MLP San Clemente Recap and More

The Quick Points

🛩️🇨🇳 Going international. This year, pickleball seems to be taking over social media in China, as the hottest American sport makes its way to Chinese consumers the same way that cycling, frisbee, and skateboarding were all the rage in China last year, and camping & skiing took the country by storm in 2021. Some interesting points from the article and our perspective:

• The fashion component is helping drive popularity, as it’s tapping into a trend in Urbancore athletic wear among younger demographics. Activewear brand by NYC designer, Anna Sui, has partnered with the Shanghai sports club, InLoveSport, to create a pickleball apparel line.

• Looking at the frisbee craze in 2022, a number of high-profile brands entered the space by creating their own discs. These included Prada, Chanel, Supreme, and Marni. Outside of some big-name athletic retailers, pickleball has yet to see some of these major cultural powerhouses enter the space to play on the cultural zeitgeist and appeal to younger demographics.

• Sketchers has stepped up as the major sponsor of events and athletes across China.

• Of note to us is the localized market capture of pickleball both in the U.S. and internationally. Among the biggest beneficiaries in China are local social media, retail, and sports facility brands, as opposed to bigger name U.S. companies establishing a presence. On one hand, speaks to the nascency of the industry, while on the other, it reflects the opportunity for brands to gain a foothold in their local regions before consolidation enters the space or competing companies expand to new markets.

🛳️ Pickleball takes the high seas. Royal Caribbean Cruises announced their latest ship details and itinerary for Utopia of the Seas, launching in 2024, bringing another cruise ship to their fleet offering pickleball. The company has incorporated pickleball courts into nearly all of their Sports Courts on the ships, offering open play and reservations to passengers. As we’ve discussed in the past, the age-inclusive nature of the sport makes it well-suited for cruise lines which host a wide range of passengers from older couples to families with children. It’s another great on-ramp for the sport, as it creates the potential for first-time pickleball players to go home and seek out local courts to continue playing. This brings Royal Caribbean’s fleet of pickleball cruise liners up to 18.

What’s on our mind

🏟️ MLP San Clemente. Ryan was on-site for this weekend’s Major League Pickleball event. It was the third event of the year and final event of the first season culminating in the first-ever Super Finals. The two best performing season long teams from each division competed on Monday on ESPN2 for $60,000 individual prizes.

Big Wins:

• The team at MLP has definitely created the most engaging professional pickleball event. The base of high-level play is only made better with consistent competitive tension and on-court drama paired with large financial prizes. Players generally love it and it is no coincidence “there’s nothing like it” is the most common post-match interview comment. Plus, it is legitimately fun to attend and watch. It feels like an athletic show.

• MLP’s larger budget and focus on a smaller number of events make it so the venue and atmosphere can shine through. The San Clemente Life Time venue was striking and really matched the world-class play happening on Championship Court. Terraced seating, beautiful scenery, and high-quality video production help players, teams, and brands show well during and after the event.

• The team format lets more players and personalities shine through than regular tours like the PPA and APP. Stagnant bracket seedings and committed partnerships by their nature don’t facilitate players making interesting runs. Each MLP weekend there are at least 6-10 players that show they are worth paying attention to with big primetime performances.

• Pickleball isn’t tennis and no spectator at MLP would get that feeling. It’s truly a unique show where you leave knowing pickleball is real, fun, and sometimes goofy. The intimate spectating helps convey the skill and strategy to play the sport competitively.

Remaining Opportunities:

• Replays and challenges of line calls have to become as robust and professional as other parts of the game are. Just as Lea Jansen, Travis Rettenmaier, and Ben Johns were vocal forcing functions for paddle testing in the sport generally, this weekend may serve as an uncomfortable kick in the butt to nail process to ensure play is as fair as it can be.

• Connecting the casual recreational player to more story lines and color about what they are seeing on-court. This year is a foundational year for the league given the Premier/Challenger team switching leading to shorter stints of brand x team player story development. That said, it would be great for the league to introduce more candid backstories between the competitors.

It’s still very early for pro pickleball but we are bullish when you can consistently package it like this. Did you tune it at all? Let us know what you thought!

🎾 Tennis vs. Pickleball drama continues. This weekend saw a storm of angry tennis fans take to social media over the Tennis Channel failing to broadcast the finals of America’s Frances Tiafoe v. Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff in Stuttgart, Germany. Tiafoe ended up winning his third career title and first one on grass, however, his primetime spotlight on Tennis Channel was snubbed in favor of coverage of day 3 of the San Clemente MLP tournament. Part of this was simply a function of the Tennis Channel honoring its prior broadcast obligations to the MLP, and not a last-minute decision to show pickleball to its tennis fans. It does however, suggest that media properties like the Tennis Channel made a prior business decision that the streaming rights to one of six MLP events this year (and notably the last one of Season 1) would be more valuable to their media property than a lesser ATP tournament, regardless of who the finalist may end up being (in this case an American favorite). While it likely continues to drive a wedge between pickleball fans and hardcore tennis fans, we see almost all publicity as good publicity when pickleball is competing for airtime with a legacy sport, especially for one of the more exciting team-based professional leagues (MLP).

🏓⚾️🏈 From exhibition to the tour. The Sports Facilities Companies (a manager of national sports facilities) has launched a new league, PBX Pickleball, which partners with retired professional athletes to host tournaments around the country featuring these former all-stars as the main professional competitors. The organization will also host tournaments that allow amateur players to partner with and play against these former professional athletes. It’s quite a different concept to us, as exhibition matches are typically seen as one-off side attractions that try to ride the name recognition coattails. This brings a new angle and experience to amateur pickleball players around the country who would love the opportunity to play alongside (and watch) some of their favorite athletes from different sports. This format would target some of the excitement that golf has captured with their celebrity + amateur events like the AT&T Pro Amateur, bringing golf fans around the country the chance to watch their favorite non-golf pros compete. If PBX sticks to this angle, we could see them offering a unique offering in their own lane that isn’t attempting to compete with the high-profile pickleball professionals playing in PPA, MLP, and APP tourneys. One last interesting piece that’s also still up in the air is how PBX incorporates a unique charitable element into each event. Every professional athletes’ charities stand to benefit from the league in some capacity, so it could present a lucrative opportunity to better connect fans with good causes, while providing them with a better value prop than simply, “watch us play and give us money”.

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 Emmaus (PA) Borough Council approved the construction of two courts at two separate parks (Furnace Dam & Emmaus Community Park), expected to be completed by late summer’23 and spring’24 respectively. The Council decided the dual approval in order to save on construction costs by combining the contracting to a single day of laying foundation across both locations. The City was supportive of these plans, citing a nearby senior living development being built concurrently, noting that the pickleball courts will be an obvious amenity that will see use among the active older population moving in there. While many of these reports provide estimated total budgets, the Emmaus Council reported their estimates of the labor & materials costs for each development, which we’ve included an output of below to provide some additional insight into the cost composition of these types of projects (original in the spreadsheet linked above).

The country’s largest owner of pickleball courts, Life Time Fitness, announced plans to expand in NYC, with the development of a 53,000 sq.ft. indoor pickleball facility and athletic club at 1 Penn owned by Vornado Realty Trust. This is part of Vornado’s $2bn investment to upgrade the offices around Penn Station, which, until now, lacked a key attraction to the area. The first phase will construct the athletic facility this year, with pickleball courts being rolled out in the first half of 2024. The Company plans further expansion in the greater NYC area with three additional locations at The Brooklyn Tower, Brooklyn Crossing and Park Avenue South in 2024.

The Barnes Tennis Center in Point Loma, CA plans to add 12 pickleball courts to their existing 7 courts at the facility by the end of July’23. Notably, we spoke with the team over there and they highlighted that these courts will be built in addition to the existing tennis courts. In other words, unlike many other tennis facilities, they’re keeping the existing tennis courts in-place to stay a premier racquet sports destination. The courts offer both open-play and pay-to-play reservations at $15 per court per player. The decision comes amidst an ongoing debate to convert six of the nearby Peninsula Tennis Club courts to pickleball as well, which would limit the facility’s ability to host tennis tournaments, the local high school team, and leagues & clinics. The resurfacing conversion would cost ~$9-13k per court and is mandated by the city every 3-5 years.

The City of Kennewick, WA opened a premier 15-court facility this weekend, adding 12 new courts to their existing 3 and making it the largest center in the state of Washington. City leaders believe this will be a premier attraction for visitors and people looking to relocate, citing the economic benefits they expect for the area’s hospitality and restaurant industries. The development wasn’t cheap, coming in at approx. $1.3M, or ~$108k per court. The ‘true’ cost of the court construction was likely slightly lower as the budget included a new picnic area and restroom facilities.

Best of the Rest:

• Chicken N Pickle - the nationally known brand is opening an 11 court indoor/outdoor location in Glendale, AZ.

• Galaxy Park - a new sports complex on the Dignity Health Sports Park campus in Carson, CA will open this Thursday with 8 new pickleball courts.

Pickle in Pictures

Programming note: We would love to feature where readers are playing and competing. Just reply with a photo of your courts!

1. MLP San Clemente, live from Ryan.

2. Really awesome piece (& pics) about pickleball being a unique way to build community for Afghan refugees in Minnesota.

3. 👏 Will give some props to someone at The Kitchen for capturing this one…we’ll be on the lookout for this location 👀

4. 🏆 And of course…gotta give some airtime to the Season 1 champs from the Mad Drops.