S.F. tennis and pickleball reservations may soon cost you money

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The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department has proposed a $5 reservation fee for more than half of its public tennis and pickleball courts, and some residents are fighting back.  

The hourly fee would only apply to reservations. Sixty-seven of 123 tennis courts and 41 of 67 pickleball courts can be reserved; the rest are walk-up only. “All our courts — even the reservable ones — are free to use on a walk-up basis if they’re not already in use,” the department wrote, and that would continue.

But a group of tennis and pickleball players, in a rare alliance, are fighting the fees, saying they would change who can afford to reserve courts and put the city on a slippery slope towards limiting public access. A petition to stop the proposal has gathered about 1,200 signatures. 

“Most of the members feel that the community wouldn’t be the same,” said Prince Boucher, founder of the Mission Athletic Club, a free-of-charge tennis group that hosts social games every week.

Suzy Safdie, a pickleball player who has played for four years, shared that concern. Although the department says walk-up courts would remain free, Safdie is worried that the allure of more revenue might lead the city to make more courts reservation-only.

“If they were to take away some of the open-play places to put reservations there instead, you don’t have the dynamic of a 10-year-old playing with an 80-year-old anymore,” she said.

This is the department’s second attempt at a fee: In May 2024, Rec and Parks proposed charging $5 an hour, but it was nixed at a Board of Supervisors committee.

The fees are projected to generate $1 million for the department, according to Rec and Parks’ budget proposal. The department said that the charge is “modest, fair and cost-effective,” but because pickleball players usually play more often than tennis players do, Safdie said — sometimes even five times a week for seniors — it can add up.

To the parks department, the $5 fee is “a practical way to avoid making deep, painful cuts to essential park services” as it faces a $15 million structural deficit, said Daniel Montes, a spokesperson. Those services could include basic park maintenance, community pools and senior and youth programming.

Other cities, like Seattle, Oakland, Berkeley and Santa Cruz, already charge $7 to $30 an hour. “San Francisco’s proposed $5-an-hour fee is among the lowest in the nation,” the proposal read.

“This proposal isn’t about profit,” Montes said. “It’s about preserving core park services for the communities who rely on them most.” 

That $1 million revenue would be a relatively small, compared to another, more controversial, measure to charge $3 an hour for parking in Golden Gate Park. That is expected to bring in $9 million in revenue by fiscal year 2026-2027. 

Last year, Supervisor Connie Chan urged the department to reconsider the fees and explore other models, like charging fees to private schools and sports organizations that use the city’s courts. In this year’s plan, for-profit organizations would pay $40 an hour and nonprofits would pay $20 to book the courts. 

For the Mission Athletic Club, the free tennis group run by volunteers, that would mean paying $80 per session, as it uses reservation-only courts across the city. It usually gathers a dozen people per court to play what’s called Live Ball, a fast-paced, cardio-heavy game where a dozen players rotate to hit the ball and socialize. The club reserves two free courts for a two-hour window, and up to 24 people can rotate to play. 

“Public spaces should bring people together and build community,” Boucher said. He said the club is an easy starting point for an often-elitist sport. “When you hear tennis, you think of a country club, you think of Wimbledon, and we are absolutely not that.” 

Up until 2019, players have only been able to reserve courts at the tennis center in Golden Gate Park, while neighborhood courts were first-come, first-served. 

But when the Golden Gate Park center closed for renovation, Rec and Parks rolled out a pilot online reservation system at some public courts. After the center reopened in 2021, it charged $9 an hour during prime-time play. The fee has now increased to $11. 

That’s what Boucher fears might happen to other courts if a $5 fee comes in. 

“It seems like that was a pilot program for the possible privatization of public spaces,” he said. “It starts there and then it just keeps going. Where does it stop?”