Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm sorry. You want to get cremated, get put into a.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Like a. I didn't say for me it's gonna be for you.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: So when I die, you think I'm gonna die before you? Yeah, I think you'll die before me. But whatever. You want to put my ashes in hourglass so you can keep me as a part of the family?
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Game night.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Dad's right here at the table.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Everybody flip dad over so we can start the game.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Holy smokes.
That's a little quick. Fake intro. We have a guest coming today.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: We do?
[00:00:33] Speaker A: You know what? I have an idea. We'll introduce her differently. Let's just introduce us right now.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: All right.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: I'm Kevin Huff here with the one take wonder sky, my sweet love huff.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hello, everybody.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: And I did dance. I jumped for joy.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Did you?
[00:00:48] Speaker A: When Greg said a second time to you. Hey, one take wonder.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Was that a jump I saw?
[00:00:57] Speaker A: I told you it would take a high speed camera to capture it.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Not my fault you didn't have one already.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't count it.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Turn you down.
Normally I like to turn you on, but now I gotta turn you down. Cause you're too loud over here.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not my fault. It's the mic.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: You're all mic'd up.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Let's try this again. I'm ahead of the game instead. I'm ahead of the game. Yo, yo, yo.
We have a guest today.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: So stinkin excited for her to come on.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: We are so excited.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. We'll introduce her when she gets here. So we'll just kind of leave it at that for. For a bit. I have some ideas.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: But I thought I would recap, because we're a little late, actually, that we would have normally put this episode out two days ago.
So we're actually behind a week. Well, we left town, and we didn't have anything recorded ahead of time.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Oops. But we went to Minnesota and had a great time.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: I got to add another state where I played pickleball to my list.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. And we played with Tom and meredith.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: We did.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Who we talked about playing with, and it was wonderful. They were the silver medalist winners at camp something something in northern Minnesota. And we also got to teach my good buddy Josh furbish and his lovely wife, Mindy.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: We did how to play at lucky shots there in Metropolis.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Lucky shots is fantastic. Recommended to us by several people, including our guests. She had mentioned to me that they were great. And I was like, well, good. Cause I'm already. I'm already there, so. Well, that's great. That works out really well for those that are keeping track. My knees hurt.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: I'm so sorry.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: I haven't played real pickleball. I'm not trying to pick on Josh or Mindy or. No, I'm not trying to pick on Tom or Meredith. I just haven't played my normal group pickleball two weeks now.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: I'm proud of you for resting them, though.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know what? They feel a lot better. I know I said that they hurt, but they feel a ton better. This morning, I actually did dink just a little bit while we waited for the 8th player to get there. I was just refereeing. Get good practice in for me.
But it's the group I would normally play with, so the knees are getting better. Thank you all that have asked. I appreciate that. And you can tell because I'm not like, struggling to get out of a chair anymore or whatever the case may be.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: He's also not grumpy, which is nice.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: I am not grumpy any more than normal.
So, yeah, I am. I think this next episode, not today, but the next episode. I want to throw out a teaser for what's going to happen on the next episode. And I normally don't tell you ahead of time what's coming.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: I know this is.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: You're welcome.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yay. I have time to plan.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Well, yeah, you will probably not do as much talking as me if I have my way. I mean. I mean, if things go right, I.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Mean, uh, that's fine. I don't have to be a talker. I can be a listener.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: I want to do a state of Pickleball podcast.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: I want to talk about the landscape of pickleball, how it's shifting rapidly. I want to talk about the PPA, MLP, duper, United Pickleball Association, Pickleball Central, picklebrackets.com, pickleballtournemists.com, by the way, all of which are the same company.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Really?
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Yes. So we'll talk about that in the next episode. I want to talk about the app, a competing professional tour. I want to talk about the USAP. I want to talk about UTR and their engagement now into pickleball UtRP. I'm going to encourage our listeners to get a UTRP rating.
I firmly believe after meeting with some of their. I don't know if it was founders, but I feel like it was some of their. Their executive team in Miami. We got to talk through a bit there, so I want to talk about them. And again, encourage our listeners to get a rating. That'll be next week. I'm actually in their ads.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: I know.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: They're UTR P ads. Yeah.
And then if anyone's registering for nationals in Arizona, not Texas, everyone, all 2000 will see my image because my image is the UTR image.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: We'll post it on our Facebook page, which is awesome. He looks like he's about to say something really important.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: I'm sure I was. They got me on a good day.
Anyway, we had this evening, you know, at lucky shots.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: And it was fantastic. Like, what a great facility. 19 quarts. They just added seven. They had twelve and they just had seven more.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: A yummy little restaurant.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Cute little cafe.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: And they're expanding their spectator spot.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Speaking of spec tater spot, they allowed me to trout speck tennis on their quartz.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: They did.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: And it was weird.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: It was very weird.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it was weird.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: If you're a tennis player. I could see why that would be appealing.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: I mean, it was appealing to me. I don't know the rules. I need to go watch a video and figure out what the heck I'm doing. I don't even know if I serve overhand or underhand or sidearm or backwards or.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: No idea.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Well, we talked earlier about how we were introduced. Well, one of the people that talked us about lucky shots was our guest today, and she is with us here now. I'm gonna give her some intro music and then we'll. We'll call her out by name after this comes along.
They do call her the business. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Blake. Is it Renault?
[00:06:23] Speaker C: Reno.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Reno. Such a gorgeous french word. I didn't want to get it wrong. So, Blake Reno. And she is in Iowa. Are you in Iowa today?
[00:06:32] Speaker C: I sure am. Until tonight. I'll be in Wisconsin tonight.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Oh, all right. Good for you, Blake. Everybody is the founder, dreamer, doer at Pickleplay. So, Blake, why don't you give us more of an introduction than that about yourself and then we'll get into some fun questions with you.
[00:06:52] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I am a wife and mother of five now, which sounds crazy every time I say it, but we have five kiddos and, and the business owner. So I've been working on pickle play the last few years and like you said, had a dream and a vision and very excited that it has come to fruition. And we have a mobile app and web based software to help pickleball players, the everyday pickleball players find courts, find players get their private group or community club organized, and we are just continuing to build our software out to have resources for the everyday pickleball player.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Blake and I met after she launched pickle play, but it's been a good two years, I think, at this point, since we've known each other.
I feel like, I don't know, I saw something. I was maybe searching for an app to find courts to play on, and I saw this app called Pickle Play.
I don't even know how we connected. I'm sure I reached out to you because you would not have known who I was.
We've had a lot of great business conversations since, and it's been wonderful. And not only that, I'm an ambassador for Pickle play, I'm a big fan. But even more importantly, is this the first time we're telling everybody?
[00:08:05] Speaker B: I believe this might be the first time we're talking.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Skye, why don't you tell us what happened?
[00:08:08] Speaker B: I am now the partner relations rep for pickle play.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: What?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: So I can help connect you all to pickle play.
[00:08:17] Speaker C: We are so excited.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, most of our listeners have been forced to get on to pickle play because I've been involved. Yeah, because I've been involved. But I know some of our listeners have not. So I'm going to ask Blake to share a little bit more about pickle play. First, though, we got to. We met in person, Blake, back in March, but you got to meet sky in person just last week. And we got to meet a couple of year old kiddos, which was awesome. So question number one. Which one's your favorite kid?
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Oh, boy.
Which one's my easiest kid? That's easy to answer, right?
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Totally kidding.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: My oldest follows the rules. He's easy. He's easy.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: And my oldest, my youngest, my youngest, even though he's only four months, he's a happy baby.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: And he was a happy baby, of.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: Course, you know, he was a cutie.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Pilot was great. They're all great. I'll ask you some. Some better questions. I won't ask you any hard mom questions any more than that one right there. But what is your favorite pickleball saying or phrase? It can be a t shirt phrase. It can be something you see on the court.
[00:09:20] Speaker C: Oh, boy. I mean, I think just the word dink or dinking is just a great word. And I think every time I'm teaching beginners how to play or talking about pickleball, it always comes up. And I have to clarify, dinking, not drinking or any other word that sounds somewhat familiar, but, yeah, I just. It's just a great word for an.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: It is unique. It's such a pickleball word.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: It's. It's only a pickleball word.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Right. Skye, do you have one?
[00:09:51] Speaker B: That is a great question, huff.
The first one that jumps to mind is, you know, there's no.
You know, there's no, I'm sorry. And pickleball or something like that.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Because I tend to be.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: There's no crying in pickleball. Yeah. There's no sorry in pickleball.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: I I'm guilty of that.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: We're a sorry, not sorry crowd over here. That's why we call our group pickle brawlers, because we like to go after it. But true. Mine. I know you're not asking, but I'm gonna share it anyway. Go for it. Mine is not as nice. Mine is suck it.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Slammed at me once and at the park and feel like there was something like that that was said.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: That's about how I. If it's. I'm playing against a better player, especially I don't. I don't yell at the players that it would be not nice for me to yell at. But if I'm playing against a josh or someone who I know is better than me and I'm able to get one in on him, and it's a good one. Yeah, I'll yell suck it.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: That comes from my psych days. I loved watching that tv show.
Speaking of which, blake, what is your favorite tv show?
[00:11:00] Speaker B: I told her she was gonna be talking about pickleball.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: She's going to.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yeah, no, this is great. Um, I would say I am very boring because I don't watch a lot of tv. However, I mean, we've watched the office probably four times.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: I mean, we're just classic office fans. So I would say one show to. To watch and just enjoy it would.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Be that my favorite will forever be when you filled up the handset to the phone with quarters and nickels or whatever it was. And then he kept training him, and it was getting heavier and heavier, and then took out the nickels one day, and he smacked himself in the head.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: I remember that. I was like, that's my favorite episode.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: All right, let's get to closer to pickleball, but not quite to pickle play yet. Do you have a favorite court you like to play at?
[00:11:41] Speaker C: Ooh, that's a great question.
Our local community, honestly, they've been ahead of the times. We've had eight dedicated courts, almost 16 for years now, and our town is 30,000 people.
So I would say we have beautiful local courts that we're very, very thankful for as far as traveling, which is always fun.
We were down, I would say one of our favorite places would be down in Arizona at the desert ridge. I'm blanking on the actual Arizona, though.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: I mean, there's so many courts.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: There's a beautiful hotel there that we stayed at a Marriott, and I believe it just has amazing courts. And we loved to play there when we traveled.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: That's awesome. I mean, for me, we just have this local courts at Shadyside that's surrounded on three quarter sides by a lake. So it's as pretty as it gets. The courts literally jut out into it on a little bit of a peninsula, and it is so tranquil. It's. You can't see the city, you can't see houses. You just see trees, eagles, blue herons, water. It's gorgeous.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: That's amazing. Yeah. My in laws also just put up a shed, and it has a legit pickleball court. Oh. Um, so that's been a fun family activity for us. Our own private court in the woods. It's fun.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
So, to pickle play. You know, when we first started talking, you and I, a few years back, I feel like Alex's name was more involved in some of the conversations. Maybe. But is he still pretty involved, or is he more like, keep going, Blake. Keep going, Blake.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: That's a great question. Yeah. So he really is an advisor for me. He has an entrepreneurial brain. He's a dreamer. And a lot of this came from some of our conversations and our pain points in the sport. So he's always been on the sidelines, helping, advising me, cheering me on, giving advice, helping coming up with the big picture idea of pickle play. But as far as the day to day, it's been really my thing. He has his own business and his own, um, job, and so he's very helpful, like I said, but really, it's been my undertaking.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty awesome. What do you think are the top. Let's start with the top three things. Just a player, not a club manager or anyone else. The top three things, maybe that a player would get out of your app.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. So, from an individual user, I would say we have a very interactive map screen. When you log in, you're going to see. We're going to pull up little icons right on the home screen, or you can head over to our map screen and you're going to find what's near you or you can search any location and it works worldwide. So you're going to be able to find court locations, get the basic details. How many courts are there? Are they dedicated pickleball? Are they line tennis?
Just some basic information. Are there lights? Are there best times that people typically play?
[00:14:42] Speaker A: So finding court contact info in there for the person that like, put the court in the system or.
[00:14:48] Speaker C: Yeah, so typically there's a contact phone number or website and we're working on. Actually, we're going to add email as well because a lot of people want to post an email. Not every court has that, but a lot of our courts do. The info is optional at this point.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: I thought maybe so mine must be in there, but I'm also in, like, places to play and I'm in, you know, I think another app out there because I get reached out to gosh frequently, more than once a month. Hey, I'm coming to the area, saw your name on whatever. You're the. You seem to be the guy that asks a question of where do we play?
So that's cool. Okay. What's the next thing you think that a player would get out of it?
[00:15:25] Speaker C: The next thing would be connecting with other players, just like you mentioned. So we're going to pull in a list of players in a specific area, wherever you're searching, so you can see their basic skill level. Now we can.
An individual player can sync their duper rating. In the future, they're going to be able to sync their UTR rating, but. Right. Primarily users just use a self skill rating, but we're going to see, okay, there's 230 players in your area and you can sort that by skill level. You can send out a message or you can even send a play request, which is really a cool feature that we're trying to share more with our audience on because under the players tab, you'll see send looking to play requests. So I can say, I'm going to be in Indianapolis on September 1 and I'm looking to play and I'm a 30 player, and it will send a push notification and an email notification to all the people that fit that criteria. Now they have an option to respond or not. So we can't guarantee that players are going to respond, but we're really trying to educate our audience on that, too, because we can be a great tool to connect with people without sharing your personal phone number, your personal email, your personal Facebook page.
You may not want to share some of that whereas if you have a pickle play account, they're just going to see your name and your general location, not even anything specific. So you don't have to worry about sending out your personal phone number. Someone can send you a chat message on pickle play.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: I love that a lot. And that's partially because my name and number are out there in a lot of places. I would maybe, maybe prefer not to be texted by everybody. I don't understand.
Okay, third thing. You got a third thing for us.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: Third thing I think is everybody that starts playing pickleball eventually has some sort of group, right?
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: It could be just a friend group that you just finally you find your people can be a community based group. It could be the people at your local rec center. It could be an official club or racket center. But people play with people that they want to play with and that are in their skill level and in their type of play, whether it be ultra competitive or social.
So we have our club and group portal, whether that be a private friend group, no one has to know about it. You just add your people and you manage your communication and play schedule. Or it can be an official club on pickle play where people can search it by name, but that would be the whole other portal that even an individual user could add their eight friends and get a little more organized, kind.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Of become the head of a small club or whatever you want to call it.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Pickle play is a free app, but there's paid options as well. So free. Everything you've discussed so far comes with free.
Great. What, what would somebody get if they decide to subscribe and actually have a paid version? Like, I know there's a few different levels, but what do you got?
[00:18:17] Speaker C: Yeah, so our individual users, everyone gets the option. They can proceed or they can x out of it, but we have a paid version of $1.99 per month or $19.99 for the year. That unlocks a few features. You can sort players by skill level. So if you're looking in an area and there's 500 players, you can sort out weed out some players. It unlocks some additional discounts and instructional content. So we have a few videos from some professional players and we're looking to add more drills and tips over the year to help our individuals improve their game.
And then there's some features that are a little bit more relevant to the club portal, like a family account. If you have a spouse or you have a child that plays with you, you can actually sign up for events on the pickle play app for your family members. Instead of having to log in, log out or everyone in your family have their own app or device. So that is a great feature. And, um, adding to your phone calendar. So if I say I'm going to meet you and sky at the park at 530 on Wednesday, I can sync that with my phone calendar, um, with a reminder.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: So it leagues are now being run through your software?
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Would that, when you mentioned, uh, being able to sign up for things, would that include signing up for leagues?
[00:19:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So yep. Signing up for a round robin. Uh, we have a round robin. We have a scramble ladder league and a partner league.
I also forgot in the Pro version we have basic pop up ads with our partners, so it removes all of those. Now within a club or group, if you are a club plus subscription, which is only $2.99 for the year, so we're looking at less than $25 a month, you can now run unlimited scramble ladder leagues, partner leagues, round robins, collect payment for your events, collect monthly yearly membership dues, have as many users as you want. We just onboarded a club with 1400 members.
So we have everything from a group of eight friends to I think our biggest club is 1500 members.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Now that is fantastic. So I know this sounds like a commercial for pickle play. I'm okay with it sound like a commercial for pickle play. But I mean, I want to go backwards a little bit and just say, obviously there's a demand. You have a lot of users, you have a ton of views to your website.
What do you think is the number one reason people are looking for apps? Because you compete with team reach and you compete with port reserve. Obviously, placestoplay.org is kind of a competitor. They're really not really, it's not really a functional app as much as it is just go find places to play. But what do you think it is that causes people to not just do a text group?
[00:21:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's really dependent on the leader. Right. So eventually the leader and the members get fed up with the process because it's very annoying. And so it just takes someone that's willing to say, okay, this is enough. We can't have our phones blowing up all day with different pings, text messages, and then you have your Android and iOS. So then that comes through and then you're scrolling through and say, okay, are four people in or not? We need at least four people playing. Right. So I think it really depends on the club and group leader. And I would say those are the people that are reaching out to us on our website or that we're trying to connect with and find and say, hey, we have a better solution. Even our free version, you can run a club or group up to 100 people and just have the basic functionality you need. Group chat, feed, poster play schedule, sign up.
If they want to unlock other benefits that we have. Like, we're excited about that. We can do that. But, yeah, it really takes one person in the group to say, okay, this isn't going to work anymore.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: It's so true, because when we first started here and you became the mayor of Pickleball and Madison.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: I was just.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Talking to someone, and so that.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: It's true. My phone was getting blown up, but not just mine, you know, Cheryl's was getting blown up. Mine was getting blown up. Rob is getting blown up. I mean, sure. So all of us, I think, would have been like, hey, a solution would be great.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: And that's the nice thing, too, is if even with the free version, I think, and Blake can correct me on this, you could have multiple administrators on the clubs that you set up so that you can tag team some of this work. Because if it. If you're doing this for fun, it's not a paid position. You're. You're volunteering to manage your community group. It can be overwhelming, especially if you have a day job or other responsibilities to take care of.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: That's for sure. I mean, I would say most of our clubs and groups are ran by volunteers. I mean, that's the heart of pickleball, right? It's people in their community that just love, love the sport. And so that's where, you know, as we're looking at, okay, we team reach, we have way more functionality and are focused for pickleball. When it comes to comparing to a team reach court reserve, obviously, is great, but they're more designed for facilities that are dependent on monetizing their courts. So, yeah, we're excited because we feel like we are in this niche of the sport, the heart of the sport, that's just for the everyday players. And.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: This is the only app I know that really does all the things that it does. I mean.
I mean, by far. Does it make sense by far? Like, you know, because team reach is like a group chat. Group me is like a group chat.
Pickle play is like. No. Like, we're everything where you can play. We're places to play. We're team reach. We're groupme. We're, you know, we're your calendar. We're your invite and whatever system. We're like, we're your, all these things. We're your league software where youre a.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Or pickleball specific social media.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: All right, Blake, one more fun thing about pickle play. What cool thing might we see that you are comfortable sharing? And if nothing, that's okay in the next year to 18 months. Is there something you're developing that you're like, yeah, we want to do this and it's okay to share it?
[00:24:22] Speaker C: Yeah. I think you're referencing our league portal and our round robins. We want to continue to expand that offering and fine tune it. We're very much in phase one of that and we're open and honest with all of our clubs and groups. We have a set parameters and we're gaining feedback right now. But as you know, there's a lot of fun formats in pickleball and I think we have a large opportunity to create templates and the back end of the software to run some of these different formats. And I think clubs and groups would be excited about that.
We're doing a lot right now. I mean, we're adding the waiver process. Every club and group has some sort of waiver they need to sign and that's a huge thing.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I actually saw that the other day. That was really cool.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: Yeah. So to be able to have a waiver, to be able to partner sign up process, smoothing out the partner signups for things.
And what's nice about us too is if you have a set format you're just dying to do and you want to run it on your own, or if you want to print out brackets and run your own event, you can still do the sign up part on pickle play. Like, we don't care. We want you to use as much of our software as possible.
You still need to collect the payment, you still need to get the sign up. So you still need to know who's playing. So yeah, we're, we're going to be having that and then court reservations. Just basic ability to actually book a time slot at a court.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Love it. So that's not much prognosticating because you already know what you're working on. But let's do some prognostication now. What's the biggest change you think we will see in the next twelve months in pickleball?
[00:25:59] Speaker C: Oh, pickleball in general.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Uh huh.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Oh boy.
So when I hear that, my brain goes to the pro scene, however, me too.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: And that's okay. That's fine.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: I mean, there's a lot of talk about the serves right now and some of the technology, and what do we do as these paddles keep getting better and better and better? Does that affect the game? So I'm personally really interested on serves. And just as technology advances, what does that mean for the everyday players and the pros?
[00:26:36] Speaker A: I think the pros will go to a drop serve within the next twelve months. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think so?
[00:26:42] Speaker C: Oh, boy.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Look, it's not weighted that direction, but I'm saying I think it will. Wait that direction. I think it will happen. I would be shocked, wouldn't you? But it's so much more controllable. But you heard it here first, folks.
[00:26:56] Speaker C: But then it's like they want to see you be able to handle anything, you know?
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. The problem is venues. Yeah, they're super restricted on venues because a lot of venues are playing weren't built for today's game. They were built using the old 24 by, you know, 52 and then 30 by 60 model. And none of that's good because we have all these wide angle, you know, I need now 12ft to the side of each, you know, each sideline. I need a really, you know, that's really big. That's a 46 foot wide course. So now we're talking like 70 by 45 or 75 by 45 when it was 30 by 60 that we got arguably what you could call a kick serve now. Right? Coming with the. The way they're hitting the top spin off the end of the paddle on those longer paddles, putting it on the baseline and it's kicking back 15ft and they're getting stuck at 7ft because there's a net behind them or a wall behind them or whatever. So.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say on the grassroots level, I think we're going to see a lot, and I might be biased here, but a lot of clubs and groups like fed up with text messages and group me's and like, just there's.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: They don't know you exist.
[00:28:06] Speaker C: They have to. There's got to be more organization to the sport, even on the everyday level. And I think it's going from primarily maybe set times where maybe that works for retired folks, but doesn't necessarily work further. There's younger people playing. So being able to say, open app, click a schedule tab and say, okay, these are my play options. I think we're going to see more excitement around getting organized just on all levels.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: I don't know what to call what I'm getting ready to say, but it reminds me of augmented reality.
I think that we're going to begin to see a blending of apps with parks and apps with whatever churches, facilities, not just to the extent that you're saying, which is maybe as a scheduling tool, but think of our local park here that doesn't understand how to put together a set of pickleball rules that makes sense for a park where anybody can come and play because it's free to the city. And if they don't understand the game, like, should a court be allowed to be played on for 2 hours by a family of four? Should a court not be allowed to play on the. And just, I think integrating this, thinking of here's kind of how pickle play works nationwide. And by the way, that's okay, because that's what basketball does, that's what tennis does, that's what, you know, all these other sports do. And being able to start promoting our sport from a. Let us help you not even learn how to play, but learn how to manage a facility or learn how to manage a set of courts perspective. So I think we'll kind of see this blending of, you know, like a pickle player, someone coming along and saying, okay, Anderson city parks, thanks for building 16 courts. Now, all these people don't really know how to use the courts well. Like, so there's kids out on wheelies, or there's, you know, people playing, you know, for 2 hours straight while there's other eight, while there's paddles lined up for the other five courts or whatever the case may be. And I'll include, what about other sports, like a spec tennis, let's say that could be played on a pickleball court. I mean, it's exactly the same size of court. They literally made it to fit that court. We talked about that last week. I know, but I'm talking to our listeners here saying to all of us, are we open to not calling it just a pickleball court?
And then if somebody's playing spike tennis, are there a different set of rules? Do they get to play for an hour because the game's longer or shorter or, you know, so I think there needs to be some lovingly heavy handed help in that area, if you will.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I think communication is the key.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: That's what I'm talking about, obviously, but.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's why pickle play is wonderful, because you can manage it, manage courts as a club, as a paid individual, whether it's through a parks and rec or it's through another facility, or it could be managed by a volunteer. And I mean, we see volunteer groups managing city courts, like in Grand Rapids, and I'm sure that happens elsewhere. It's really about, you know, people stepping up, you know, taking responsibility and being able to communicate not just with their public officials, but with, with each other. And so, Grand Rapids, kudos to you. Really well done.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Belknap parks, what you're referring to?
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm just really, really impressed with.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Home of Beer city open, my favorite tournament in the entire world.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah, they do so well.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: All right, Blake, anything else that you think we should hear regarding Pickleball, pickle play, pickle juice, you name it.
[00:31:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. I mean, we're just excited and I'm so excited to have sky now helping.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Out our team and, you know, advertisement there, babe.
[00:31:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we've just been build, build, build. I just, I've been like, heads down in development and I'm just so excited to go into the rest of this year and even next year just sharing what we've built. Like this is a great resource. We're really proud of it. It's not perfect, no software is, but we're really excited to just talk to people about it and even just gain feedback. If someone chooses not to use us, that's fine. There's millions of pickleball players, but I guess I would just want to communicate with any of your listeners. If you're just interested in pickle play or want to find out more or want to provide us feedback, even, we'd love to connect with you.
[00:32:14] Speaker A: Shake your device.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:16] Speaker C: Info or yeah, shake your device and a report will come up and you can get in contact with us.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: We'll put the link in our facebook page as well, everybody, so you can find it easy, especially if you're listening after the initial launch of this episode.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Blake, so good to have you. Skye, any last comments or thoughts that you have for today?
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Well, I'm excited to be on Blake's team. She's amazing.
It is such a fun company to work for.
I get to talk about pickleball all day. How cool is that?
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Does not suck at all.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: It doesn't. And so, no, it's just, it's exciting.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: I love it, too, because I do love pickle play. As you all know, Blake, I've been a big fan for a long time and it is, in my mind, still the only app that does all the things, you know. So we today in even our own county, as much as I push for pickle play, we're still not where I would love to be yet. Right, because we use GPN for this and we use team reach for that and go, go whatever me, you know, for that and I go find me. Go, go find me.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Is that high whatever it's called? No, it's not.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: That's GoFundme, I think. I'm thinking Gofundme. To me, it's a group me. That's yeah, I mean, you know, we have people using kind of all those different things, but but we do have a good group in pickle play and I'm eager to expand it. So, Blake, thank you for all your insight today and thoughts. So on behalf of our buddy Blake Reno and her awesome pickle play company, on behalf of the lovely one, take wonder sky, my sweet love huff and me, Kevin Huff. Thank you for liking subscribing. Don't forget we're ahead of the game and so are.
