It’s no secret that pickleball has Angelenos in a total craze. But a pickleball social club coming to El Segundo later this year may take the phenomenon to a whole new level.
Dubbed California Smash Pickleball and Social Club, the club intends to be equal parts pickleball and social club, fusing competition with play in an all-indoor converted warehouse facility.
“Pickleball is a connector of people,” Founder Brett Drogmund, who discovered the sport during the pandemic, said. “I think for so many people, pickleball brought back this frequency of your body. It brought back the ability to be competitive and to feel good and be social and be active. Being active is what older people want. They want to find something and that’s what pickleball is.”
Drogmund is also the founder and executive producer of Skyscraper Productions, a full-service ad agency and production company, also based in El Segundo. He has a history in both animation and documentary film production.
Recognizing consumer demands for entertainment, sports and pickleball, California Smash is Drogmund’s latest venture in what he likes to refer to as a string of creative projects.
“I didn’t want to open just a gym where people came in and worked out and sweat and left,” he said. “That’s not what I wanted to offer the community. I wanted to offer the community the ability to connect.”
When open, California Smash will boast 10 courts with live music playing. It will also feature a spacious dance floor and full-service bar and restaurant, with the ability for players to have food and alcohol delivered directly to their courts.
The club signed a 30 year lease on the 25,000-square-foot building just last month and is currently in the process of undergoing design buildouts valued at roughly $6 million. It is scheduled to open in December.
Trying to redefine pickleball
Drogmund said he was inspired by the way Topgolf – which opened a location in El Segundo in 2022 – bridges entertainment and sports, and likewise wants California Smash to be accessible for players of all levels and ages.
Courts will be rentable by the hour, ranging from $40 to $80 depending on the time of day, as will be paddles and balls for an additional charge.
While there won’t be any membership fees, California Smash is planning to offer designated kids’ programs and coaching lessons for people new to the sport.
Drogmund said he will also tap into his production background to bring unique elements to the courts by playing with things such as lighting and projectors.
“I’m always creating the idea of what the building looks like during the day and what it looks like at night,” he said. “It will be two completely different fields.”
He added that he is trying to make the club fun for everyone, whether someone is looking for some friendly competition or to have a drink and dance. California Smash will host theme nights, such as glow in the dark and ’80s nights.
A DJ will be playing at the club and a soon-to-be-announced former Los Angeles Chargers player will be the host of California Smash’s very own podcast series, which will record on location and discuss a wide array of sports topics.
In addition to the pickleball and eatery offerings, California Smash is currently in discussions with activewear companies to fill a portion of retail space available. The club will feature its own branded apparel for sale, too.
“Brett is a visionary,” Gary Horwitz, an executive managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. who helped Drogmund find California Smash its first ever location, said. “He really is. He’s got incredible ideas and when things are ready to roll, he is moving forward 100 miles an hour.”
Choice of warehouse conversion
Rather than building courts outdoors, California Smash was keen on making its home indoors, in a former manufacturing building.
Bill Bloodgood, an executive managing director at Newmark Group Inc. specializing in the South Bay region, said that while conversions like tennis courts or turf to pickleball are common, converting an industrial warehouse to house pickleball is quite rare.
“In commercial real estate, I don’t think it’s a trend,” Bloodgood said. “I think we will continue to see it in isolated locations, but I don’t think it’s a major trend.”
Pickleball is America’s fastest-growing sport – having grown to 13.6 million players in 2023, jumping 51.8% from 2022 to 2023 and nearly 224% in four years since 2020 – according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association 2024 U.S. Topline Participation Report.
But alongside its rising popularity are also a number of complaints, namely unneighborly objections citing noise as a major community disruptor. Indoor courts may be the answer to meeting consumer demand and approaching new development in a non-abrasive manner.
“I think it will continue to be popular for the long haul and continue to grow simply because it’s so playable,” Bloodgood said on the sport.
Drogmund said the conversion process has been relatively easy and could open a door of possibilities for Los Angeles-based developers hoping too to capitalize on the growing trend.
Impacts on El Segundo
And in a dense manufacturing pocket of Los Angeles County, California Smash’s opening has exciting implications for the city of El Segundo at large.
El Segundo Councilmember Lance Giroux said 98% of the city’s revenue comes from businesses.
“As a result, we’ve always been a very business-friendly city,” he said. “We’re always trying to figure out what the newest thing or the latest thing is and be able to accommodate space for it. When Brett came in with this idea, I think it was a natural fit.”
Giroux said El Segundo currently has eight pickleball courts which are busy from open to close. With California Smash more than doubling the number of courts, it will allow more residents to play the game and improve the sport’s accessibility.
But beyond opening up the courts, Drogmund said he hopes California Smash will reignite the work-play balance of El Segundo by staying open late and being open on the weekends, fueling both tourism and nightlife.
“One of the things we were missing as a city was recreation,” Giroux said, noting the city’s heavy industrial presence. “Any time we have a creative business that comes here, it benefits us as a city. That’s really the major piece of why we would support something like this, because it’s only going to do good things for us. And when it’s successful, it makes us more of a drawing card for other businesses that are trying to accomplish the same types of things. And we’re always looking to help those companies find homes in our city.”
“It really just folds right into the transition of the city of El Segundo when it used to just be a town and the vast majority of the tenants decades ago were the defense industry,” Horwitz added. “Now there’re so many creative uses in El Segundo and vibrant businesses and startups and this just folds right into that.”
California Smash is interested in opening additional locations after seeing how the El Segundo outpost fares.
“Pickleball is still in its total infancy,” Drogmund said. “Ninety percent of the people are just playing on converted tennis courts or playing at a public park, so they haven’t been given this higher-end experience. I think people will flock to it. I think there’s a lot of opportunity in Southern California for us to open more locations. And this is, I hate saying ‘proof of concept’ because I strongly believe that it’s going to be successful, but this is our hopefully first of many.”
