The Kitchen
A new app launching this week aims to simplify the court booking process for pickleball players – and other racket sports enthusiasts – and help facilities get the word out about their available court times.
CourtsApp, which has been in the building phase for most of 2025, has officially launched on the Apple App Store and will have an Android app available soon. The app is currently live in the northeast and will be expanding across the east coast and nationwide in 2026.
The AI-powered marketing and booking platform currently features 150 facilities and 1,500 courts across pickleball, tennis, padel, racquetball, squash and ping pong, with the goal of eventually having more than 50,000 courts on the app.
The app and website was started by Daren Hornig, who has a background in real estate and owns the Port Washington Tennis Academy in Long Island, New York. Hornig said he noticed a “significant technological lapse” between supply and demand and the ability to let players know at a glance what court times were available at facilities in their area.
He compared it to booking sites in other industries like Expedia or GolfNow, which facilitates tee-time bookings at over 9,000 golf courses globally.
“Real estate is a very analytical oriented business, from searching for homes, apartments or office space and comparing rates and availability,” he said. “When I started looking at how the racket sports and paddle sports industries worked and operated, I saw that there was no software out there – similar to an Expedia or OpenTable – where a player could easily see what court times are available at various facilities near them and book it. That didn’t exist.”
Without CourtsApp, players in bigger metro areas are often having to interact with multiple booking platforms for the various facilities where they play. Hornig said he heard from many players in the New York area who had become frustrated with the process of finding and booking a court, which ultimately gets in the way of the fun of playing. CourtsApp puts it all in one place and minimizes the scheduling headache.
“It’s either six phone calls or six different apps to find a location and the time we want,” he said. “This integrates it and it makes it easier.”
A win for players and clubs
In addition to helping players easily find and book courts, CourtsApp is also a game-changer for facilities. The platform helps clubs market their court time to a broader audience of potential players.
“A lot of the clubs that are opening don’t have the marketing sophistication necessary to properly get their product in front of the audience,” Hornig said. “This isn’t like Field of Dreams, where if you just build it they will come. The courts have to be marketed.”
That extra marketing push is particularly important when it comes to the down times that many clubs experience during the middle of the day on weekdays. Hornig believes the CourtsApp platform can help get those less popular slots filled and envisions dynamic pricing playing a key role in that effort eventually.
“The price shouldn’t be $48 at noon and $48 at 6 p.m.” he said. “The difference in supply and demand and all the metrics say that you should lower your price at noon. And even if you got 70-80 cents on the dollar, there’s still value for the clubs, because it would have been zero otherwise. It’s perishable inventory – if you don’t rent the court in that hour, you’re never making up that court time. So you might as well rent that court.”
CourtsApp also helps the facilities from a staffing standpoint. Many clubs don’t have the marketing or tech prowess that Hornig and his team bring to the table, and they don’t have the manpower or the capital to market broadly.
“It’s often the same person who is cleaning the courts, answering the phone, manning the front desk, managing leagues and teaching lessons,” he said. “So we’re going to take this part off of their plate and help alleviate that concern.”
Rollout in 2026 will include open play finder and tournaments
Another function of the app still in development is integrating open play. Players will be able to select their level, time they want to play and be able to see all the available options in their area. They also hope to roll out a tournament feature at a later date.
“We want to make it easy and convenient for both price and discovery for the player,” Hornig said.
For now, the focus is on bringing on more facilities up and down the east coast, with the goal of having thousands of courts from Maine to Florida by the first quarter of 2026.
“We’re actively bringing on clubs throughout the rest of the country and will continue that effort through the end of next year,” Hornig said. “We think by the end of 2026 we will have over 20,000 courts, and it will make for a great player experience. And the sooner we get these facilities signed up, the sooner we can market their courts.”
Hornig said the reception from facilities has been great so far, as well as their interactions with existing court booking software companies and other industry insiders.
“Everyone’s very excited about what we’re doing, because we’re going to make it easier for people to play and for more people to play, which is the end goal, right?” he said. “We’re focused on collectively growing the game and keeping people on the courts, and that’s a win for everybody involved.”
