Pickleball

Comprehensive hub for all things pickleball, offering news, tournament updates, player rankings, and a marketplace for equipment and apparel.

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Technologies Used

React
Next.js
TypeScript
TailwindCSS
ShadCN
Node.js
Express
GraphQL
PostgreSQL
Redis
AWS
Docker
Stripe API
Contentful (CMS)
BigCommerce

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Introduction

Pickleball is a comprehensive digital hub dedicated to the fastest-growing sport in the world. It provides enthusiasts with the latest news, tournament updates, live rankings, and a dynamic marketplace for equipment and apparel.

Designed for players, coaches, and fans alike, Pickleball combines real-time data, engaging editorial content, and e-commerce in one platform. Whether you’re tracking your favorite player, registering for an event, or shopping for new gear, Pickleball delivers an end-to-end experience built for the community.

Key Features

  • Tournament Hub: Centralized coverage of professional and amateur tournaments, with live updates, schedules, and bracket visualizations.
  • Player Rankings & Profiles: Up-to-date player rankings, statistics, and personalized profiles that track performance across tournaments.
  • Pickleball Newsroom: Curated editorial content covering news, training tips, and feature stories about the sport and its community.
  • Marketplace: A robust e-commerce experience powered by BigCommerce for product catalog management and Stripe for secure transactions.
  • Community Engagement: Social features including comments, event forums, and the ability for players to share highlights and updates.

Technical Insights

  • Frontend: Built with React, Next.js, and TypeScript for a performant and SEO-friendly experience. TailwindCSS and ShadCN provide a modern, responsive design system that adapts seamlessly across devices.
  • Backend & APIs: A Node.js + Express backend serves APIs, while GraphQL provides flexible querying for tournament data, player rankings, and marketplace content.
  • Database & Persistence: PostgreSQL manages relational data for players, matches, and transactions. Redis supports real-time caching of leaderboard and tournament updates.
  • CMS & Content Delivery: Editorial content is managed through Contentful (headless CMS), giving the editorial team a streamlined publishing workflow.
  • E-Commerce & Payments: The marketplace leverages BigCommerce for catalog, inventory, and order management. Transactions are processed via Stripe API, combining enterprise-level commerce features with modern checkout experiences.
  • Cloud Infrastructure & Deployment: Deployed on AWS (EC2, S3, RDS), with Dockerized microservices for scalability. CI/CD pipelines ensure automated testing, linting, and deployment for fast feature releases.

Challenges and Solutions

  • Real-Time Tournament Updates: Delivering live scores and rankings required low-latency infrastructure. We solved this with Redis pub/sub for real-time event streaming and efficient GraphQL subscriptions.
  • Scalability During Peak Events: Tournament weekends cause major traffic spikes. To handle demand, the system was designed with horizontal scaling on AWS ECS and CDN-based caching for static assets.
  • Marketplace Integration: Balancing BigCommerce with custom features was a challenge. We built a hybrid commerce model, using BigCommerce APIs for catalog/order management while extending checkout flows with Stripe for flexibility.
  • Balancing Content and Data: Combining editorial content with live data posed UX challenges. We built a modular dashboard layout where users can toggle between news, rankings, and marketplace views without losing context.
  • Community Trust & Engagement: User-generated content and social features required moderation. We integrated role-based access controls and automated content moderation pipelines to ensure safety and inclusivity.