Does the APP Tour’s Signing Spree of Sofia Sewing, Quang Duong and Others Signal a Revival of Tour Wars?
It started with Quang Duong. Then it was Sofia Sewing. After that, the whole freakin’ dam busted and it was a wave of signing announcements from the APP Tour on Tuesday (11 total by the end of the day). Megan Fudge, Bobbi Oshiro, Richard Livorense, Jack Munro. All the marquee names of the APP and then some.
It was a big surprise to see Quang Duong and, to a certain extent Sofia Sewing, announcing they had signed multi-year agreements to play on the APP Tour. Top Australian pro, Roos Van Reek, was also announced as one of the signed players by the APP. Other than Duong, Van Reek was the only other non-regular APP Tour player announced as having signed.
Hello? Tour Wars? We didn’t realize you were still here.
The rumors that Sofia Sewing had signed a Will Howells-special deal (2026 APP and MLP, 2027 PPA and MLP), which included our coverage of the situation, was poo pooed by APP Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Tom Webb, on the PicklePod recently. Webb emphatically said on his podcast appearance that there was no deal in place for Sewing to play on any other tour in 2027, which was poo pooed by UPA CEO, Connor Pardoe, on X.
The APP will rightfully take a victory lap for being able to retain Sofia Sewing, their other players and somewhat poach Quang Duong after he was spotted yucking it up with Connor Pardoe at the PPA Masters event in January. Not to mention that Pardoe was on social media making light of Tom Webb’s comments on the PicklePod. While a brief victory lap may be in order, it is also clear that the signing announcements are a clear shift from the APP’s philosophy that “players should be able to play where they want, when they want.”
“players should be able to play where they want, when they want.”
That quote is taken directly from the APP’s CMO himself, Tom Webb. This sudden change in approach from the APP’s past business model is directly contrary to what Webb described as something that has been “very much been our philosophy since the very early days of the APP.” To be clear, unlike most of the PPA/UPA deals that have been signed since the last iteration of the Tour Wars, these new APP deals do not require absolute exclusivity, to our understanding (Quang Duong already announced a separate commitment to Vietnam’s Pickleball D-Joy Tour 2026.). The players are required to play APPs, but they can still play wherever they want outside of that, as noted by Brick Wall Pickleball founder, Cody Sivian, on social media:
One of the first things we want to say about this is that these signing announcements is that we think it is good for the players. Although the APP has been signing players in a less public manner for some time now, the public announcements represent to the players that there is another place for them to earn a living. It has always been ideal for the players to have competition and that is unlikely to ever change.
Intersport took over the APP in in 2022. The tour has continued to represent that they have put together a sustainable business model and publicly scoff at what the UPA is doing with its aggressive growth model, without explicitly referencing the UPA. With this new pivot, it seems to us that the APP Tour has entrenched itself more than ever in this weird middle ground of not quite aggressively spending but also shifting away from sitting back and wait for the UPA to run out of money.
It was reported by Jimmy Miller back in January that the APP was losing upwards of $8 or $9 million. We were told reliably after Jimmy’s report the number was a little lower, but the reporting itself was sound. If true, that is not ideal for a brand attempting to hang its hat on long-term, sustainable growth. Even if this isn’t a full shift away from their publicly stated strategy, it has to be seen as at least a partial admission by the APP that they recognize the need to have pros, if they want to be a pro tour, and the only way to do that in this landscape is by guaranteeing money to players to ensure they can make a living. With the PPA Tour now having Challengers, there is not a lot of incentive for players to play APP events right now, unless there is a financial incentive attached to it.
What’s so fascinating about all of this is that you can’t believe anything that anyone says. The UPA/PPA is always going to do whatever it is that they do, and then we have the APP out here making Tour War style signing announcements as their previous and current players are as confused as the rest of us. Webb adamantly promoted the merit-based system of the APP on his latest podcast appearance, but this strategy is not entirely consistent with that ethos, no matter how the APP ends up trying to spin this publicly.
Backdoor deals and public signing announcements that clearly diverge from “players should be able to play where they want when they want” is not what transparency and credibility looks like to us. Ironically, it’s the type of stuff that we have come to expect from the PPA/UPA side of the table over the years, not the APP.
It is also interesting to consider all of this in the context of the PPA’s attempt to shift to a prize money model in 2026. Despite all the hullaballoo about players signing new deals in 2025, we haven’t heard anything on a PPA broadcast about this shift to a prize money model this year. Our limited understanding is that the PPA may have had to reverse course on this trajectory because they were not able to get enough players to commit to the prize money model. In addition to their inability implement more of a merit-based model in 2026, the UPA is publicly looking to generate additional investment into the organization, which was presented by non-pickleball media as a positive for the organization.
As a side note, Sofia Sewing aspect of things is particularly unique in that she is signed to play MLP and there clearly was an expectation she would be on the PPA in 2027. No signed agreement means no guarantee, but how will the UPA handle the one player who is part of MLP without long-term exclusivity with their organization?
Does the APP see this as an opportunity to siphon players away from the PPA after their deals expire at the end of 2026, particularly the players outside of the top 20? Are the signing announcements from the APP Tour a bat signal of sorts to the rest of the pro world that we are here and we are not going anywhere? Do they believe that the UPA is in trouble and they don’t have the funds to keep up with their aggressive growth mode?
It’s hard to say.
The other side of this could be that the APP is in desperation mode. Throwing out a bunch of deals to their mostly lower tier pros in a final attempt to maintain relevancy. They must be paying a good amount of money to players like Sofia Sewing and Quang Duong to keep them away from the UPA, and it sounds like there are a handful of other players who have been signed by the APP but have not been announced as being signed yet on social media.
How does this set the APP up for the future? It has to be better than where they were at the beginning of 2026, but it still might end up being a pivot that is too little, too late. Who knows, though.
Just when you think things are settled, the never-ending Tour Wars saga continues. Stay tuned.
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