MLP and PPA Announce Mass Signings of Players as Feelings of Deja Vu Rock the Tour Wars
Holy crap! What a ridiculous time to be alive if you are a follower of pro pickleball. Imagine if there was mainstream media coverage of the events that have transpired over the past 3 days. Saturday has been the most insane day so far as MLP and the PPA have both publicly announced a slew of signings, some minor and some major, which signals a return back to the dark diluted days of 2022 pro pickleball.
This list of signings is ever changing but as of around 5pm EST, here is the list as per the Dink (follow their live blog for more constant updates):
It appears for the time being that the signings have stopped, but there are still some big dominos to fall. Namely, JW Johnson, Dylan Frazier and Jorja Johnson. Another notable name we threw out there on Twitter is Jack Sock, who was anticipated to play a lot more pro pickleball in 2024.
One late signing that we did see was the PPA announced that they had signed tennis pro Donald Young. Obviously this leads to further Sock speculation as you could argue that he could move the needle in terms of viewership and interest more than any pro out there right now.
(Update 3:40 am EST, Aug 27 – The PPA announced the signings of Jack Sock and Sam Querrey. The Sock signing is the big one that adds a new layer to all of this but it is still the Johnson’s and Frazier who are the biggest fish left in the sea. The other interesting thing is Connor Pardoe was supposed to appear on the Dink podcast last night, but it has been postponed to Sunday allegedly.)
We will have far more detailed thoughts on all of this tomorrow and in the coming days, but the initial reaction has to be that MLP is winning. However, they are still in an awkward spot with the clear best two players in the world in Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters playing for the PPA. How do they make their players become known as the best in the world? I also have to wonder if Ben, Anna Leigh and Catherine Parenteau could be having any second thoughts? Do they want to spend the next three years playing tomato cans on their way to Championship Sunday, which is the way it currently appears to be set. Also do JW and Dylan also want to face zero competition on their way to playing the Johns brothers 30 times next year?
We are far from finished here, but with MLP having momentum on most of the player signings here, if they do sign the final key players they will have the indisputable majority of the top 20 men and women, and much of the depth beyond that. This would also lead to PPA having a very serious talent void, and a difficult product to sell. Can I interest you in Ben and AL versus Matt and Lucy twenty some times next year?
It sounds like the phones are still burning not only for the unsigned players, but also the signed players as both sides are trying to secure as much of the talent as they can. So the next few days could be very interesting.
It is notable, there were a couple of big PPA defections in Tyson McGuffin and Riley Newman, but it’s pretty clear that the majority of the long time PPA vets have remained loyal to the PPA. On the other hand, almost all of the new players and rising stars chose to sign MLP. I have to think the clear favoritism that the PPA has displayed over the years worked both for and against them here. Most of the players that they have favored over the years remained loyal, while the newer stars who often felt they did not get a fair shake left.
There are so many questions that are left to be answered? What will each tour look like for the remainder of this year? What will their schedules look like next yet? Where will new players go to develop? And call me crazy, but there has to be a slightly greater than zero percent chance that there could be another merger with the entities, and where would that leave the players then?
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Thank you for the update. This is so interesting. IMO, the Johnsons w/ Frazier are having a conversation with their sports agent. But I don’t see them going w/ PPA. So maybe in the near future, APP will somehow unite with the MLP team. Didn’t see Vivian Gozman’s name. I hope she joins Etta Wright and Hurricane Tyra Black. IMO, those are next year’s top five women. I would actually like to see the MLP format become USAPA standard. Thanks again, keep up the good snooping. 🙂
Think the APP partnership is unlikely. We’ll see what JW and Dylan do. Team format is not their favorite with limited partnership control but they probably don’t like the PPA all that much
PPA just did whatever it wanted and totally tried to bully the APP away. Not to mention fixing draws, manipulating seeding and just letting and handful of players do whatever they want within their own tour. Is just so perfect. PPA thought it had everything, they can do whatever they want and so quickly it all came falling down. Donald Young, Sam Querry, just feels so good to see some kind of justice after trying to monopolize the game.
Don’t know if you can say it’s over yet. A lot still to unfold
Recently, on his podcast with Anna, Dylan talked about how he felt bad the one time he withdrew from a back draw, so now he always plays the back draw because it’s the right thing to do. It makes sense that, although he’s probably feeling a strong pull from MLP and a lot of his friends, he would be reluctant to quickly bolt out the door and leave the PPA in the dust. I’m guessing Dylan and the Johnsons will ultimately go MLP. As you say, do they really want to spend the next three years playing Ben and Anna Leigh, and a few others, and a bunch of tomato cans? There is a good chance much of the incoming talent will also end up in MLP, too, because Steve Kuhn wants MLP to be the full pickleball infrastructure, including a minor league and development squads.
Essentially, Steve Kuhn knew the PPA’s full-year grind was not compatible with his very ambitious vision for the sport. He got tired of f’ing around with Dundon and Pardoe. So, a few mornings ago he woke up and told the PPA, “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!”
It is the first time we have seen Kuhn take more of a cutthroat mindset for sure. Ultimately players are likely taking that mindset as well and doing what feels benefits them most
Who’s on earth does APP have to offer MLP? Absolutely nothing. It’s like 5 year old shoes in your closet trying to add value to Nike.
The ability to run tournaments well for amateurs and pros
I have watched both and find MLP boring. Who’s the best. I don’t know just guess. PPA champion Sunday shows you who is best. Also I can watch PPA Four days straight but MLP Is oN ESPN +, who even gets that channel, I don’t. This will be a set back for USA pickleball due to greed. IMHO.
That’s the debate. Merits to both sides
Jack Sock signing with PPA. I bet it is limited engagement, almost certainly not the full grind of 30-40 events. Pardoe to be on The Dink podcast Sunday morning. Tim Klitch on Saturday’s The Dink podcast was interesting (the one that had about 5 different people jump on while live). He didn’t give details but mentioned PPA didn’t do some of the things they promised – shocker! But this is a pattern with everything PPA does at all levels. So you know they’ve done it with pros too and could have influenced their decision.
Good points with all of this. A lot still to come out today
PPA canceled a lot of amateur Men’s Doubles draws yesterday in KC due to early morning rain. Rather than shorten formats, they canceled (at a Golden Ticket event). Pros were finished by 7 pm local time so should’ve been time to get all brackets in.
This is on par for amateur events
Big signing by the PPA. Assuming nothing works long-term without a TV deal, the players that I’ve heard any TV network cares about are, in order, Jack Sock and ALW. I don’t yet see a path for the MLP to earn significant revenue, let alone a profit.
Jack Sock is a big get.
Don’t care for the MLP format. Watched two times and could not watch anymore. They have made a circus of the sport. Reviewed the list of MLP signers and about the only one i will miss seeing is Tyson McGuffin. MLP can have Riley Newman and Lea Jansen. Their poor sportsmanship is an embarrassment to Pickleball and their sponsors.
Fair enough
Are the MLP contracted to play other tournaments if they’d like? If so, maybe APP will see a few depending on the prize money. Guessing there would be a clause not to play in ppa?
I don’t think it’s been made clear. Somewhere, exclusivity was mentioned but does that apply to no other leagues but tournaments are okay or no other pickleball event whatsoever such as US Open and Nationals. Based on Kuhn’s past philosophy, MLP contracts are unlikely to be as restrictive as PPA contracts have been. I know some PPA players were surprised they weren’t allowed to play some events. Dylan was slated to play in the Ballpark Series at Fenway like JW and Jorja. But PPA wouldn’t allow him. JW and Jorja could play because of their Franklin sponsorship/contract.
They are exclusive to MLP
If the MLP contracts are exclusive then APP has a problem as their top 10-15 folks are signed. Since they weren’t leaning into YouTube then it probably isn’t as big an issue as it would be for the PPA to lose their top talent, but it leaves them with NextGen talent and newcomers to the pro scene. That’s a tough sell….
I really don’t understand why the players haven’t unionized. They are currently the big winners, but are simply the pawns on a billionaire chess board at the moment. Dispensable.
Unionizing isn’t as easy as just doing it. Not sure what APP will be considering so many of their players are getting signed now
I’ve been mentioning for the players to form a Players’ Union for a while. Until then, they will never have control. If at the very least, a Player’s Union could set up minimum standards for all tournament venues.
KOTC podcast again had great info.
I hope they’re right when they say that there’s a good chance of reconciliation.
We’ll have more later today hopefully but KOTC has good info on the whole, but generally the version of events is skewed to be PPA friendly. There are other versions out there.
Steve Kuhn thinks team play is the future of pickleball. Is this really what we want? I do love MLP as a complement to PPA tournaments, but I worry about going mostly/all team. Think about other sports. Do we want Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer to be stuck playing team tennis for twenty years? Do we want Tiger woods getting stuck playing team golf for twenty years? Do we want Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters, and the next pickleball greats, winning titles for the Milwaukee Mashers and DC Pickleball Team instead of winning triple crowns? I don’t think I want that.
If MLP could add more tour events then it would greatly increase my interest. Having 8 team events isn’t going to move the needle for me. But if it’s coupled with 8 tour events where I get to see some head-to-head whose the best play, then I’ll be interested. So 16 events per year sounds like enough to get involved in the players. I know Kuhn’s view is to get involved with the teams but I have always liked individual sports over team sports. I have no idea what Pardoe was planning (before the tour wars) with his claim of 40 events for 2024 but no way I’d spend that much time watching.
It is interesting that KOTC says there are 2 sides of each story but then spend most of the podcast giving us only 1 side. There has to be something that caused Kuhn to hesitate on finalizing the merger. Hearsay, one of those things might be money that never materialized. Sounds like another one of those things is the schedule – Pardoe adding more PPA events and not allowing room in the calendar for MLP to add events.
At this point, I’m against a merger because I’d feel really bad for the players who wanted to get out from under the PPA and had a guaranteed income path to do it. Hearsay again, some of those players actually took less $ with a possible gamble on getting a piece of that $5 million prize pool. But less money but better quality of life is a good trade-off sometimes.
We’ll see how the players feel their branding opportunities are affected by being just one face on a team.
I also feel for the up-and-comers. The PPA has a proven low barrier to entry: Connor Garnett, Quang Duong, Collin Shick, Tyra Black, et al. You can be a nobody, but you can train hard, beat your opponents in the qualifiers and you’ll get face-to-face time against Ben/ALW/etc. Now all those previously unknown names have contracts. Having proven yourself, if you continue to train hard, better partners will want to play with you, and you’ll keep stepping up the ladder, and you can win all the money there is to win, nobody can stop you.
In the MLP, I have no control over my destiny. I have to get lucky in minor league pickleball, and have a good enough team to get noticed, and then do something to get noticed on that team at the right time when some scout is watching and then that scout needs to decide to give the nod and then have some team that’s looking for what the scout claims I have to offer, and then that team decides what to offer me.
That’s a lotta levels out of my control.
It is interesting so many people bring up the lack of control in the team stuff, but that’s any team sport. Just because we don’t have a model, doesn’t mean players can’t differentiate themselves in a team model. Every sport has good players on bad teams and sometimes they never get the right situation, sometimes they do. Not saying team approach has to be the way this goes, but is it any less likely to work than a tour model?
It sounds like there will be some mix of team and individual events that is still being worked out.
Yes, quite interesting on the KOTC thing. You seem to have your finger on the pulse. There’s just not clearly one definitive correct version from what we can discern. Likely a mixture of multiple versions.
Merger seems problematic when so much is unsettled and that another breakup could be imminent.
Maybe Mr. Kuhn figured out that the PPA is totally dishonest. And I hope MLP never joins PPA. PPA has done nothing for this sport.
We have expressed the same concern with MLP in the past. The devil’s advocate side of it is that just because we don’t have a model for team play, does not mean it can’t work. There are plenty of great players in team sports who don’t win like Dan Marino, Connor McDavid in hockey, Mike Trout in baseball. It may be harder in team aspect to differentiate the best in pickleball but just because it’s done doesn’t mean it can’t work. We still remain skeptical to a degree on the viability on pro pickleball overall so it’s also possible none of it can work
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The concept that the team sport can work is overreach. It’s fairly simple, pickleball is first and foremost an individual sport. It is similar to golf or tennis, where we need to know who is the best, and then have MLP, or something analogous to a team platform ( think Davis or Ryder cups). m David , Trout and Marino were in a strictly team sport, it’s not a valid argument. I know the PPA hasn’t been the greatest organization, but, number one, they will learn from this, and, number two, has there ever been a.team sport that the owners didn’t try to control/ruin.
It’s hard to state it’s primarily an individual sport when so many consider doubles to be the primary division honestly.
Well, doubles still counts as individual. Doubles partners are still playing for themselves and not any team.
If you have a partner, you are part of a doubles TEAM. Arguably, you see more amateurs playing doubles than singles and consequently, there is more interest from the public in doubles matches. So in that regard, I don’t think of pickleball as a predominantly individual sport.
Players are viewed more individually rather than as a partnership though. Maybe we need a better word to describe it
But who says it can’t be a team sport or create a team sport out of it? It seems just as likely to succeed either way, which may not be a high percentage