ESPN Hits a Return with Pickleball Slam 2

The Quick Points

🏟️ Help malls have a ball. Picklemall is hiring a director of pickleball to oversee nationwide programming, coaching recruitment, and partnership with sales to execute compelling events. As abundant as pickleball seems to be right now, national or corporate full-time opportunities like this are very rare. The first Picklemall location is slated to open later this month at Arizona Mills in Tempe, AZ.

🧮 Manage the roster. Selkirk has shown little restraint in the last year and a half to build their brand to become an industry leader. Tour sponsorships, regular new paddle releases, a network of content creators, and nationwide partnerships with club networks sit alongside a running joke of, what player haven’t they sponsored? Well, that number of sponsored players sits at 500 according to their recent job posting. Sponsorship definitely ranges from free apparel and paddles with prize money matching to fixed lucrative appearance fees but managing several hundred formal contracts is no small feat. And that’s why they are looking for a full-time person to take it on.

🎟️ Get your tickets. It’s 199 days away but the Pickleball Smash is coming back to ESPN and the Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood Florida. Roddick and Chang are out. Steffi Graf and Maria Sharapova take their place. Last Slam was great for pickleball. A few highlights if you remember:

• A sweaty Agassi stated he would be playing this game for the rest of his life. Here’s Ryan’s best Halloween impersonation of Andre.

• It gave an excuse for everyone to text their pickleball-addicted friend “are you watching this!?”

• It drew 800,000 concurrent viewers on a random Sunday.

• Introduced some of the unique rules of the sport via McEnroe jabs.

This time around we would like to see:

• Better court setup. The ball played quite soft and they’ll need to ensure the underlying temp court + stiff padding is there.

• More visual integration of the fans. Pickle is fun. It’s social. Especially with famous personalities narrating it in real-time. You couldn’t see or feel the energy of the crowd last time, it felt like the World Series of Poker. It was oddly intense for as casual and intermediate of an exhibition as it is.

• Nix singles. It doesn’t serve the sport well for a general or random audience as it’s very hard to appreciate the angles, spin, and constraints. Plus it just appears as mini-tennis when you have actual former tennis legends on court. When the guys started to get a hang of it, the doubles matches were fun, intense, and increasingly strategic.

🏈 Anotha one. Former Super Bowl defensive end, Cliff Avril, joins a long list of big-name investors in the MLP team, the D.C. Pickleball Team (DCPT). He’s now invested alongside other celebrities & athletes such as Justin Verlander, Kate Upton, Odell Beckham Jr. Al Tylis, Sam Porter, Eva Longoria, Rip Hamilton, Shawn Marion, and Mesut Ozil. Take it from him: “Since I stepped foot on the pickleball court I knew there was something special about it. I love nothing more than making a positive impact through sport…”

🔢 By the Numbers. A new market research report came out this week, this time reflecting forecasts for the pickleball equipment market (paddles, balls, nets, shoes, apparel, other). The key headline figures:

• 2022 Market Size: $60bn

• 2023 Market Size: $66bn

• 2033 Market Size: $155bn (9% CAGR ‘23-’33)

• Biggest players in the space: Selkirk, Franklin, Onix (Escalade Sports - Dura), Gamma, HEAD, Paddletek

What’s on our mind

Top-of-mind thoughts. The supply problem of courts is very real, especially in new geographies and cold weather states, but that is changing quickly with an influx of private facilities. Franchises and independently owned clubs are the path forward to generating sticky, dense, and intermediate playing communities.

One model to consider: Crossfit

• Affiliate model (not franchise). Costs $3k per year to be certified and you retain your name. Crossfit builds the brand globally/culturally and has started to give affiliates tools to operate their business.

• 5,000 boxes in the United States. At least 2M Crossfitters in the US on average paying $130-175 per month. Average goal of 150 members per club.

Open questions that we are furiously trying to gain a stronger perspective on:

• Assuming weak to average local saturation, what’s the minimum population to support a pickleball-focused club?

  • 350 members is ideal for a 6 court facility. ~60 members per court.

  • 50,000 city or town. 350 members with 150 guests. 1% of a city’s population regularly playing + paying for pickle….

  • There are 700 cities in the US with > 50k population…

  • Doesn’t seem unreasonable that on a base of 10M active players….pockets of 500-1000 league + round robin seeking, time-crunched, or serious players won’t arise. This is all particularly enhanced with cold-weather markets.

• Given how local of a phenomenon pickleball is, how much value does a national brand bring to your local club?

  • On one hand, it’s very similar to hitting a gym on the move. Guest pass is going to be $10-$20, I know what machines and access I’m getting, I know there will be one in town….I’m going to head to Anytime/Crunch/Planet Fitness.

  • On the other, given how much pickle is about the people and not the facility, you may want to support the club owners and the local flavor of what makes their community tick.

  • It will obviously be a mix of two but to us local stands out as a way to enhance your travel or visitor experience right now.

🌏 Signals of international. This week our friends in the industry brought us three signals that the sport is permeating. 1. An independent paddle brand had several offers from different groups of entrepreneurs in a South American country looking to earn exclusive distribution. 2. Thailand’s first homegrown paddle company launched the Arun which looks quite unique. 3. Leaders of the sport here domestically are being summoned to plan some Olympic exhibitions.

“How is the dinking” is the one go-to rough proxy for well developed a national’s pickleball game is. If they aren’t dinking at all, not a great sign. Right now Canada and the UK are leading the pack with their soft game. We see you Australia, keep workin’. 🙂 

🏨 Luxury pickleball. Our thesis from a few months ago with Host Hotels remains the same and continues to get validated, as more and more luxury resorts are offering pickleball as a key amenity to their locations. Check out some of these locations the next time you’re looking for a high-end getaway.

Breaking Ground

The Reset is beginning to track publicly available court construction data to keep track of locations, costs, and development projects across the nation. Our tracker can be found here.

Featured Developments:

The Annapolis Mall is adding a pickleball facility, Ball at the Mall, which includes eight courts where they plan to host leagues, open play, reservations, and tournaments. Interestingly, the courts are all outdoor, despite being placed right outside a vacant Nordstrom, which creates some risky membership retention challenges in our opinion, as the courts will shut down during the winter (starting late October / early November). Normal membership pricing is $25 per month, with $20 per hour court reservations (on weekends; Weekdays is $15) on top. However, you get 4 complimentary hours per month as a base member.

Atlanta, GA is getting a new eatertainment facility, with The Painted Pickle slated to open in the fall of 2023. The venue will be located in Armour Yards district and is owned under the banner of the Painted Hospitality Group. Amount of courts and full entertainment list is yet to be disclosed.

Best of the Rest:

• Fairport, NY is getting a new 10-court, indoor private facility, The Fairport Pickleball Club, in the coming months where members (& non-member pay-to-play) will get access to court reservations, tourneys, clinics, and open play. The facility will also boast a pro shop, bar, and locker room.

• Fort Madison, IA unveiled a new six-court complex, which cost ~$300k and took about two years to complete.

• Kirby Park in Spring Valley, IL is receiving two new pickleball courts after converting one of its existing tennis courts.