Major League Pickleball

What is Major League Pickleball?

Springing up first as an informal game among families and friends and then expanding into community center leagues, tournaments, summer camps, senior centers, parks & recreation departments, YMCAs/JCCs, private clubs, physical education classes at both elementary schools and universities; pickleball now has multiple professional leagues just like other major sports. Major League Pickleball was launched as the first professional league for pickleball. Players draft their own teams from the available player pools using a fantasy sports-style software application. Since its inception, MLPB has enjoyed year-over-year growth in viewership and popularity.

Major League Pickleball is a professional team league consisting of 12 teams. Founder & CEO Steve Kuhn, MLP is tenacious and full of ideas to bring pickleball excitement to a whole new level. With a commitment to quality and excitement, MLP is becoming the pickleball authority. MLP is committed to elevating and growing the sport of pickleball through progressive programming and team ownership partnerships. MLP Network is doing well and continues to find creative ways for its fans to enjoy the future of sports entertainment.

MLP excels in providing exceptional pickleball experiences. MLP strives to be the best possible sport by emphasizing the passion of athletes and fans alike with a team-based format and co-ed approach.

For the 2022 season with MLP’s first team competition in Austin in early June, the MLP competition in Newport Beach, California from August 5th-7th offered the biggest pickleball prize in history. 

MLP is working to make the scoring from pickleball easy to understand for fans throughout the United States and they are planning to broadcast pickleball games with broadcast quality similar to that of the Major League Baseball broadcasts on ESPN, NBC, or Fox. You can also find them on their own MLP Network through digital platforms. MLP works hard to find innovative ways for its fans to enjoy watching their teams compete and grow the sport in everything they do. The League has many iconic team owners and a large amount of its funding comes from outside investors like Drew Brees.

Drew Brees Is Into pickleball?

Drew Brees, famous for his stellar play in the NFL and now for being a passionate pickleball player, has become an owner of an MLB Pickleball Team. The New Orleans Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, is a die-hard pickleball player and enthusiast. He wants to see the sport grow and this is his way of doing it.

Major League Pickleball & PPA In Combat

There is a rivalry between two pickleball leagues. The Major League Pickleball league is founded by a hedge fund executive named Steve Kuhn, and the PPA Tour is founded by a businessman named Connor Pardoe. At their pickleball conference table meeting, Kuhn and Pardoe were trying to work out a way to play together peacefully, but it didn’t go well and they came to despise one another. The show MLP has been around for a while and it has toured in the past. The PPA Tour is a tour that is nudging into the space and is made up of players who are contracted.

They have different organizations that are sponsoring them. MLP on the other hand has decided that it would be better to increase the prize pool and do away with the contracted players because they saw it as unnecessary. Although the PPA Tour and MLP have had their differences in the past, they may try to work things out in the future. However, everyone wants to be friends, but they are not making it easy by scheduling the big events on the same day. The PPA Tour and MLP are now facing off against each other in a close battle, with no hope of reconciliation or cooperation in sight.

The Pickleball Pro Association (PPA) has created a new format for its tour that seems to compete with the MLP excitement that it creates. This new event, which was aired live on the Tennis Channel, as well as on its Facebook and YouTube channels, is in addition to the other seemingly head-to-head event—MLP’s Pickleball Night in America. At the end of the day, it is pretty obvious that these two are head to head and whenever there is money, there is business!  There are pro pickleball tournaments and many events between four organizations (PPA, APP, MLP, and USA Pickleball) but it seems like the PPA may be at the forefront of this primetime race with its announcement of invitational summer championships being aired on CBS on August 13, 2022, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm PT.

Most recently BLQK emerged victorious in the Major League Pickleball final event in Austin. The MLP 2022 Austin Finals were televised live on CBS Sports Network. Irina Tereschenko has now won multiple championships and the BLQK team won 100k, which is the largest prize awarded ever. I don’t know about you, but that sounds exciting to me! The competition is fierce, but beneficial because it will spur more creativity and entertainment. On the flip side, a failed pro pickleball organization with so much publicity around it could be a “bad look” for the sport.