Quick Thoughts Going Into MLP Dallas

The Quick Points

🔢 Another day another campus club. This time, there’s a piece citing the growth in popularity at NC State. Starting in 2019 with five members, the group has now grown to over 100, and competes in as well as hosts national tournaments. One of their biggest advantages is their ability to fundraise, allowing them to travel and accommodate a growing team, while also spending on the materials required to paint lines on courts to run 24 games at once on their home courts. This fundraising piece is one we’ve heard a few times now, after conversations with some club members at UT and Ohio State. Many clubs are in the process of becoming formally recognized by their respective schools, which opens the door to greater funding and fundraising opportunities, as there are some restrictions around charging members and running events when you aren’t an officially sanctioned club sport. We remain optimistic about college pickleball being a growth catalyst for youth participation and greater infrastructure investment if it can get recognized as a sport at a school and open the door to scholarship opportunities.

💼 Work in pickleball:

• Founder in Residence, Community Building through Pickleball - a new venture studio wants to bring someone in to build a platform that enables broader groupings of pickleball play to drive community & economic development in neighborhoods.

• There’s a job out there specifically for a pickleball insurance underwriter, and as they put in the posting…that’s not a joke. the Pickleball Insurance Program is run by Rednil Insurance, and their focus is to help insure pickleball facilities going up. Interesting niche and part of the facility development process we don’t often talk about.

🏠 For fun. Another day, another mansion with pickleball as one of the first photos. We’ll take this one too and be down the road (2hrs?) from our friends at Pickle & Chill. Worth it.

What’s on our mind

Quick items we’re going to be observing and asking around this week:

• Areas where it appears that MLP and PPA are beginning to work together ahead of the merger - cost savings on facilities, food & bev, on-site staff, etc.

• How many MLP teams had interim practices / scrimmages with their players, and if that translates into any incremental improved results for those pairings.

• Fan attendance at various points throughout the weekend based on time and event

• Fan demographics

• New ways MLP tries to educate fans in real-time about players, the game format, prior results, etc.

• Layout and design considerations relative to Atlanta.

• Any activation of celebrity owners - let’s see if we can beat MLP Atlanta with the appearance of the Atlanta Bouncers’ owner, Trae Young.

• Try to get a directional sense of where people are spending money at the event, and understand how the economics of on the ground purchases are split amongst MLP and its partners / venue host.

• Of course will keep an eye on the linear & streaming production value, as the in-real-life experience will likely continue to surpass the way it’s shown on a screen.

Breaking Ground

UPDATE: As part of some new work we’re doing, we have a new facilities tracker to go alongside the existing one. This ‘new’ tracker aims to identify all of the private facilities across the country (and not just recently opened). It currently excludes almost all the franchises (e.g. Picklr/ACE). One day we’ll get to including eatertainment facilities and franchises. If you’re a more visual person than a spreadsheet person, you can also check out this interactive map of all the facilities. Let us know if you want to chat or if you have any facilities you know of that we missed (it’s still a work in progress!).

The Reset tracks publicly available court construction data to better understand the locations, costs, and development priorities going into projects across the nation. Our tracker can be found here.

Featured Developments:
Branford, CT approved plans for a new facility, All World Pickle and Padel. They plan to begin construction on the 10-court pickleball facility in the next three weeks. The club will feature 1 outdoor pickleball and 1 outdoor padel court, as well as 4 indoor courts of each. They plan to be a premium fitness facility, with locker rooms, showers, and monitors to replay video. We’ll stay up to date on it, but the white walls and light-colored kitchen could pose some design problems.

Des Moines, IA is getting a new $13.5M facility, Genesis Health Club, which will feature multiple basketball courts, an indoor five-lane swimming pool, a sports bar, two volleyball courts, four simulators, and 12 pickleball courts (6 indoor / 6 outdoor). The facility will be located inside a former Sears building in Southridge Mall. The owner believes the facility can bring in nearly 2,000 visitors to the mall daily.

Ace Pickleball Club bringing another location to Voorhees, NJ in the Eagle Plaza. TBD how many courts they’ll fit in the 23k sqft location.

Another eatertainment concept is coming to town, with Dogwood Social House planning to build 8 pickleball courts, alongside other activities like axe throwing in South Saint Louis County, Mo.

Chubbuck, ID is in the process of getting an indoor pickleball facility, Upper Level Pickleball. They plan to open 10 courts in the pickleball-centric facility.

Pickleball Kingdom continues its franchise expansion, this time with a facility in Murfreesboro, TN with Sam and Jami Zolt taking on the endeavor.

Sioux Falls, SD’s Remedy Brewing Co. is opening pickleball courts under the brand, The Pickle Pub. The location will include 4 courts, as well as other games like shuffleboard and bean bags. Courts can rent out courts on an hourly basis.

Best of the Rest:

• Hilton Head, NC // 6 courts // $250k

• Oats Park // Fallon, NV // 6 outdoor courts

• Madison, AL // 12 outdoor resurfaced courts