By Aaron Schmidt – Cronkite NewsPickleball has taken the country by storm and its surging popularity has attracted the attention of some of the biggest stars in sports.
According to a report issued to the financial network CNBC by the Association of Pickleball Professionals, 36.5 million Americans picked up a paddle in 2022. By comparison, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reported that 4.8 million people had played the sport in 2021. Blake co-owns the Milwaukee Mashers pickleball club with Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry. Blake got involved because MLP wanted to involve a tennis player in ownership when it expanded.
“If you look at some of our celebrity investors, we’ve got investors like LeBron James, who has almost 150 million Instagram followers,” said Brian Levine, the interim CEO of MLP. “We can reach a lot of people that I think typical linear broadcasting or live events won’t reach, so the upside is pretty dramatic.”For 2023, MLP introduced two levels of play, Challenger and Premier. The Premier Level consists of 12 teams made up from the top 48 players taken in the MLP draft.
In 2023, MLP will be split into two seasons of three events. The first season began this past weekend and ends in June, while the second season begins in September and ends in December. The total prize pool for the six events is more than $5 million. Although pickleball is growing throughout the country, it has a long history of popularity in Arizona, where there are more than 300 courts. The Legacy Sports Complex has 41 pickleball courts on site, and most of them were in use as the matches were taking place.
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