Batman dinks in jeans

Changes to PB landscape. Be more confident at the kitchen.

July 07, 2023

Good Morning. It’s good to be back. Over the holiday, we found an answer to a very pressing question: do Ben Affleck & J Lo actually love pickleball, or was the $60 million ‘pickleball mansion’ they bought more for the house than the indoor court?

Answer: they definitely bought it for the court. Here they are celebrating a point while playing in the Hamptons:

Maybe a better question we should ask is why would they subject themselves to busy courts when they have a space dedicated to pickleball in their house?

Actually, no, strike that. The real question is: jeans on the pickleball court?Amateurs.

In This Issue:

🧠 Confidence is key at the NVZ
💰 MLP teams: now worth $10 mill
🎾 Changes to PB landscape

Onward.

APP Newport Beach Open Results

Two for Flinching

A speedup at the kitchen line leaves you almost no time to react. The ball travels 14ft from paddle to paddle in less than half a second.

You might catch yourself leaning away from the projectile in an effort of self-preservation. Well, we're here to tell you to stop it.

On resets and block volleys, it’s important to maintain a neutral stance. Channel the Kobe Bryant mamba instincts to not flinch and not lean away.

Leaning backward has some unintended consequences that will get you in even more trouble. As the rule states, you get two for flinching.

Leaning away will change the angle of your paddle face and the direction you push through the ball.

Both will result in a POP-UP and turn you into a sitting duck.

Part of fighting the flinch comes with experience. The other comes with confidence. Believe in yourself, anticipate the speedup, and keep your posture in check.

The Next Two Successors

Introducing the new Project 005 & Project 006 Tour from Selkirk Labs.

With features like the FiberFlex+ Fiberglass Face, X5+ Honeycomb 16mm Core, and FlexFoam Perimeter, the 005 offers an ideal combination of power and control. It's now available in the S2, Epic, and Invikta shapes.

Featuring their new Tour shape, MicroSpin Raw 12k Carbon Fiber Texture and X5+ 16mm Polypropylene Honeycomb Core, the Project 006 delivers unparalleled quality and performance.

Take your game to the next level with the Selkirk Labs Project 005 & 006 Tour paddles! Be sure to check out their latest projects here!

MLP Turning Up the Heat

We’ve got some MLP news ahead of the upcoming Season 2 draft (see some predictions for that here).

First, the league announced new leadership. CEO Julio DePietro and COO Bruce Popko joined the exec team, each bringing extensive experience in community building. DePietro was actually the first person to tie geography to the team names.

But a few things DePietro & Popko said in a recent interview with CNBC really caught our attention:

Team valuations have seen 100 times growth; “Teams today are going for as much as $10 million. Previously, teams were being scooped up for as little as $100,000.”
Popko says he’ll focus on three pillars once he steps into his role: growing sponsorships, building the media rights business, & licensing and merch strategy.
“We have barely turned on any of the advertising knobs, much less the subscription knobs.”
“We are in advanced conversations with an A-plus-type broadcast partner who is interested in carrying our season live and all of our content for 2024”
The Premier Level Super Final on June 19 reached more than 975,000 viewers on ESPN2, while MLP’s YouTube livestream channel has seen a viewership increase of 500% over last year.

Not everyone agrees that an MLP franchise is truly worth 9 figures. But think of it like this: a hot startup IPOs and the stock price shoots up due to high demand. The valuation is based on what people are willing to pay, regardless of underlying financials. Especially this early in a venture.

And no, we're not saying the valuations will come crashing back down, we're just saying that the market dictates the price, and right now that price is $10,000,000.

Todd Triples in Newport

Once upon a time, Parris Todd ran the courts at the Tennis Club at Newport Beach. In 2023, both the club and Todd have converted to pickleball, and she is still collecting gold.

Todd won the triple crown at the Newport Beach Open last weekend. She secured doubles titles with Hunter Johnson and Simone Jardim.

Two entries from the qualifiers played on ESPN+ on Championship Sunday. We covered Quang Duong's run last Friday. He lost to gold medalist Hunter Johnson in the finals.

The other qualifier that shot up the ranks was the mixed doubles team of Allison Harris and Andre Mick. The underdogs were hungry in the back draw. They wiped out some of the top teams on the APP Tour to reach the finals.

The tour will enjoy a month break before heading to the Show Me State for St. Louis Open August 9-13.

Make Money off Your Home Court

As if you need another reason to add a homecourt to your backyard, now you can share your court with local players when you aren’t using it.

Swimply allows court owners the chance to rent out homecourts and players the opportunity to reserve a private court for their game.

Ch-ch-ch Changes

A popular post in Pickleball Forum this summer has us pondering: what are the biggest changes in pickleball over the last few years?

A better way to phrase it might be: what hasn’t changed?

At the recreational level, we think the biggest changes include:

A general shift from obscure sport to phenomenon
Availability of play (number of courts and pickleball entertainment venues rapidly increasing)
International growth in key countries like England, Australia, India, etc.
Celebrity involvement, from charitable televised tournaments to appearances at courts

At the pro level:

Influx of pickleball investment in MLP teams
Surprising amount of age diversity at in-person pro events
Ease of viewing (streaming on ESPN, CBS Sports, etc.)

We want to hear from you: what are the biggest changes in the sport you’ve noticed lately? Let us know here.

Life as a Super Final Champion

Mr. Andiamo Julian Arnold joins It Feels Right. Arnold is $60K richer after he and the LA Mad Drops won the MLP Season 1 Super Final. Julian predicts where he will be drafted in July and shares the details on his new partnership with Riley Newman.

Watch here or listen here.