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Gary Vaynerchuk Has Acquired A Professional Pickleball Team
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Hey Friends,
Serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk announced last week that he was buying a professional pickleball team that competes in Major League Pickleball (MLP).
Gary’s team will be an expansion franchise, as the newly-minted league goes from 8 teams this year to 12 teams next year. The team will be called “the 5s,” a hat-tip to Gary’s favorite number, and the logo will include Competitive Clown, a recently unveiled VeeFriends Series 2 character, as their logo.
“5 means the world to me in the context of sports as it was the first jersey number I received and wore when I came to the US.,” said Vaynerchuk. “My mom knitted that jersey for me, and the number 5 has always been my favorite ever since. Now it’s on our MLP team and in our logo, alongside Competitive Clown, and I couldn’t be more proud to have that number, that means so much to me, as our team name.”
The Major League Pickleball (MLP) Draft takes place on May 28th, and the 2022 season officially kicks off in Austin, Texas, later this summer.
Gary’s business partner Ryan Harwood will run the team as General Manager. Ryan previously founded digital women’s lifestyle brand PureWow, but now serves as CEO of Gallery Media Group after Gary acquired the company several years ago.
Gallery Media Group controls several media sites, including the popular ONE37pm.
I’m not an expert on Pickleball whatsoever. I have played a few times and follow sports close enough to know that many people are excited about the future of the sport. But when Gary and Ryan reached out to me last week to talk about their investment, I honestly didn’t know what to think about it.
The idea sounded cool, and Gary is one of those friends I never bet against, but what was the actual plan? And was it viable and interesting?
So I sat down with Ryan yesterday and talked through the deal. We covered how much the team costs to buy, the growth and trajectory of the sport’s popularity, where they think they can make money, etc.
I had a feeling that I would learn a lot, so I decided to record it as a podcast so that you could too. But before we get into that, I think it’s helpful to break down the basics.
Here’s Pickleball 101.
The History Of Pickleball
Believe it to not, the game of pickleball is more than 50 years old. The sport was founded by Congressman Joel Pritchard and his friend Bill Bell in 1965.
The story is that they returned from a business trip to Pritchard’s home near Seattle, Washington, and found their families bored with nothing to do. The property had an old badminton court, but they couldn’t find a complete set of rackets when they went to play. So the group improvised — they started playing with ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball. The net was lowered from 60 inches to 36 inches after noticing that the ball bounced well on the asphalt, and the families played for hours.
The following weekend, their friend Barney McCallum was introduced to the game at Pritchard’s home, and the three men (Pritchard, Bell, and McCallum) created rules.
How To Play Pickleball
Pickleball is essentially a combination of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong.
You can play doubles or singles.
Each game is played to 11 points, and you must win by 2 points.
The net is hung at 36” at the ends and hangs 34” in the middle.
Games are played on a badminton-sized court (20’ x 44’), which is roughly 1/3 the size of a tennis court.
The ball is served diagonally (starting with the right-hand service square), and the serve must clear the seven-foot non-volley zone in front of the net and land in the diagonal service court.
Players on each side must let the ball bounce once before volleys are allowed, and there is a seven-foot no-volley zone on each side of the net to prevent spiking — this is commonly called “the kitchen.”
The server continues to serve, alternating service courts, until they faults. The first side to score eleven points and lead by at least two points wins.
The Growth of Pickleball
Although the sport of pickleball is more than 50 years old, the COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst that thrust it into the mainstream conversation.
Pickleball participation grew by 21.3% between 2019 and 2020. Nearly 5 million people play the game today—almost double the number from just five years ago—and the Sports & Fitness Industry Association says it is the fastest-growing sport in America.
But the growth of pickleball appears just to be getting started — NPR wrote an article earlier this year that detailed the trend:
Most of pickleball's core players — those who play more than eight times per year — are over age 65, but the game is getting younger, with the strongest growth among players under 55, according to USA Pickleball.
But with so many new players, the U.S. is struggling to keep up with demand for courts.
The country has only about 10,000 places to play, by USA Pickleball's count, but that continues to grow by several dozen every month. Sports clubs and hotel groups, including Marriott and Omni Resorts, are converting tennis courts to or building new courts for pickleball, while a restaurant chain called Chicken N' Pickle that has locations in four states has said it will double its footprint within the next year.
Municipalities nationwide are trying to meet the demand for pickleball venue — so many that USA Pickleball is putting together a toolkit for community planners with guidelines and cost estimates for building courts, which can range from $300 for a temporary net, equipment and tape to mark lines, to $30,000 for a permanent court.
And the Google Trends data tells a similar story.
But if the sport wants to grow into the mainstream conversation, they need a professional league. So that’s where Major League Pickleball comes in.
The Launch Of Major League Pickleball
Major League Pickleball officially launched in September of last year. The new professional league is backed by some prominent investors, including Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry and former American tennis star James Blake.
The format is pretty simple: each of MLP’s eight teams (now twelve) has four players—two men and two women—and they compete in a Ryder Cup-style format.
The season opener last year had more than $150,000 in prize money, and although most pro pickleball players still have second jobs, the world’s best players earn around $200,000 annually through prize money, sponsorships, and other revenue streams.
But here's the interesting part — team owners in the MLP don’t just own a team; they own a portion of the overarching league. And with the eight founding investors reportedly committing more than $1 million in capital, or about $125,000 each, there is tremendous (financial) upside if the sport continues to grow.
We’ll see what happens. It’s undoubtedly challenging to build a professional sports league, and it has become even more difficult as an increasing amount of niche sports raise venture financing and deploy a similar strategy. But with that said, professional pickleball has a strong tailwind propelling them forward, and the next few years should be super interesting.
If you want to learn more about the economics of the league and how Gary and Ryan plan to make money and grow the sport, make sure to check out our podcast below.
I hope everyone has a great day. We’ll talk tomorrow.
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The Joe Pomp Show: A new episode with Ryan Harwood is now live!
Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the United States, and Gary Vaynerchuk just purchased a professional team competing in Major League Pickleball (MLP). So I sat down with his partner Ryan Harwood (GM of the team) to discuss the economics of the deal, the future of the sport, and more.
Listen, subscribe, share, and enjoy!
