NML Pickleball Podcast Ep. 5 – Zane Navratil Unfiltered
After a short hiatus, Chris is back from Europe and we are back with another podcast episode. On Friday evening, recent MLP signed pro and co-host of the Dink’s PicklePod, Zane Navratil, joined us for a long overdue discussion on the Tour Wars. Zane came on the podcast to give his unfiltered thoughts on the latest saga in pro pickleball’s “Tour Wars”. We discussed everything from Zane’s decision to sign with MLP and his feelings towards the PPA to which PPA players won’t be showing up for the next MLP event in Atlanta. This is an episode you don’t want to miss!
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When Zane says a big chunk of players aren’t going to attend MLP events, I’m having trouble figuring out who he’s talking about. The players are under contract, they’ve been drafted, even if it’s not your favorite format it’s a fun event that’s easy on the body, they’re getting paid to do it — I don’t see any motivation for them not to attend.
And I don’t see any motivation for the PPA to try and ask their players to call in sick for the MLP event. Even Zane said Ben was going, and if Ben is going what reason could the PPA have for caring if Lauren Stratman goes or not?
I guess I wouldn’t put it past Zane to stir up some isht, he has said on his podcast that he likes a bit of chaos, but it’s a bad decision when he’s putting his credibility up against that of the PPA — not a good time to get caught in a lie. So I think Zane likely believes what he’s saying.
So I’m totally puzzled, and need the experts at NML to sort this one out. TIA!
Fred: It appears to be credible but things are still in flux. So they could still all show up and Zane would not have been a liar – just that the situation changed. The only reason I personally can think they’d boycott would be if they were paid to stay away. And that only makes logical sense if it is a new contract with PPA that starts immediately that has an obligation in the new contract and thus in a sense pays them to stay away. Speculation from me! Some explanation will probably be leaked eventually.
The other thing that could happen – seems very unlikely – would be if PPA threw some kind of exhibition together requiring some players to attend on the same week-end as Atlanta. They did that several times in the war against APP.
There was a lot of interesting stuff in the podcast and I need to listen to it again. I was surprised Zane stayed on for the entire podcast as I expected only a partial appearance. It’ll be interesting to watch how the other podcasts start putting words in Zane’s mouth.
Our interpretation is it would likely be a directive from the PPA and they may then throw in additional financial incentive to ensure their players are happy should they skip MLP.
If he’s saying a good chunk, it has to be the top PPA loyalists. ALW was noted on the podcast as one and then you have to think Catherine. Other players signed PPA that have a bigger impact are Julian Arnold, Callie Smith and then you’re getting into Allyce and Lauren. That’s not that many names but it is a good chunk now. We are speculating outside of ALW but there are only so many PPA signed players at MLP. Koller and Loong could fit in here too.
PPA wants to do this to screw MLP’s product over. ALW and Catherine, for example, being gone make it very hard for MLP to put out the best product without a redraft
Don’t forget Alshon in the list of names.
Right. Well he’s definitely not going
Of course, there could be players that feel loyal to PPA and/or feel what the MLP did was wrong. So they plan to boycott in protest on how MLP went about the coup. I bet Lucy and Matt are very glad they are well out of it (season 2).
Seems like loyalty alone wouldn’t be enough.
It sounds like the PPA will be asking some of its signed 2024 players to skip the remaining 2023 MLP events. It would be on-brand behavior for the PPA and one of its only ways to do harm to MLP at this point.
A directive makes the most sense and that’s what was discussed on the podcast. It would be very on-brand
Really good interview with Zane. Very informative and very balanced. It will be interesting how this ends up. Very interesting discussion about the PPA’s pivot to tennis players, and how PPA’s track record put it behind the 8ball with some players. Also, the video is a welcome addition to the podcast.
Thanks, Scott! It sounds like something should be happening soon but there are still discussions going on. We’re going to try to do more video as we can here.