PPA Punches Back at MLP's Announcement with More Celebrity Appearances & More Player Contracts

Wednesday, September 28th, 2022

Is it a little warm in here or is it just us? After a huge announcement made by Major League Pickleball today that three NBA rockstars Lebron James, Draymond Green and Kevin Love are all new investors for additional MLP teams in 2023, the Professional Pickleball Association decides to make their own announcement. Coincidence or strategic? PPA advertised that former world number one golfer Jordan Spieth, former top 5 tennis player John Isner and former NFL quarterback Tony Romo will all face off at the PPA Tour Roundup in Texas on October 13th to determine the "best professional athlete, turned pickleballer".

PPA now controlled by billionaire Tom Dundon is trying to put out any competition that arises. They've gone head to head with some other Major League Pickleball events to try and squash the competition but often it feels petty and not in the spirit of promoting the sport of pickleball. Although we can appreciate the publicity the PPA has brought to pickleball in the last few months with pickleball being on mainstream television, we prefer these entities work together, not against one another.

As the majority of PPA players are currently not allowed to play in Major League Pickleball due to strict contracts with Tom Dundon at the PPA, this allows mostly APP players to play in the MLP team events with some exceptions (Irina Tereschenko, AJ Koller who are signed with PPA but chose MLP for their 4 events they are allowed to play outside of PPA). PPA players were highly disappointed as the team events at MLP have been the favored events for the majority of players on tour. There are some rumblings about PPA allowing their players in 2023 to play in MLP but when the organization sends out competing newsworthy stories in the same day, we don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

Is it a coincidence that PPA sent pro player contracts TODAY to MLP/APP players to try and sign them and prevent them from participating in future MLP events after their big announcement today? Let us know in the comments what you think.