Sports Are the New Dating Apps
Single people all over the city are turning to running clubs, team sports, and members-only gyms to find dates.
This summer, Annie broke up with the apps. The 28-year-old Instagram influencer deleted Raya in hopes of meeting a man in person — one who was emotionally mature, fun but ready to commit. When a friend recommended she join a running club as an alternative, she never intended to follow through. She wasn’t a serious runner; was it really worth it?
Not long after, while scrolling on TikTok, she saw a clip posted by the founder of a new Manhattan-based running club for singles called Lunge. In the video, which has more than 160,000 views, a cloud of fit, smiling people run down the West Side Highway during golden hour. “We run 3 miles and always do #beersafter,” the caption reads.
Annie relented. At the club’s first-ever meeting in May, there were around 30 people. When she returned a few weeks later, there were more than 400. And at the bar afterward? She got three numbers.
This summer, running isn’t the only sport singles are joining to find a match. A perfect storm of pandemic-induced loneliness coupled with serious dating-app fatigue has turned the city’s sports leagues, running clubs, and gyms into the hottest places to date in New York. (The memes, too, have reached both peak satire and peak thirst.)
Some organizations, like the running club Annie joined, have made matchmaking part of their mission, while others are offering events: Queer Pickleball NYC and Prospect Park Track Club both had singles nights this spring, while others encourage mingling with social events like drag bingo or a summer rager at the Arlo Soho. Even the apps themselves want in; Hinge, for example, awarded Manhattan-based Commonwealth Running Club with a $25,000 grant to expand its in-person events.
Evy, the social co-chair of Prospect Park Track Club, has a front-row seat to the action. In May, she helped organize a runner’s singles night, which she says was PPTC’s most successful event in its 50-year history (including its past singles nights). On the day of, she even had to scramble to find an overflow venue because the planned spot — a brewery in Gowanus — could only fit 200 people; more than twice that many ended up showing up. “There was a line down the block,” she says.
That night, PPTC members mingled with members of other NYC running clubs. There were name tags (including pronouns), bracelets (to signal who you’re looking to meet, in regards to gender and sexuality), and icebreaker questions that Evy wrote herself, ranging from simple (What’s your favorite color?) to, as she says, spicy (Besides running, what’s your favorite way to get your heart racing?).
She’s aware of some hookups that happened afterward, though she’s unsure about any dating — it’s only been a month; time will tell — though the club’s singles night last year, which had roughly 120 attendees, spawned multiple relationships.
And then there’s pickleball, which has exploded in popularity and has a raging singles scene all its own. “The pickleball community is so hot for each other,” says Kat, a co-founder of Queer NYC Pickleball. “I’m seeing a lot of romantic magic on the courts.”
The pickleball court is also a prime spot for queer people to meet outside the bar scene. As one 28-year-old told me, “The idea of going to a lesbian bar, going up to somebody, and then finding out that they’re 22 years old or they have a girlfriend? That’s really daunting,” she says. “Secretly, we all want the chance to have an organic connection,” she says. “I’m dying to go.”
Even Kat, the league’s co-founder, found love through the league she helped organize. She discovered pickleball not long after moving from Wisconsin to New York in 2022. “I fell in love with the sport right away,” she says. “And then I realized, Oh my God, it’s just a lot of dudes. And I’m gay … I’m sure if I was a single woman, I would be like, Oh, this is a dream.”
So Kat and a small group queer friends started a league of their own. At its first open play in May of last year, Kat met Claire, a 37-year-old psychotherapist. After their first time playing together, Kat invited Claire to her birthday party — which was, yes, pickleball themed. The next week, after league play, the group ended up doing karaoke at the Branded Saloon, a queer bar in Prospect Heights, and they shared drinks and chicken strips. Sparks flew.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re doing this,’” Claire says. Today, the two live together in Brooklyn and got engaged in April.
Many of the people I spoke with said post-workout drinks were the catalyst for taking a relationship to the next level. A woman I’ll call Olivia, a 28-year-old who works in tech, joined Brooklyn Track Club in early 2021 on a friend’s recommendation. There, she befriended a serious runner. Over time, they became friends; DMs shifted to texting. When winter arrived, he would even call her at 6 a.m. to encourage her to come to practice.
Their relationship was platonic until they ended up alone together at the end of a bar crawl. When he leaned in to kiss her, she was surprised — and excited. They took things slow at first, but the turning point came a few months later during (what else?) the 2023 New York City Marathon. “I hopped in and paced him for the last few miles,” she says. A few weeks later, they became official. This October, they plan to run the Chicago Marathon together.
For one woman, things happened more quickly. She met the man who would become her boyfriend at the very first ice-hockey game with the co-ed league at Chelsea Piers she attended. When the group decamped to a nearby bar postgame, the two ended the night together. For the first six months of their relationship, she asked him to keep their budding connection under wraps. “I didn’t want any of the guys to view me as either just his girlfriend or, you know, the slut who sleeps around in the skate,” she says. “I asked him specifically to keep it between the two of us. He proved himself trustworthy.”
Some people I spoke with were a little skeptical about dating the people they work out with. Sarah, a member of Williamsburg Athletic — part of the Athletic Clubs, a group of private members’ gyms in Manhattan and Brooklyn — recently went out with a guy from her gym. “We had become friends over five months and then realized simultaneously that there might be some romantic interest,” she says. She had a good time on their first date, but afterward, he said he wanted to keep things platonic. She was a little bummed but also felt a bit of relief — she was concerned that if things went sour, it would taint their gym experience, which she says is “sacred” for them both.
But other New Yorkers like Maureen and Daphne — a couple who met playing kickball with Big Apple Rec, a multi-sport league for LGBTQ people — actively encourage dating a teammate (or an opponent). They’ve even become glorified wing-people. “In the league, there’s this phrase everyone uses — ‘I’m here for the beers and the babes,” says Daphne. “Especially in the summer, there’s heat — there’s tension.”
Hookups abound, they say. “When you have a friend who’s flirting with someone and you’re trying to help them out subtly from the side? It’s a lot of messiness,” says Daphne.
“A lot of conniving,” agrees Maureen, laughing. “I do love aiding those hookups. Like, ‘Yeah, she thinks you’re cute.’”
But sometimes, still, the old-fashioned DM slide gets the ball rolling. Annie, the influencer, recently posted a video of herself on one of her runs with Lunge; more than 2,000 people shared it. A guy who saw it messaged her and asked her out. In the meantime, she’ll be running down the West Side Highway every Wednesday.
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