Back in 2020, amid the lockdowns, Xiana López discovered through a market study that Europe had yet to produce a pure player in the pickleball business, despite the buzz floating over the pond from the U.S. There were pádel and tennis brands selling pickleball racquets, but none that would develop a product themselves.
As CMDsport reports, López gathered €25,000, quit her job with Spanish state television and founded the pure player herself. Zcebra is Europe’s first pickleball manufacturer and offers, in López’s words, “better racquets, with materials of higher quality, better thicknesses and sizes, and very appealing and innovative graphics.” López is now the CEO.
Zcebra now sells five categories of pickleball racquets for beginners and professionals alike, ranging in price from €40 to €180. It sells two types of balls (€20 for a six-pack), a portable net (€150) and some apparel. It sponsors a professional team, which helps develop and advertise its products.
López set out to create demand where almost none existed, and pickleball has, in fact, begun to establish itself in Spain. By her estimate, the country now has 15,000 players, with more on the way – thanks in part to the recent inclusion of the sport at pádel and tennis clubs and to its replacement of badminton in certain places. Pickleball has apparently caught on at the prison of Alcalá Meco as well. Zcebra, though still small, has been growing in tandem.
Over the year ended in March 2023, it sold 1,500 racquets and 500 nets, with 24 delivery anywhere in Europe through its own website and Amazon. Spain accounts for about a quarter of its sales. The other top markets are the U.K., France and Italy, with business picking up in Germany, Sweden and Austria. In its first year of operation, Zcebra generated revenues of about €100,000. Now, about a year and a half later, it is projecting €350,000 for 2023 – the year it has turned its gaze across the Atlantic.
The U.S. market boasts tens of millions of players, two orders of magnitude more than Spain or, indeed, Europe as a whole. Zcebra has already set up shop there, with a dedicated e-commerce website, a spot on Amazon, and “ambassadors” in California, Florida, Oregon and Utah. People in rural areas are converting barns for pickleball, López explains, and courts are springing up in the cities “like mushrooms.”
Two years from now, if all goes according to the ambitious plan, Zcebra will be among the top three pickleball brands worldwide.
