MLP Austin 2025 – 5 Takeaways – There’s Nothing Else Like It

Week 1 of the back-to-back-to-back MLPs wrapped up on the Memorial Day holiday and what a weekend it was. Can you believe that in 2022 we were wondering whether 3 events was too many for an entire calendar year? Okay, you probably can because we still have those questions, but it’s still pretty cool to see how far things have come over the past few years. We’ll have another scorcher of an event in Phoenix where events are never played during the late spring and summer months. We’ll also have more evening pickleball, which is always fun for those of us on the west coast. 

1. MLP, There’s Nothing Else Like It – It’s not often that a company or a sports league has a slogan that properly encapsulates the essence of the product. That is a very hard thing to do. But the now defunct MLP slogan, “There’s Nothing Else Like It”, that was created during the Steve Kuhn era, almost perfectly captured what MLP is all about. After already seeing 2 MLP events in the past month, this Austin event solidified that there really isn’t anything out there that is like MLP. 

The Texas Ranchers are one of the most invested franchise in MLP and, although he has taken a step back in his ownership role, Tim Klitch was one of the early investors in the MLP who made sure his hometown event brought the heat – literally and figuratively. While the temperatures sat in the 90s for the entire weekend as players and commentators wore ice pack vests, the Tim Klitch owned Austin Pickle Ranch was rocking. 

One of the better things MLP has done for 2025 has been to ensure that every event takes place in a home market of a team. In 2024, there was a noticeable dip in energy between events with a hometown team (e.g. DC) versus events without a hometown team (e.g. Kansas City). That has not been the case in 2025 where we have had great energy from the host cities in Orlando, Columbus and now Austin. 

While MLP/UPA can try to facilitate the best environment to create energy, the bottom line is that you can only manufacture so much energy. In 2025, we are seeing why MLP is a special product not only from a pickleball standpoint, but from a professional sports standpoint. Not only was the energy really good overall for the matches taking place on Championship Court, especially the matches involving the Texas Ranchers, but the organic energy that we see happening is truly unique in pro sports, at least in our opinion.

Memes of Pickleball highlighted two of the more unique moments from the weekend. One, involving an exchange of “friendly banter” between Julie Johnson and Will Howells as Howells faced off against Julie’s son, JW, in a Dreambreaker. The second occurred between Texas and Miami. After some loud cheering and “wow-ing” from Eric Oncins on the Ranchers sideline, Milan Rane proceeded to scream and “wow” in the faces of the Ranchers bench upon winning the next rally. 

None of this was in bad taste. In fact, all four of those people are quite familiar with one another as they all live in the same area and seem to have a good relationship. What it was, was an example of the best kind of energy from MLP. The kind that only happens with opponents so close to one another across the net, fans and teammates cheering on the sidelines, and enough time between points for people to get annoyed or pissed off with whatever people decide to do in that time. 

The exuberance we continue to see from Jorja Johnson in celebrating the victories of her team for a marquee regular season matchup is not the kind of emotion we see in the regular season of other professional sports. 

We see individual and partner based exuberance quite regularly on the PPA or APP Tour. Ben Johns showed his raw emotion in taking the singles title in Atlanta over Connor Garnett. But there is a feeling that hits different the way the enthusiasm shines through at MLP.  You can’t manufacture the investment the players have in the team-based MLP format that has been created. 

Of course, with three marquee teams in Austin, including one of them being the hometown Ranchers, it can give a bit of a skewed perspective on what MLP is as a whole. Nevertheless, when MLP is going good. It is going real good. And we shouldn’t lose sight of how fantastic MLP can be as a product. 

When MLP is hopping, there is nothing else like it. 

2. Is the Lack of Parity Issue Overstated? –2025 has been the year of chalk when it comes to MLP. We wrote after Orlando that the results have been predictably predictable and nothing much has changed since then. Following Columbus, the top 7 teams in points per match were 27-0 when facing off against the bottom 9 teams. In Austin, the only win to be had between Miami and Orlando was the win that Orlando had over Miami, which pushed that record to 31-0.

It remains a have and have not league far more than we have ever seen before in MLP. 

In thinking about this over the weekend, we want to make sure we, and others, are not overstating this narrative as a huge parity problem for the league. MLP is not the only pro sports league that is filled with have’s and have nots. Year in and year out, the NBA and MLB slog through seasons where many teams are virtually eliminated from contention after less than a quarter of thee season. The NFL, known for its constantly fluctuating playoff teams, generally boils down to how good a quarterback a team has. You either have one or you don’t (see: Jets, New York). 

In the first year of an expanded number of teams and roster sizes, should we really care that much that some teams have no chance at a title or even getting to the playoffs? 

With a brief uptick in ratings to start the NBA playoffs due to some high profile matchups, there has come another decline in ratings for the conference finals as both LeBron James and Steph Curry were eliminated. This is not all that dissimilar to the situation we have in MLP this year. The high profile matchups with star players are really good and engaging as we saw with the Flash, the 5’s and the Ranchers over the weekend.  The other matchups, not so much. 

The issue that MLP has right now is that there is far too much disparity between different tiers in the league and it means that match to match there isn’t even unpredictability. The fact that the top 7 teams are 31-0 against the bottom 9 teams is horrifying from a competitive balance standpoint. At least the bottom feeding teams in other sports can be competitive with the best teams on a given night (except maybe the Colorado Rockies). The bottom feeding teams in MLP are pretty much non-competitive for the most part.

The results don’t just feel like a foregone conclusion right now in MLP. They are a foregone conclusion. 

As MLP is trying to grow, it is not good that there isn’t a baseline level of competitiveness for the product to ensure that fans and sponsors remain engaged. With the lack of investment by certain teams and possibly the UPA itself that we have highlighted, it is a very risky endeavor not to have better protected the competitive balance within MLP heading into the next couple of years. 

The other scary thing is that it doesn’t appear that the lack of parity will improve in 2026. It is most likely only going to get worse. The limited size of the talent pool and the structure of the league that is based around spending money has mostly funnelled the best players into a concentrated group of invested franchises. 

As we saw in Austin, it’s clear that there will be a great MLP product, at times, this year. But the jury is still way out on whether the bad aspects of the current product will have negative ripple effects when it comes to how the league is able to grow over the next few years. 

3. Nothing to See Here – Who knows how the final result of the year will shake out but it sure feels like a 2.5-horse race right now. The Dallas Flash solidified themselves as the top class of MLP with a Dreambreaker win over the New Jersey 5’s. Although the 5’s have to be encouraged with a 4-0 weekend from their men it’s possibly equally as discouraging that their women are not a stone cold lock for a win like last year. 

Tyra Black and Jorja Johnson beat Dizon/Waters to hand the 5’s women their only loss of the weekend, which is their third loss already this season. They are going to need more wins from their men to have a chance this year, but they are not nearly as dangerous with their women being underdogs against the Shock and Flash women. The 5’s lived off the Dreambreaker for the first half of last season but they are no longer stone cold locks in that respect either. The Flash and Shock are both uniquely suited to being able to handle the 5’s for Dreambreaker purposes, which is what makes the 5’s feel like one-half of a truly legitimate contender through 3 events. 

For the rest of the event, we had the exact results we expected. 

Texas look good but they remain flawed. It isn’t talked about very much but there has to be an issue with their women’s doubles team, who haven’t been as strong this year with a 4-4 record that included a loss to Miami’s women in Austin. Tuionetoa and Pisnik flip flopped last year between who was playing the left and right, and they flip flopped again in Austin, putting Tuionetoa back on the left side. Emotional momentum is a real thing in MLP and the Ranchers men losing could have felt like the death knell going down 0-2 to the 5’s, but Pisnik/Oncins shouldn’t be losing to Dizon/Navratil.  Add to that the questions of the Dreambreaker and it’s hard to see the Ranchers as anything more than a high end, tier 2 MLP team in 2025. 

Orlando is who we thought they were. Better than the bottom, not good enough to compete at the top. Nothing really to see here. 

Miami’s women put up a good flight against the Flash women and Miami’s men put up a good fight against the 5’s men. Overall, it wasn’t enough to find a win in the entire event as Jay Devilliers went 0-8 with Noe Khlif and Mya Bui against some difficult competition. Miami remains a fringe play-in team. 

As an aside, Mya Bui is such a weird and intriguing player. She clearly has the best raw tools of these newer Premier women from a power and hand speed perspective, but her forehand looks super janky to the extent that it likely requires a full overhaul. Mya’s sister, Jada, who just won a singles gold at the PPA Challenger in Punta Gorda and plays in the Canadian MLP style league appears to have a similarly janky forehand. It must be something from their tennis days, but it doesn’t seem conducive to optimizing what is a high end skill set for Mya Bui. 

4. Challenger Takes – Not many people care about Challenger. The fans disperse from the Challenger CC matches faster than the road runner being chased by Wile E. Coyote. There are no stakes in the regular season beyond seeding as all teams make the playoffs and every team is getting promoted in 2026. Still, Challenger has been a breeding ground for breakout talent since its inception in MLP beginning in 2023. We are still interested enough to write about it.

The difference in 2025 Challenger is that it this odd mix of players that are too good to be there, legacy talent and new to the scene pros. The biggest thing that we are seeing in Challenger this year is that basic competence on a pickleball court is being rewarded.

Michelle Esquivel and Marshall Brown were not on an MLP roster in 2024 and, rightly or wrongly, Anderson Scarpa was dropped by the Las Vegas Night Owls part way through the season. In 2025, that is three-quarters of the second best team in Challenger through one event. The thing about the Nashville Chefs is they feature 4 players who can competently play pro pickleball and that gives them a chance every time they are out there, even though their women went 1-4.

We expected DC to be a little bit better because of their women, but Mari Humberg/Stefan Auvergne going 2-3 in mixed is not good enough when Humberg is supposed to be dominating Challenger. The other issue for DC is that their team is not built to play a Dreambreaker. None of their players are regular singles players nor are any of their players even above average Challenger singles players for their gender. DC looks less dangerous than we thought they would.

Speaking of competence, Bay Area paid cash to get Angie Walker from the LA Mad Drops for Danna Funaro after Funaro went 3-10 on the weekend, including a very bad 1-4 in women’s playing with Alix Truong. Walker is a clear upgrade over Funaro but we’ll see how much of a difference it makes. California is tied for 4th with Bay Area as Rafa Hewett went 1-9 in Austin. Juan Benitez going 3-2 in mixed is a good sign, but these unknown players have been such a crap shoot so far.

Las Vegas is far and away the class of Challenger, but they are vulnerable in the same way as the first-half of 2024 New Jersey 5’s. James Delgado is a liability despite his 6-4 overall record that is masked by playing with Brooke Buckner and Pablo Tellez, along with the Wang/Buckner Dreambreaker cheat code.

Travis Rettenmaier may embody the meaning of good stats, bad team guy for MLP purposes. Real Clear Stats had him as the clear #1 player based on their player impact plus statistic, but he went 5-5 overall. To be fair to Travis, his good stats, bad team moniker is probably more due to the fact that the Smash’s ability to construct a decent team is comically bad. There has to be a UPA eligible Florida based player that is better than Sarah Ansboury, right? It’s a Herculean feat that Rettenmaier was able to go 3-2 in mixed with Ansboury last weekend.

5. Get Rid of the Full Page Ads MLP – Come on, man! What the hell are we doing with full page Google AdSense ads on the website of a professional sports league? Even NML’s unpaid IT department removed those advertisements from our website because it looked too much like amateur hour for our half-baked website. If the full page ads don’t get removed, at least make it fair across the UPA and have them show up on the PPA website.

*Stats provided in this article are courtesy of Matt Klitch (@mattypickles on X), Erik Tice (@azetice on X) and Real Clear Stats (@realclearstats on X).

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