Bryan Brothers Reportedly Talking With MLP and PPA About Signing Long-Term Deal
The pickleball news cycle keeps churning. The Dink reported on Tuesday morning that the (famous?) Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, are in “serious talks” to sign with MLP and the PPA. The Bryan brothers are the winningest doubles tennis team in the history of the sport. They are 45-year-old identical twin brothers, who have often been considered by pickleball fans as two of the most interesting tennis players we could see on a pickleball court. The pair retired from tennis in 2020 and may now be looking to pick up a new racquet sport.
The first reaction that we had to this report was that it was interesting. As hardcore pickleball viewers, we’re always going to be intrigued when extremely high-level tennis players who express a desire to play pickleball at the pro level. The prevailing wisdom is that doubles players in tennis have an easier transition to pickleball because of the similarities with doubles pickleball.
While Jack Sock cracked the top 10 in singles in his career, he has also been the #2 doubles player in the sport. Even though the Bryan brothers are middle aged men, pickleball is a sport where they could theoretically compete at the highest level in doubles. We have no idea how much pickleball experience the Bryan brothers have, if any, but the intrigue is, well, intriguing enough to take notice of the news.
We are curious why the PPA and MLP are exploring this avenue with the Bryan brothers. Although there is intrigue that surrounds the Bryan brothers in the pickleball community, they are not very well known outside of the more dedicated tennis fans. Jack Sock, Sam Querrey, Eugenie Bouchard and possibly Donald Young are more well-known than the Bryan brothers to the more casual observer. With all the money that has already been thrown around, how does an under the radar, mid-40s doubles team move the needle for pro pickleball? Does it really make sense to spend money on a couple of tennis players that not that many people care about?
The Tour Wars are supposed to be over so one entity isn’t trying to fight for the right to have players like the Bryan brothers sign exclusively with them. We would have to expect that the Bryan brothers aren’t going to come out of competitive racquet sports retirement for an insignificant amount of money. There has to come a time when reasonable spending starts to take place or there won’t be any money left to spend.
Conversely, the infusion of the Bryan brothers into pro pickleball could be a play to help create more legitimacy in the tennis community. If you’re wanting to make tennis players and fans less skeptical of pickleball, one way to make that happen could be to demonstrate that some of the best tennis players in the world don’t think it’s a joke.
The news of the Bryan Brothers potentially signing with the PPA and MLP is somewhat at odds with a different announcement Thursday morning that the Tennis Channel and the PPA forming a commercial joint venture to broadcast the “vast majority” of PPA events and create “Pickleballtv”, which would be a standalone pickleball channel. The report on the Bryan brothers references the MLP and the PPA working together to sign the duo, but the announcement with the Tennis Channel is not consistent with the recent PPA-MLP merger announcement.
The fact that the PPA is striking major deals with other entities seemingly without MLP’s direct involvement is quite weird. Frankly, we just don’t understand it. One thing we have to note is that the press release says that MLP will also receive broad coverage on Tennis Channel’s platform and that Tennis Channel’s parent company will have the option to invest in the parent company of the PPA Tour, Pickleball.com. Whether this means anything, positive or negative, about the announced merger remains to be seen, but it can’t be ideal from a merger standpoint that this was announced today.
At the same time, the PPA’s deal with Tennis Channel is generally consistent with the Bryan brothers discussions. The press release highlights that Jack Sock, Genie Bouchard and Sam Querrey have plans to play on the PPA Tour and that tennis names like Naomi Osaka, Chris Evert and Nick Kyrgios are part of MLP ownership groups. The interest surrounding the sport of pickleball from well-known tennis people has the potential to further legitimize the sport and that may be what the PPA and MLP are banking on with the Bryan brothers or any other negotiations that could be happening with other known tennis players.
We’ll be monitoring what happens with the Bryan brothers as it is clear the purported merger is not slowing anyone down from pushing the envelope in pro pickleball.
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Thank you for the update. …”without MLP’s direct involvement is quite weird. Frankly, we just don’t understand it.”… Really guys, you don’t understand it? 🙂 Who the hell knows what PPA is up to? IMHumbleO, of course. 🙂
We just want the merger to go ahead
Fwiw I’d argue that to at least American tennis fans the Bryan brothers are as well or more well known than the players you listed. They were dominant in doubles during a time when no American man could even come close to doing the same in singles, and the novelty of them being identical twins increased their marketability.
Hmmm interesting we’d be curious to hear what others have to say there that aren’t immersed in tennis
The Bryan brothers will be well-known to US > 45 pickleball players but maybe not the 20-30 crowd. I see these big names having their own exhibition – maybe a MLP tennis teams exhibition. It’ll bring tons of attention to the sport when broadcasted just like the exhibit done with Agassi and McEnroe.
The pickleballtv situation is odd. It makes you wonder just how bad a deal the re-merger was for MLP. If it had been announced between pickleball inc and Tennis Channel and said it’d show PPA events, that would be a slightly different slant. Because then presumably it’d be like pickleballbrackets where anyone, not just PPA, could use the service.
I wonder what selkirktv thinks about pickleballtv. Will viewers watch both? Will PPA still be on selkirktv (I’ve never used the app selkirktv so don’t really know what it offers).
I read the announcement as a way to control the advertising using their own app and grab all the advertising revenue instead of sharing it with Google via YT. And maybe it’ll tie in to the gambling angle somehow. For example, you are watching a match and you get a pop-up to say “place your wagers now”.
We just wonder how famous they are to non-tennis fans. Clearly they aren’t Agassi or McEnroe, so where does that put them?
Pickleball TV is very odd. Another thing that has happened is it sounds like PPA is changing its scheduling for nationals and possibly going forward for events. Was this done in conjunction with MLP or not?
I think you’re a little off on their level of notoriety. I’m not a tennis player nor a fan of the sport, yet I have heard of the Bryan brothers.
Also, you could probably just start every post with “We don’t know what the PPA is doing” because know one ever knows what they’re doing. I maintain that any organization with leadership as poor as the PPA’s will eventually fall apart. So far, they continue to avoid catastrophe each time…..but we’ll see if their good fortune continues.
That may be fair. We are casual fans of tennis but big fans of sports, and we had heard of the Bryan brothers. Maybe they do fit in closer to that Sam Querrey level of notoriety
See, MLP, I’m not alone in this world… 🙂
I grew up watching tennis (I had an Agassi poster in my bedroom), but over the last twenty years I have only watched a bit of major singles tennis. I, of course, know of the big names that have been winning singles majors, especially on the men’s side, but I have never heard of the Bryan brothers. If they are still good athletes and they can become good at pickleball, good for pro pickleball.