smoke. We think about leaded gas. We think about just new things that were introduced into our communities that ended up causing harm. And we didn't ignore those impacts. We adapted. So whether we're talking about pickleball noise in recreation or about other types of noise that is harmful to residents, we can support recreation, can support industry, and we can protect residents at the same time. But we need to recognize that it's more than just decibel levels, it's more than just loudness. We need to consider the complex range of other acoustic and non-acoustic factors, working across disciplines, using thoughtful planning, and being willing to act.

So we really appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak with you about this, Kat

ASA Publications (35:50)

I appreciate you guys coming on here to talk to me about it. I hope that your research can help community leaders and those who design pickleball courts to, you know, find solutions that are a good compromise for both those who enjoy pickleball and those who live nearby and do not want to listen to impulsive noises all day, every day. It seems like since the sport is really meant to, you know, kind of build community, the unwanted noise really hinders that. Thank you again for speaking with me today, and the best of luck in your future research.

Kathleen M Romito (36:19)

Thank you, have a great day.

Jamie Banks (36:21)

Thank you, Kat, our pleasure.