When Pritchard and Bell returned from golf one Saturday afternoon in 1965, they found their families bored. They had attempted to set up badminton, but no one could find the shuttlecock. Pritchard and Bell challenged their kids to devise their own game. The adults and kids ended up at the badminton court and began experimenting with different balls and rackets, including table tennis paddles. The 5-foot (1.5-metre) badminton net was eventually lowered to hip level to accommodate driving the ball]nitially, a Wiffle ball was used, but later the Cosom Fun Ball was found to be more durable and provided a better playing experience.The table tennis paddles were quickly replaced with larger, more durable plywood paddles fabricated in a nearby shed McCallum continued to experiment with various paddle designs in his father's Seattle basement workshop.One paddle, he called the "M2", or McCallum 2, became the paddle of choice for most early players of the game. Over the summer Pritchard, Bell and McCallum worked together to refine and document the rules.In 1967, the first dedicated outdoor pickleball court was constructed at the residence of Pritchard's friend, Bob O'Brian. Soon after its creation, pickleball became popular with local neighbors and relatives of the inventors. In February 1968, Pritchard, along with McCallum's son David and two other friends, formed Pickle Ball, Inc. to promote and sell the sport. The company filed its first annual report in 1972, around the same time they trademarked the name Pickle-ball.The company manufactured wooden paddles and pickleball kits to satisfy the demand for the sport. Interest in pickleball continued to grow, and spread from the Pacific Northwest into warmer areas as "snowbirds" brought the sport south to Arizona, California, Hawaii, and Florida. In 2016, Pickle Ball, Inc. was purchased by PickleballCentral.com, which operates under the corporate name Olla, LLC.