Hey!

The craziest week in pickleball, yet. (And I have a feeling it won't be the last time that sentiment is shared!) 

But before I give you the details, 

Welcome back to the nearly 6,000 people receiving today's edition.

Before we keep going, if you’re new to the blog and want to go back and check out past editions, go here!

Today’s edition has two parts: 

1. For the Pickleball Nerds – An Interview I did with “Building Pickleball”

2. My Journey Playing Pro – MLP 🤝 Me

Brian, aka “building pickleball” on instagram and youtube has been finding and telling stories around the pickleball world. 

When asked to do an interview with him, I jumped at the chance because I’d seen his past work, and stood out to me. High quality. 

10 days later, I flew to Austin to film in person with him.

He rented out a cool space to film and the interview just posted a few days ago! 

In it, I share:

• How being in the 5th grade play prepared me to make pickleball content. 😂
• What got me into pickleball and why it continues to spread like wildfire.
• The intersection between content creator and player. 

Watch here!👇

Wild. Crazy. Insane. What's going on?

All words and phrases people have used over the last 7 days to describe what’s happened in pickleball.

If you haven’t been following along, I'll quickly fill you in with the beat bones details. 

Major League Pickleball (MLP) and the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) were set to merge. For the last 6-ish months, they'd been operating under merger terms, but it hadn't yet become official yet.

Then 7 days go, it got crazy. MLP came out with a press release saying they were going to sign players to exclusive contracts.

Suddenly, players started getting offers and it was time to pick sides. The top players had offers (of epic proportions) from both leagues. 

Word on the street is, players were on their phones non stop at the tournaments going on with their agents, families, and other players trying to gather information. 

One by one, players began to sign. Both leagues were posting images of players with a “signed” tag on the image to show the world who signed where. 

Talent was split. 

In the middle of the madness, I was one of the players who signed with MLP.

All I can say is, wow. MLP has been a goal of mine for a long time. And it’s crazy how much has happened in the last few days.

There’s still a lot of unknowns, so before you respond to this email with questions, there's a 97% chance I don't know the answer. ha!

Things seem to change by the minute and I’m learning a lot through social media just like everyone else. 

One question a lot have asked is, “is this good for pickleball?”

My take is: 

For the players — Yes. A lot of people just got life changing money.

For the fans — No. Again, there’s a split in talent among the two leagues. 

For pickleball — Who knows? It feels like a step backward. It feels inevitable that, at the end of the day, one league will prevail. OR, there will be a merger of some kind. If you look at other sports leagues, you don’t see two leagues in the same sport doing equally well. One typically dominates. And I expect that at the end of the day, that’s what will happen here. 

Despite the madness, let’s zoom out. 

Last week, it was my 2 year anniversary playing pickleball.

Two days ago, I signed a 3 year contract with Major League Pickleball.

Honestly, it’s been surreal. Still processing it all. And truthfully, I feel a lot of mixed emotions.

I’m stoked to get this opportunity. But also, I'm disappointed many of my training partners, and other friends in the sport, didn’t get the same opportunity, even though I felt many deserve it. I’m nervous. If you go to Instagram, my picture is up there with the best names in the sport. If I’m being honest, that’s a bit scary!

Am I ready for this (whatever this may mean?). Yes.

I don’t love to curse, but for me, this is the next step.

Let’s FU**** go! (sorry mom).

Talk next week,

Kyle

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