Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I did it again.
That's the second freaking time.
What's going on with this board?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: User error.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Oh, it's for sure. User error. Okay, today's topic, sky Alphabet soup. Okay, do you even have a clue where we're headed? I kind of mentioned it already.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Like an acronym.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Well, yeah, a bunch of them. Initializations is the right term.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Initializations. Ooh, I can say that word, acronyms.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: When you say it as a word like sonar or radar.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Right, NASA.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Whereas initialization, which is a horrible word that no one ever wants to say, so we all just say acronym anyway. But yeah, it's a bunch of three letter initializations trying to stay ahead of the game. That's our objective over here. One of our objectives over here, right?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Indeed.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Indeed it is. And our theme song says, so I'm ahead of the game.
Were you singing along that time?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I was.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: I heard a little boop boop badoop from you.
Okay, awesome. I think you know the state of pickleball.
I believe there's two completely separate worlds of pickleball.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I can see that.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Okay. What do you think they are then?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Well, you have the professional or the almost professionals and then you have those who just want to go out and play.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Okay, that's not far off. I do believe the second group is those who don't care and they just want to go out and play. Yeah, I'm just playing pickleball, having a good time. Probably have my own house rules kind of people. Right. So totally great. The other group is the group that's like, what's going on with Pickleball? And they follow the pros or maybe they watch on tv or. And on tv is a somewhat lightweight term given that, you know, you're watching on YouTube. I guess we call that tv. I'm an old guy, so maybe that's tv, but watching video would be a better way to put it. Well, Selkirk, does they call it pickleball tv? Okay, so we're going to enter into this world of Alphabet soup all these initializations. And I want to start with kind of the big one. So the big one is called United Pickleball. And United Pickleball, also known as the UPA or United Pickleball association, is the parent company of the PPA, of course, branded the Carvana PPA tour and major league pickleball, which is branded major league Pickleball by Margaritaville. So the UPA is the parent company of PPA and MLP. Okay, this is where the alpha soup starts to get crazy.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yes. Take notes.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Peeps pretty sure they also own or partially own duper.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: I would not be surprised.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Duper, which is dynamic user player rating, something like that. I don't even know what the heck the fricking thing stands for. Duper is, in their own words, the world's most accurate pickleball rating.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Of course they say that. They have to say that. And they are, of course, the official rating system of the premier professional pickleball tours, which they call the PPA Tour and the MLP.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: But there's other professional pickleball tours.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Which we're gonna get to a little bit. But of course, Duper doesn't consider them a premier professional pickleball tour because that's the enemy.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Okay. Still staying with United Pickleball Association. UPA owns PPA, owns MLP. I think owns duper. Also owns Pickleball Central.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Really?
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Out of Kent, Washington. I used to go there to play pickleball. Well, so Kent is a suburb of Seattle, and when I would go to Seattle, I would go to Kent intentionally to play pickleball. When Covid hit, they shut down the indoor pickleball.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about this before.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Okay. So they own them, and they own pickleballtournaments.com.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Which bought pickleballbrackets.com.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Okay. I see all the pieces fitting together.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Tom Dundon is the main dude. Dundon is the name who bought all this stuff.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Okay. Holy cow. So basically, there's one ginormous group who's using money.
This is my words, to do their best to own pickleball, at least from a revenue perspective.
They have not entered into the pickleball paddle or ball world or net world yet.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: But they market those. Yeah.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Except that they have official partners. Right. So their sponsorship money. So the Vulcan ball is the official ball, the PPA tour and the whatever paddle and the whatever net.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: So they do get plenty of money from that as well. I. I heard Vulcan paid 3 million, but I don't know that that's really. Right.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: But, I mean, who knows?
That's a heck ton of balls to sell.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: $3 a ball. It's a million balls just to not break even. Right. I mean, because you have costs. But just to say you kind of got the revenue back. I mean, it's pretty bad. So probably six probably needs at least 2 million to 3 million balls sold.
And with 13, arguably, for sure 13 million, upwards of 35 million players, I think that's probably unrealistic. But they also sell paddles.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Right?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: So that brand, that branding for the balls might also get them purchases on the paddles.
I don't know. Okay. That's one conglomerate of pickleball stuff. And as this industry gets bigger, the government might eventually step in and go, hey, you're a monopoly, maybe, right?
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Today they're not. Let's talk about why they're not. So there's some competing tour. There's a major competing tour. The app and the app I happen to really love. I'm a big fan of Ken Hermande. I believe he's doing some awesome things.
The app is a. It's not just a professional tour. I believe they are now called the association of Pickleball Players, but they used to be association of professional pickleball.
The app is very. Well, we'll get into that second. So they've got pro players as well, and they really focus on the younger age. So Ken's done a great job of, like, these rising stars and getting them in early, like in this sort of junior, you know, um, a teenage year.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Junior pickleball.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Like junior tennis kind of, um, it's much more aggressive and. And, um, uh, higher ranking than kind of like junior pickup or junior tennis would be. Uh. These guys are literally playing, like, on the pro circuit.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Okay. Ken's done a great job. A big fan. Love the app. I do not love the PPA. I'm not a big fan. And the big reason for that, and most people would argue with me on this, especially if you look in the Facebook, um, groups and just kind of look at the chatter. The PPA is about the pros and the revenue, right? And the app is about the experience.
Now, they're both really expensive to play in those tournaments, right? Just really expensive, in my mind, really expensive. But you know what? Wherever they go, they get plenty of players.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Right?
[00:06:50] Speaker A: So if the market will bear it, kudos to them. Our typical tournament that we play in is probably going to cost us between 60 and $80, right. We're going to pay 150 plus to play in either of those tournaments.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: So double what we would normally pay now. It's a different experience. I get to see pros like Beer City Open. We got to see all the pros, man. I mean, I love those guys. They're great app. I got to see a lot of pros in Miami. It was fantastic.
But that's not the only professional tours that are out there. There's another one that doesn't get talked about enough because it's got some phenomenal players. Phenomenal pickleball happening in it. And quite honestly, the demographic is.
Well, it's older, so it's the National Pickleball League.
NPL.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: NPL.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: The NPL was founded by. And I'm going to get this a little wrong and a little right, the NPL was founded by Rick Witzkin.
A lot of us know him here locally. Great guy. And look, I'm on the record, somewhere on Facebook is saying, I don't know that it's going to work.
I struggled early on to see how they would garner enough attention to make it a financially viable business for them.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: And I'm proud to say I was wrong.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So I look at them and they've got great partners, you know, gearbox, gamma sports.
So gearbox is the official paddle. Gamma is the official ball.
So Ernie is a ball machine. We talked about those in the past. So the. Ernie is the official ball machine of the NPL.
Fat tire beer champion sports. So, like, the official uniform and then incredit wear, which is, you know, this recovery type wearable stuff.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: So compression, maybe, I would guess.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I'm not familiar with them enough. I'm not trying to overly promote any of these people in particular, but the last one I want to call out is Julian Coffee roasters, which is Ken Juliande, who plays locally. And he's a great guy.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah. He doesn't play in Anderson, he plays in indie, but he's just a great guy. So the NPL has really done a good job of getting going. This is their. In their second year, they've got like a dozen teams. I mean, they've got Austin, Boca Raton, you know, Coachella. What's the Coachella team? Coachella's Coachella valley.
I have to look it up to find more. I mean, I know the indie drivers. Cause I'm here. There's another Kansas city team, there's a Seattle team trying to think alphabetically, but I'm missing some columbus, I'm missing Houston, I'm missing a few others. So you can watch them on live stream there. They were playing at chicken and pickle. I think they probably still are. I think that was one of their partners. But I just pulled up their website, and I don't see chicken and pickle listed as one of their partners. So maybe they're just using chicken pickle facilities or renting them out. I don't know what they're doing. But anyway, so we have three professional tours, we. And arguably a fourth, if you call MLP different. But MLP really is the same players for the most part as the PPA, although there is some difference.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: So they share players.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Let me tell you about that. It's really interesting. So remember, they're both owned by Dundon. They're both owned by the United Pickleball association.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: UPA. The UPA has contracts with players to play in the PPA.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Separately, the MLP has contracts with players to play in the MLP.
So sometimes they're different players. Like Matt Wright plays in the PPA but not play in the MLP. Just an example of a player who does one but not the other. Zayn avertal plays in the PPA and plays in the MLP.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: When the MLP was absorbed slash bought by PPA, there was this agreement that all the players that had PPA contracts, which by the way, restricts them from playing in any other tournaments.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Allows them to play in the MLP.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Okay, well, duh.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: So same freaking company, right?
[00:10:50] Speaker B: I'm following.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And who knows? Ultimately one of them could fold. It won't be the PPA. It would be the MLP if one did.
For those that don't aren't too totally aware, PPA is a regular style format. You play to eleven, win by two, you know, best two out of three games. And a lot of the. In a lot of the matches.
But MLP is the one that we all talk about that has four players on a team. You play a men's match, a women's match, two mixed matches, and if you're still. If you're tied at that .2 games to two games, you go into that dream breaker where you go play singles.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Very exciting to watch.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: It's really fun to watch. But they jacked it up this year.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: They did.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Yeah. The fricking UPA got involved and bought them. And now MLP is not as exciting as it used to be. It was awesome last year. It was freaking awesome.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so fun.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: And it's fun to be a part of.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: What's nice too, about that format is I didn't feel like any one team had an advantage over the other. It really gave you an equal playing field.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Well, they draft. Do you remember the old fancy football snake draft where you draft first and then it goes up and whoever drafts like 13th gets also draft 14th and you don't get to draft until like 26th.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Well, even just the way. My point is, even no matter how spectacular, because there's some really amazing players that were playing that we got to watch at Beer City, I felt like the format.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Oh, format's exciting.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Is exciting. It helped you take into account, like, things like external factors, like wind and rain. And I just felt like it was a more even playing field.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: So the way I described their draft was how they did it last year. This year, they used the money draft. So each team was given, let's call it half a million dollars, and they literally bid like an auction. Who wants Ben Johnson? How much will you spend?
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Right?
[00:12:35] Speaker A: So they had 500,000 on the table. They could spend another 500,000 of their own money if they wanted to. So somebody comes out and goes, I'll spend 700,000 on Ben. And nobody else beats that bid. Then they spend 700,000 of their money, and they get Ben.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: And the next. Next player goes up for bid. That was part of what I think helped ruinous the way the MLP works. And there's some players, and I'm not gonna speak on Ben or Colin John's behalf, of course, but, like, they're not into it. You can just watch and go, they're not into it, but it's the world's number one player, and people want to see them into it.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: So it makes a little bit more frustrating, you know what I mean? And they've talked about it, and they have, you know, their own reasons, and some of them are legit, you know, so I'm not gonna defend nor disparage them. I'm just saying it doesn't make it as much fun for the fans. And so because I wanted to get to the fans, this is what I really want to talk about.
I love MLP because I think the fans get to follow and love on, if you will, more players.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And you have that team spirit.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't want to. Like, this happened to me last year at Beer City Open. I was rooting on Zane Navratul and Maggie Riminzi. There was a match where Zane was playing against Maggie.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: What? You know they're on the same team.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: No, they weren't.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: A mixed doubles match.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: And I was like, sorry, Zane.
You might have heard me yelling really loud. Great shot, Maggie.
Sorry, Maggie. You might have heard me shouting really loud. Great shot, Zane.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Right?
[00:14:02] Speaker A: I felt horrible being in the stands, rooting for both teams. Like, I look like an idiot. Luke was like, I could hear you on ESPN or whatever it was on. I'm like, yeah, baby, but that's kind of weird. And look, and that doesn't go away, but that's because that's regular mixed doubles, but in team play, like MLP is now. You got four players on a team, so at least I can root for more people and not feel bad about it. I just think there's something to having more people to root for and there's something. And certainly the format is really exciting.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: It is very exciting.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Now, my friend James, he'll watch it with us, and I think he enjoys watching it. I think he would tell you it's exciting. But he hates rally scoring.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Yes, we've covered that.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: I just think it's cause he doesn't know how to do it.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: That's actually kidding, James.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: I know he'll listen to us, so that just makes it extra special. I'm kidding, James. But he does hate rally scoring. He's my next pickle brawl. We need to get him in here and be like, rally scoring, not rally score.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: I feel like you're saying this just to, like, I'm just trying to push.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Him over the edge. Get him in here.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah. That's your style.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: It is.
Anyway, so you know MLp, PPa, all these. Oh, and by the way, not only that, but they have PPA Australia and MLP Australia.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: So this sport is exploding worldwide and we don't even know it.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: We don't even know it. A lot of the companies I talk to, they're like, we're not focused on the US, Kevin. We're in Korea, we're in China, we're in Africa. They're like, we're all over the place because it's exploding over there. I met with the marketing director I think is her role for you. I almost said Utrdez. We got to come back to UTR for Topspin Pro, which is a tennis company that makes this awesome device that we now have for a version of for Pickleball. And she's like, yeah, I don't really play pickleball. It's kind of around here a little bit. She goes, but it is definitely catching on really fast. This last year or two kind of reminded me how it felt like five years ago here.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: So I have a feeling in four or five years, it's going to be a huge money grab in Europe.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Oh, totally. Like, I, with my.
My daytime role with pickleball A. I already talked to just this week, somebody.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: From Canada, probably the second largest country.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: And also somebody emailed me from the UK.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: And we're trying to figure out time zones right now to me.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: Yeah. They're 5 hours ahead of you.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: I know.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: I know.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: You said you're trying to figure out time zones. I was just trying to give you a heads up.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: No, I just meant, like, when can we both be awake?
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Okay, so back to the Alphabet soup. We have covered PPA, well, UPA, which owns PPA, MLP, I think, duper, pickleballcentral, pickleballtournaments.com, comma, pickleballbrackets.com. we covered the NLP, which is the national. Excuse me. NPL, which is the national pickleball league. That's the. I think 50 plus.
They might be 45 plus. I'd have to look, but I think they're all 50 plus players in terms of age. We talked about the app, but the app.
Since we've. Since we kind of gave you the PPA. UPa, who's all related to who. Let's talk about the app and who they're all kind of related to, I.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Feel like I need to be taking notes.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Just listen to this podcast a bunch of times and get to 2000 listens. Hey, we're gonna have to announce them.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: I know.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Because we are there. I mean, we've picked. We just need to make it happen out loud, so. All right, we'll get back to that. The apenna, early on, strategically, I believe.
You know, I. I don't want to put. I don't want to say this wrong. So there's a strategic relationship between them and the governing body, which is USAP or USA pickleball.
The app buddied up to them, used. Used the USAP's rating system instead of duper, and has a relationship with UTRP.
UTR is a tennis organization, but UTRP is their pickleball version. I mentioned it on the last podcast, and I said, I hope our people get signed up for that.
Okay.
So they're obviously trying to do something strategic. There's also, like, a world pickleball organization. I forget what the heck they call themselves, but they're like, they're trying to be the governing body worldwide.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Is it WPA?
[00:18:24] Speaker A: I don't actually think so.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: I feel like I've seen that somewhere.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah. But you know what's funny is people don't believe in them, so it's hard.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: To be connected with organizations.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: We'll pick about federation.
Federation just sounds hungry games. Like, speaking of Hunger games, you can now register for the hungry games.
Okay. Yeah. World Pickleball Federation, the first true team competition in pickleball. Each competing country's federation selects a minute, a minimum of eight players. That may not be it, either. Anyway, there's a. There's a world. Oh, global pickleball. I don't know. There's too many of these frickin things out there. Everyone's doing a money grab.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: I know.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: The wild west coal rush it is. Pickler is an example. P I c K l R. Watch. What? You probably have a piccolor opening soon near you, wherever you are listening to this podcast.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Yep. There's rumors is coming soon here.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Coming to fishers?
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think the rumors.
So Fisher's is going to have that pickler. They're gonna have chicken and pickle and they're gonna have what's John's 24 724 seven dink. Yeah.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Which is very high tech. It's very cool.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks pretty neat.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: So think of it as like the top golf of pickleball.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: That makes Fisher's like the pickleball new.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Pickleball capital of the world for almost overnight.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: It's pretty crazy.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Not for pros, but just for people who want to have fancy, expensive, fun places to go play.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Okay. Wow, that's a heck ton of Alphabet soup. And there's more, but not really that we need to get into because it's not as exciting or whatever else.
I'm going to call out UTPR. UT RP. I'm getting wrong myself.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: You're getting confused.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: I'm going to call out UTRP and say this to you guys because I know you're listening.
Why in the freaking heck did you use a different numbering system for levels than we already have had in place since 19? Whatever year 65. No, I doubt they did it in 65, but whatever your ratings became needed.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Seventies.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever year they became rated or needed, the fricking UTRP people just were like, now we'll use our own numbering system.
Well, look, that's not thinking about what's on the customer's mind, because the customer doesn't want to have to figure that out. And now what the heck am I? Cause UTRP. Because I play tournaments. For that one reason only. I'm already a 5.0.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: But everyone listening goes, Kevin's not a 5.0. You're wrong. I am in UTRp, but not at all in duper.
So it's just stupid of them, and they're stupid to have done it. I just wanna make sure I'm crystal clear about that UTRP. You are stupid, stupid, stupid to have done that.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Wow, kev.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Yep. You're welcome. Fix it now before it gets too late.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: How do they do that?
[00:21:18] Speaker A: They go back and go our bad we shouldn't have used the tennis rating system. We should have used a pickleball rating system.
And then they just relaunch it under a new name so they don't look bad. I don't know. But this is really hard for me to say because I love Ken Herman and nothing's going to stop the app.
But I think that the challenge the app is going to have is if the people that they're closely partnered with, like the USA pickleball organization and like UTR, are making stupid decisions, which I believe they're doing. That just makes it harder for the app to rock. And I want the app to rock.
Yeah. And USAP, if you're listening, freaking get it together. Let's go. This is ridiculous. You guys are losing control now. They would defend themselves. UtRP would say, hey, we created the algorithms that Duper thinks they're using today. And duper sucks for a reason. So let's stick with ours. Okay. That may be very, very, very first statement. That's, by the way, what they told me. So when did you talk to them? I met with them in Miami. Why do you think I'm on their commercials?
[00:22:27] Speaker B: I saw you on the. Yes, I know.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: That's the people whose commercials I'm on.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Okay. So I don't dislike them. I just think they made a stupid decision. But if their marketing teams can wrap around, can wrap around us with this messaging of, here's why we used a better numbering system, I think pickleball players will are willing to say duper sucks bad enough. I'm willing to give it a shot.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: It is frustrating to be in duper and watch such huge fluctuate fluctuations.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: It's embarrassing.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: It's very tough. Yeah, yeah. Or if you're injured, how there's no basement or floor.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: And you just plummet.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: But I don't know if there's any coming back for USA pickleball. I think they've really blown it. That's the governing body, nonprofit governing body for pickleball here in the United States.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: But the they, right, wrong or indifferent, you know, are in a battle with Yola right now because the paddles that Yola came out with, the gen three Yola paddles, they have been short sighted, this is my opinion. They've been short sighted in terms of the vision for this sport for the last ten years. Plus, the number one thing I think that they fail at is they fail to recognize how much is changing and how they should have got ahead of the curve. They are not ahead of the game.
But they would say, hey, we invest the monies back into pickleball. We put money into schools to get them nets and balls and paddles and blah, blah, blah. And I agree, and we've got this ambassador for us out there. But let me just tell you something. USA Pickleball, I don't know about everywhere in the United States, because I'm not everywhere in the United States, but I've been a lot of places in the US and played pickleball in those states.
There is not a big presence of your ambassadors. And when there is, please take this with a grain of salt. They are.
They are not actively engaged with people other than their age, which means they're not bringing youth into the sport, and that is a tragedy.
We, Skye and I, we just spent this last summer with our community in motion effort.
We've worked with three different youth groups already, schools, churches, etcetera. Over 100 kids impacted by the work we did this summer, and we weren't even freaking trying.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: True.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: So there's just a lot that can be done. All right. Anyway, Skye, that's my take on the Alphabet soup that is currently pickleball. And everything I just shared with you is what the people who are following the pro tour, following the rules, wanting Olympics, pickleball, that's kind of what they're seeing. And then there's 97% of us that are out there going, I don't care about anything he just said because I just am going to go out on Saturday morning and play pickleball with my friends.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: And you know what? I'm cheering on you. 97%, because no matter what happens with any governing body or any pro tour, we can keep playing and having a blast.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: So that's all I got for you today. You have anything else you want to add?
[00:25:37] Speaker B: No. You just talked about stuff. I have. Really?
[00:25:41] Speaker A: I know. I warned you. It's gonna be mostly me.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: Well, I fit into that category where I just want to go out and play 97%. I like to teach people how to play. I want to get better at the game.
I haven't been following the upper echelons.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Of the sport, the money grab side.
I did write down, to me, it's.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Recreation, fitness, and fun.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: I did write down that we owe them a podcast on how we teach the game and where we start and how we get them.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: So we'll do that soon. Until then, make sure you tell your friends that where the game end. So are you.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Good night, everybody.
