The “New” Billionaire in the Battle Over Pro Pickleball | This Pickleball Life (Ep. 32)

The Billionaire’s battle for pro pickleball continues, this time with a “new” name throwing a grenade on the MLP/PPA merger. We deep dive on the PPA Masters—which MAJOR paddle company is having huge quality control issues and seeing their paddles failing at even LOWEST deflection standards? And which pro players are actually benefitting from these “progressive” progression draws? Plus, find out which pro player ate 3 triple triples at in N Out (and lived to tell the tale)….don’t miss out as we also reveal the winners from last week’s biggest giveaway. And Jilly B reveals her partners for 2024 (fire!). You don’t wanna miss this. It’s pod 32… and pickleball is STILL a zoo.

SEGMENTS:
0:00 Coming up
5:48 ICYMI!
15:40 Drop Serve Secrets?!
21:10 Jaume in da (literal) House
22:09 Jill reveals her 2024 partnerships!
26:15 Progression draws not very progressive
37:00 K Dub’s Right Side Theories
41:40 Premier MLP player playing APP Punta Gorda
43:15 GIVEAWAY WINNERS
44:20 Merger update!
51:00 Payout madness

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Jill Braverman and Kristin Walla discuss timely pickleball topics, news, advice, and humor. Equal parts humor, entertainment, and instruction. If you love pickleball, you’ll love this podcast.

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All right it’s pod 32 and it is a loaded one we’ve got a recap of the PPA masters from last week and we’re going to reveal who ate three triple triples at in and out oh my God and is this merger actually happening or not it seems like

Last night a nuke was thrown on the whole thing we’re going to get into that and what really is a progression draw and who is actually benefiting from it we’ve got our giveaway winners from our biggest giveaway pod ever and I reveal my partners for 2024 exciting stuff

Stick around it’s pod 32 and pickle ball is still a zoo that’s a good one this pickle ball life it’s pod 32 of TPL this pickle ball life welcome to your favorite comedy podcast disguised as a pickle ball podcast I am one of your hosts hosts Jil

B AKA Jill Braverman Pro Player former Tech CEO and startup founder and I am the other co-host K dubs aka the other half of Jilly B I am an avid Amer pickleball player sadly on hold but an aspirational duper 4.5 and a professional golfer as well as an armchair

Psychologist okay sadly on whole didn’t you just get your functional knee brace I know but I just still I’m not allowed to play and it’s uh it’s inspired me to do something else new in my life I’m learning to play golf Lefty because I’m a Mist that is so wild so she’s videoing

A swing every single day and so for a 100 days you’re going to see her left-handed golf swing progress I think that is so freaking cool like that is Talent up the wall Zoo yeah I’m excited I uh I will spare you the golf details since this is a pickle ball podcast but

Suffice it to say I could go off we have a crazy loaded pod 32 and I thought I thought like the first pod of 2024 was pretty good with the predictions and the merger and this one I’m literally like oh my goodness like what is happening in

Pickle ball right now all the things we can’t say yet that are going in the next next next ones so fun fun fact we actually filmed a pod an emergency pod uh 31.5 we called it last not so much of an emergency see and we had to take it down no one

Told us take it down we never put it we never posted we never posted it we just went through the entire process of me editing editing it there is one day I hope it does see the light of day because it was pretty salacious but we

Are going to take pieces of it uh and we are going to have uh those pieces in this podcast so we’re talking everything from the MLP PPA merger which finds itself again again on crazy Rocky ground we’re going to be recapping the PPA Masters and Kristen is it fair if I say

It was kind of a weird vibe pun intended am I allowed to say a get out Vibe we’re gonna be talking we’re going to be talking the player Collective yes they made an offer to MLP PPA learn how it was received by listening to this

Pod um and we’re going to talk about all of the questions we have for PPA as it relates to draw seatings and prize money payouts will there be any prize money payout from the Masters so stick around this is a loaded loaded pod so before we

Get to the rest I just want to remind everyone because we ran into some fans as we always love to see at the venue who said they were so excited to hear about Jill’s new grip and they were researching Jill’s grip Jilly B grip and they couldn’t figure out that it was a

Hess cor and so I just want to remind everyone always in the description there are links to all of our affiliate codes especially Jill’s grip hore um with discount codes so be sure to always check the description first if you have questions like that but also we have a

Website now jilbe pickleball.com which redirects to Jillian Braverman docomo you’ve got sponsorship info you got discount codes you’ve got Camp info Trace Palapa stuff and as we get rolling out with Parise pickle ball camps will and Clinics will have that on there too so Jil BP pickleball.com or Jillian Braverman thank you Kristen

Yeah um so should we uh should we hit it off with the uh theme of the day it’s the theme of the day what’s the theme of the day the theme of the day is more questions than answers which apparently we’ve done before chaos and pickle ball done that

Will the merger happen or will it not done that before TBD theme of the day is TBD and I don’t mean that later in the Pod we’re going to decide what the theme is I mean that everything in pickle ball is TBD no one can make plans because

Everything is a TBD I wanted the theme of the day to be Pro pickle ball is flailing and that got shut down but I just said it out loud so I feel like I want a little bit would do one on the description and a different one on the

Thumbnail perfect perfect got to catch them all um so in in case you missed it yeah we have been nominated I shouldn’t say we I have recorded Jill saying things that got her nominated for a dink award Yes you heard it not best dressed not most likely to win the prom but most

Influential alongside of you’ll never guess it Leia Zayn and Jimmy um I thought the award was a nomination in the category of most idiotic Pro Player who’s most likely committed professional suicide and will most likely end up Su are you sure it’s for most influential uh yeah but there

Was a dot dot dot ellipses after Su and after that was but also is most likely to have a viral video yes exactly uh no I’m super honored to be in this category we’ve obviously put um our career is on the line just trying to literally preach the truth as we see it

And there’s you know a lot of other people in the category I respect a lot um Zay and Thomas have done an incredible job I think very different job than us of being like these are rules that need to be changed right yeah and I forgot one of the most important H

Influential people nominated for this award one of our favorite people Tim Parks yes owner of the SoCal hard a of course of course so no it’s um I love the dink awards every year and so if you don’t follow the dink go ahead and follow the dink if you don’t listen to

The dink pod by Thomas and Zayn think it’s one of the um most wellone pick aall pods out there so be sure to check it out they’re really entrenched they really uh keep their finger on the pulse and uh really glad that they’re out there doing what they do um so in case

You missed it Kristen the MLP PPA merger was set to close this week and you will never believe what’s happened it didn’t close it’s delayed again oh my God it’s almost as if they’re going to spend six months trying to merge and then six months trying to take their heads off

Didn’t you say that on the last podcast Kristen um a nuke was launched last night by one of the team owners um who’s basically trying to replace the position of Al and Jason in terms of financing so he still wants the the deal to happen but he wants better terms because

Something we’ve talked about on this podcast has been uh you know very publicly known as the terms aren’t great for MLP team the terms aren’t great for the team owners yeah and again it’s all part of this ongoing discussion that these whole this discussion over the the

Pay cuts is not about money it’s about fairness right like control fairness for the players control from the entities so I think that at least someone’s out there screaming like hey we deserve fairness on the MLP owners side interesting so hopefully that that works out better um but uh I was thinking like

You know normally people get their paychecks bi-weekly in this case it will just be every two weeks we’re telling you you’re getting your paycheck in two weeks and then two weeks from now we’re delaying two more two more weeks but stay with us uh in case you missed 103

MLP players including myself still have not been paid but it’s okay you know it’s not like we have a mortgage or players have families you know totally fine um and in case you missed it USA pickle ball they released the schedule on FAQ for Nationals golden ticket qualifiers I thought this was

Interesting because of course we can’t escape Dallas the news of Dallas the kind of will they won’t they of next year’s Nationals plus releasing like save your seat for next year’s date so it is looking more and more like whatever this year’s National was was it called a pickle ball Boulevard will just

Be a party and some kind of event um and then Nationals will go back to being separated its own thing it’ll most likely be in Phoenix is our best guess right but all the uh golden ticket events will still be I I think what they

Have been in the past in addition to AP events though there will be also utr events so it’ll be interesting to see how utr sports events are running themselves when I thought they were collabed with ap but now they’re doing their own thing separate from AP so

That’s an interesting uh twist twist in case you missed it paddles are getting out of control if you’re not hitting people in the neck what are you even doing just ask yourself that the shin you got hit in the shin on that point that would have gone

Out padd paddles are moving so fast I couldn’t get out of the way of an overhead standing at the Baseline let’s really think about that and the ball ended up hitting me in the shin although I do think that says more about me than the engage paddle against which I was

Playing um so forget about delamination which is still a core issue but thank you appreciate that core issue get it get it but now we have paddles coming out of the manufacture at sub40 for deflection testing so really think about this the MLP standard has been 50 it was lowered

Mid tournament a couple months ago in Florida at a PPA event to 42 because no Selkirk o2s were passing from what was reported to us so now you have this new really lower deflection limit of 42 and you have paddles at the Masters failing that over and over and over again I

Talked to one MLP player who said she had five paddles fail in a row brand new out of the box this is a major manufacturer major name with major manufacturing issues happening right now the quality control for this huge supplier of paddles is in absolute freef fall I have heard it has

Been reported to us that this company will have one side of the paddle face test at let’s say you know 44 and the other side at like 36 can you talk about a pro player’s nightmare going to sleep at night one of my paddle faces plays hotter than the other which

One is it we’re going to have to look for some weird like color coding we like oh why do you have a red sticker on one side and a green sticker on the other side so we’ve been told is it a paddle manufacturing issue or is it a quality control flaw of

Manufacturing so so we um we’ve been told that this particular padle model that’s new has now stopped production and they have to figure out the quality control issues wow wow I can’t wait to see those like lingering on eBay when they sell out and and joking joking

Aside if I were an amater okay I would not want to play these paddles like most amers have a lot of trouble popping up their dinks so it’s not necessarily the most beneficial thing to get the hottest paddle on the market so that every ball

Is a baitball um so you know in all seriousness I think having something that’s therof formed core for power but then also has a lot of Spin and a lot of control like the Jil B 13x Shameless plug okay absolutely Shameless plug but in all seriousness the number one piece

Of feedback I hear from people who buy that paddle are like oh my dinks don’t pop up anymore so I do think that is really important I wouldn’t rush out to buy one of those paddles um yeah that’s my piece on that no totally totally I um

I find that Jilly B paddle is just like where I want to hit it yeah it goes very so when people ask me for advice on paddles I I I say exactly that I go do you like the way something looks and most importantly does it act does it go

Where it felt like you hit it there you go that’s why I say golf does it go where you felt like you hit it which means like sometimes you miss a shot and it feels like a miss the worst thing is when you feel like you hit it soft and

It goes woo exactly yep well said might have to turn the mic down a tad on that one okay in case you missed it the new ball of the PPA tour is now the Vulcan does that not sound like a Marvel somehow like a Marvel uh what’s the word

I’m looking for villain the Vulcan have you read that issue the Vulcan oh v40 I didn’t know uh I didn’t know they went with 40 it’s like I get it it has 40 holes can we come up with a a more creative Title Here for for pickle balls um but uh

We’ve calculated that the costs of a Vulcan per minute of play is what Julie $345 a minute if you’re interested in buying this ball you can go to vulcan.com and use code I’m an idiot yeah um at checkout for 50% discounted shipping Link in description just kidding no I I

Did like playing the balls okay joke joking aside I thought it was a great ball um and Jill you liked the dura minus the fact that if it’s below 70° you crack a Dura in like seconds so if we went the for the for the dura cost

Per minute it would be $345 seconds dollars per second yeah well said you know I have had the vul i’ I bought 24 Vulcan balls and I I really have yet to have one crack I’ve been playing them really consistently um they did at the Masters

New balls every game which I I hated because really fast for the first five or six points which I like it fast but you just got in the groove right of playing a ball and then you’re like okay end of your last match is a very different feeling than the beginning of

Your next match no no but it’s it’s a great ball um yeah it’s more durable for sure it’s a little bit slower but faster than a Franklin which is no it’s I think it’s probably equally fast you think if not faster um I did see a few even with

The new serve rule which we’re going to get into for a second a few serves where the ball really didn’t bounce a lot of that I don’t know if that was the quarts or the ball but there’s been so much of like the ball didn’t bounce the ball

Didn’t bounce it’s like a football effect where like it gets a flat spot and then if you hit like the corner of the flat spot it reacts very differently than if you hit a round SP funny because I was I was attributing that to the courts and now that I think about it

About the courts you’re right I you’re totally right I think I was attributing to the serve rule that you guys cracked the code oh should we get into that right now J and I like didn’t have to change our servs at all except well to be fair go

Ahead no go ahead to be fair J changed his serve drastically because when he read the new serve rule he thought he was supposed to actually do a drop serve like bounce on the ground then hit it so he been he’d been practicing the drop serve for like six days leading up to

The Masters the best part is he got everyone else in Hawaii practicing the drop serve he told all his playing Partners all over the islands like hey you know it’s moving to a drop serve pro pickles and so like you know for week period everyone in Hawaii was playing a

Drop serve thanks to J and the best part is he shows up for the Masters and his drop serve is really good it’s really good it’s really really good you can do some crazy stuff with the drop serve I mean I’ve seen some of those videos of

Drop serves and I’m like oh makes makes sense they don’t want the drop serve for pros they’re GNA get back to crazy like bouncing uh you know chainsaw stuff I don’t know so do you know if this serve is it’s also implemented with the amers

Now is that correct no no no the Amer is just the same rules so if you’re an Amer you can keep playing you’re delaminated your def High your low deflection paddle and you can serve however you want I’m in the wrong category what am I doing in

Pro just don’t put don’t put grip tape on your paddle you’re good to go um yeah the uh the funny thing to me about the uh the serve is how we arrived at it because there’s basically only two players that they were targeting and that is is Tyson and deal right and

Apparently there was an event at the end of last year at San Clen the finals uh we were not there in present but you can see on the live feed Colin John’s getting very aggro about how decle was throwing it to the moon and here we are

Two months later um I it sounds like Colin and and Ben got uh Katherine Pento to make the recommendation to change the serve to the rules that they they stated which basically is just like you can’t let the ball go up before it goes down like it

Has to go straight lower it can go crooked right it can go like diagonally lower but it can’t go up before it goes down as it comes out of your hand as you release the ball is very different from drop surf don’t say drop just release um

But if you really think about it the serve rule is literally serve like Katherine rule mhm she’s always served that way she just like Drop and smack I don’t think it’s that actually big of a deal I just think below the hip is a better phrase than below the waist yeah

Christen doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal she didn’t have to play deckle bar indoors at the lifetime in North Carolina five months ago on a court that had 2 feet behind the Baseline I was like praying for my life trying to meet the ball on the bound says he served to

Me but you know it’s nice they changed the serve rule just in time for all these new crazy paddles to come out so there’s like this total mitigation like we’re kind of in the same exact spot like Chang the rule minimized power but now you have more powerful paddles well

Also interesting timing that Katherine played with Tyson all year last year and now they’re not playing together oh so you’re saying she got to reap the benefits of his serve all year and then in 20124 dumps him and like by the way by the way you know in My Dear John

Letter to you I’m making sure I get your surf changed suck it I don’t know I’m just I’m just saying what I’ve heard but um my my point was the opposite was like it’s only a big deal for those two guys it is kind of like okay A little

Disagree with that I feel like I was getting in the habit of like tossing it a little bit my point is did you have any fewer like short returns because of your serve did you have any fewer bad returns or mean at you I feel like I developed a better

Serve to be totally candid with you that’s my point my serve is now super my point is like I actually do support this yeah Katherine to be clear if that’s you and Colin but I think it’s funny um so we’ll see it was a test we don’t even

Know if they’re keeping it so let me know if you’ve heard but um that’s all I have on the serve do you have any other tidbits no in addition to um our fun story about J practicing his drop serve we have even more J Martinez Vick story

So he stayed with us after the Masters for a couple days to train we worked out a lot of kinks in um our game I’m so excited um for all that’s to to come with him this year but uh another funny J story is after a really hard day of

Training he shows up at the house and he’s like basically comos with Marcel Chan his training partner who also stayed with us and they had just gotten back from and out naturally one in California one in California where they had consumed a double double with cheese three triple triples each with cheese

Animal style oh my God I mean don’t know animal Styles when they Grill all the onions with the mustard so that’s nine patties and nine slices of cheese with animal sauce per person I think they went to bed at 6 a.m and slept 16 hours nine patties nine pieces of cheese and

Six buns wait it’s yes exactly three buns think there’s more cheese because it’s three slices of cheese per Pat yeah n and n okay three three times three here we go here we go well so then between them that’s 18 dear Lord so impressive um speaking of partners for

The year one thing I haven’t done a very good job of in our last pod was talking about my Partnerships for the year so I have solidified basically all of those um I’m pumped to be playing with J Martinez Vic I’m pumped to be playing

Some with Auggie G my Lefty I think he is the player to watch Mary Brash thinks so too on the men’s side Ty and yes he did Ser Ru and then on the women’s side I’m stoked to be playing with quite a few different women Christine Maddox who

Also played number one at pepperon University let’s go waves go waves we just played together at the PPA Masters had a tough draw meeting up against Anna Le and Katherine in the uh round of 16 but um she is she Christine probably hits the ball harder than

Every other female on tour like I think she’s like Vivan glowman hard she hits it so so hard Vivian hit it harder than Sierra than well I think Callie and Lucy are really hard hitters yeah I think and that’s Christine playing a Solair which is like on purpose a soft slow paddle

Right so I’d be terrified to see her with anything else actually so we’re going to be playing more together she’s super rash just getting started she’s going to be awesome she’s local so we can train together which is such a dream and she’s like yeah Tall Blond strong um

I wouldn’t want to be I wouldn’t want to be hitting third shot drops against us like leaning in you know um and then I’m gonna play some with Caitlyn Christian another SoCal former pro tennis player awesome player I’m be playing a couple tournaments with Rachel Summers who’s

Awesome she’s in medical school so a lot of people don’t see her at a ton of tournaments and then I’m stoked to also play with Ali Phillips so I have a lot of these super strong Partnerships if you don’t know Ali Phillips oh my gosh I

Think she is a female player to watch this year for certain absolutely I was blown away the first time I saw her at MLP Atlanta and I was like did they get the wrong alley didn’t they mean Harris oh my god oh Phillips yeah okay I’m I’m

In I’m with you I had to play against her in Shelby Bates and I was like oh my gosh this Ellie Phillips girl is so freaking good she’s a Utah girl so uh she’s got a lot of lot of good players to train with and um really really

Smiley just super fun Caitlyn Christian super smiley fun I’m stoked to have all these like happy smiley fun Partners I’m like this is the attitude I’ve been looking for like all these girls have the best attitudes no drama AB that’s that’s my prediction for 2024 this is the year of

Smiley girls let’s go yes let’s go good attitudes yeah Kaitlyn went to college played college tennis at USC right yep and then went pro like you just haven’t seen as much of that in tennis and I I think that hopefully will start to be more of a trend because people are

Seeing like you know there’s there’s more to uh life than just whether or not you get to Wimbledon um so she has played Wimbledon too right yeah yeah so the Masters speaking of Wimbledon which we still can’t figure out Kristen has this GRE go ahead Kristen on why the

Masters a golfer I have grown up watching the Masters in April every year of my life everyone gets pumped for it it’s green and the caddies wear white the players are not wearing white so if you want to emulate the sport where the players are wearing white what do we

Call that Wimbledon maybe you don’t do it on MLK weekend either maybe not Maurice the Greece that was so funny Maurice the Greece maybe not so I guess if they really wanted to emulate the Masters I should have been carrying around your bags wearing white that’s really that’s really what the

Restriction should be yes all coaches and uh Ries must wear white I love that I love that actually what you do see at the Masters is a lot of people wearing green so what was interesting is they’re calling it you know this uh progression draw right yeah which we saw Nationals

Which we saw Nationals and it’s not really that’s not my definition of a progression draw I could be wrong here what they’re doing is really a a staggered entry draw so you have people re receiving double buys you have um Ben and Anna Le not having to come in until

Much later in the tournament so that that’s something we did at utr actually when I worked at Universal tennis we hosted events that were staggered entry and what’s interesting about that is you don’t see the Paramount of that in the Tennis Grand Slams when rafan adal and

Jokovic meet in the finals they have played an equivalent number of of matches um and so it does feel like there’s an extraordinarily uh unfair advantage to the players who are receiving these double buys especially because a lot of Ben J’s and Colin johns’s losses last year or the few losses they incurred

They came very early in the tournaments so now they’re getting to bypass having to play you know jaia and Wyatt early or DJ and Pat Smith early and I actually could be wrong maybe they played those quarter final in the quarterfinals but I don’t think so I think those were early

To laer and Ben in like their first match correct um so yeah super diff super what ended up happening literally to you is singles you had to drop out because they bumped one of your matches to the next day so you had to play two playin matches would have had to play

Two playin matches and another one later which is what Christine did but she was already out of mix so it just creates a situation where you are are still playing seven or possibly eight matches in one day for certain is anathema to to me the concept at its core Y and Tennis

Takes two weeks to do this so because J and I didn’t accept um reductions in our pay we were input into qualifier at least that is my opinion and we have a list of questions actually for Bryce Morgan the CEO of the PPA who said he’d be happy to answer any questions so

We’re going to send those to him today but again there seemed to be a trend of if you’ve accepted a pay cut you received at least uh insertion into the uh the main draw or the play into the main draw J and I you know went through

Qualifier we had uh two rounds we warmed up beforehand then I had a women’s match and I was supposed to play singles they decided to take singles tack it on to the next day so as Kristen said the next day could have been like a literal like

Eight hours of pickle all day with three singles matches two mixed and two two women’s doubles and I just wasn’t going to put myself in a position to like have a serious injury so I pulled out as singles but I just to be clear would have still been one women’s doubles

Before anyone corrects us but it would have theoretically been two mixed three Singles Plus a women’s doubles got it but um that’s only because they randomly actually gave you kind of surprisingly okay seating for women’s and then just put you straight into the into the and I

Was really looking forward to play with Catherine I was really looking forward to playing women singles but then I actually went and watched the match uh against a girl I would have played my first round and I was like oh my gosh like this is not the singles I remember

Being really good at and playing a you know two years ago in the finals of Nationals against Anna Lee where I beat Mary Brasa I beat Irena and then got decimated by an I was like that’s not what singles to me looks like now oh my

Gosh it’s like the paddles are so hot the girls are so good at Ground stroking you have to stay back back and really choose the perfect moment to come in otherwise you’re getting p n out of 10 times and it’s so funny CU then Leia Jansen tweeted the exact same thing

Exactly that yeah she just came back to singles you and Leia think on the same page most of the time if you look at the the singles draw what’s really confusing to me is the seating numbers that they sometimes put on there and didn’t which they put Paris Todd in uh the second

Round but gave her the 37 SE which makes it look like everyone in the Tuesday playin round was actually seated higher than Paris which is weird on its own not to mention that the way that they put the Buys in and had several uh doubles uh where there’s like two six seeds and

Two one seeds uh which are clearly typos and then out there in the playin rounds are a bunch of people who are either unseated or seated higher than Paris Todd so to me it’s like if you’re going to you know create these progression draws that’s one thing and if you’re going to

You know kind of make up the seating numbers at least make them make sense like why not just call Caitlyn Christian the like 15 seed or the 16 seed instead of 29 if you’re going to put her where you put her um and I guess the uh the

Genie buard and and I I don’t know Dominique Schaefer also isn’t seated which doesn’t make sense to me because I thought she played singles all the time so yeah it just really uh a lot of things didn’t make sense right and we have a list of questions we’re going to

Send it to Bryce and hopefully next we be able to come back making some sense out of a lot of this yeah um some other questions I have you know is there any prize money my understanding and again if we’re wrong we’ll come back and correct this is there’s there’s no prize

Money Dylan Frasier won singles is he walking away with $1 and I think you’ve hinted a lot at this issue that’s impending for professional pickleball is if we’re all on Sal regardless of if we get paid those salaries or not what is the motivation for a anyone to play singles like for

Ben Jon’s to want to get out of bed and go grind and singles um and B what is what is the motivation for anyone to really try and and frankly anything and and how does that affect gambling it’s like totally you know my my friend was

Asking me like don’t all players want to fight no matter what and win like you’re competitive athletes I’m like that’s what I want to do I can’t say that everyone’s thinking like that yeah well and honestly this is yet another example of a better way they could have gone

About pay cuts they could have said look this is like screwing up our budget we need to bring the pay cuts down but instead we’re going to put more of that money into bonuses and and surprise money you can go earn it back if you play well that would make sense I mean

Obviously you look at NBA players they get their salary they must get something depending on how far they make it into the finals no I think bonus struct I think that’s a really good point and we’re going to talk more about the pay cuts later but I feel like they’ve gone

About pick leadership has gone about this pay cut reduction process in the most uh backwards difficult manner humanly possible versus if you just sat down all the PPA players all the MLP players and said look we’re trying to create a viable business model we’re asking there’s no favoritism here we’re

Asking for everyone to take a 30% pay cut play 15 PPA 10 MLPs if you have an AP carve out you can keep your AP carve out um and we’re going to take 10% of that reduction we’re going to put it in into like a bonus performance prize pool

And everyone’s getting the same thing here’s what it looks like I think you would have had 175 players raise their hand and be like that sounds good we understand the reason for this but instead you’ve got only MLP players being asked for reduction I’ve talked to

15 PPA players none of them have been asked for reduction um and then weird threats on the back end of it like you’re going to be thrown into aour day of trying to give clinics and it’s like weird fear tactics the use of the fear l over the use of like the

Honesty and transparency and accountability lever I’ll just I’ll just never understand it yeah yeah maybe someone smarter than me can comment explain it yeah we have very uh smart smart listeners so give give us the answer huge props to our hyper intellectual smart listeners your guys’s

Comments on the last pod for the 2024 predictions were absolute fire so thank you there’s something about our listeners man they are smart yeah uh did you want to talk about you and J yeah so we made it through qualifying we didn’t drop too many points I’d have to go back

And look but yeah had two pretty quick rounds and then in the main draw we beat uh Colin Johns and Brook Buckner uh in three I think it was 1012 111 and then like 115 yeah um yeah I think we realized we were hitting too many balls to

Brooke she was on fire she was on fire broe played amazing and hits the ball scary hard with her paddle and then we went in and we lost a really close three-game match to Hunter and Paris where we won the first we were up in the

Second and we had like the world’s worst call that I have seen in a really long time by Paris three inches in you guys decide I’ll throw it on like the only other call I’ve seen worse than that is another Paris Todd call like that it’s

Like a meme of pickle ball where it’s like this far in and it’s in the finals of an AP tournament so that was a bummer I think we were up 76 in the second when that call happened on serve so yeah we’ll put that

In um and then in the third we were we were up again like the whole time I think it was like 9 all 98 and we we lost in the third I can’t honestly can’t believe it so ja stayed and we’ve practiced a few more days together and I

Think we’re just literally scratching the surface of developing like plays together so much of this double success is like knowing what your partner’s going to do like having patterns like this sounds silly now but this is the first time you’ve played side out scoring with J I kept throwing him the

Ball like it was MLP yeah like J is here we know what we’re doing okay one1 here we go but I think he’s literally just scratching the surface of doubles and getting better at doubles especially mix and I’m just scratching well shouldn’t say just scratching surface but I’m

Getting better every single day on the right side so yeah I wouldn’t want I don’t want to play us in I wouldn’t want to play us in 2024 yeah um should we talk about uh my my new right side theories yeah sure should we save that effective right side player uh

Number one unattackable which you talk about all the time like you have to be that person where they like think they can pick on you and every ball comes back and they’re like oh my gosh right number two you have to be able to dodge your player effectively you have to read

That left side person’s mind and move a foot and a half behind the kitchen line so they can scoot over and hit their forehand number three you have to insert yourself into the middle effectively and surprisingly like if you do it too much they’ll see you coming but that poach

From the backand across the middle going left well my best shots my backand and I haven’t been coaching enough you know um I’ve been so inspired by watching Vivian David and Thomas Wilson play because he’ll go and drive a third and she’s like a snake she like snakes along the

Right side of the court and then explodes into the middle and it’s just ripping back hands and I’m like you know she she she plays the right side aggressive I’m gonna start playing the right side more aggressive that and I think you’re basically ambidextrous maybe you should just play Lefty sheill

Hit her first Lefty Ernie accidentally on purpose in wreck game in a wreck game yesterday I think I’m gonna see more of that coming one more thing on the Paris and Hunter match so we’re about to get started we have this like this not a great referee and I don’t I don’t want

To get into it I love the refs but yeah it’s difficult to hear no difficult in every capacity okay um and so she’s like super strict and goes to ji who has this huge six zero pickle ball all three words spelled out on the front of his

Chest all the way across his chest and you know we have like rules and regulations with logo size and especially everything has to be white and the colors so the Masters are particularly strict with what we wear and so she goes you know you can’t wear

That you have 6 Z pickle ball sprayed across sped across your chest and he goes uh no no no I’ve had it approved from the PPA it’s three separate logos the six is one the zero is another and pickle Ball’s a third you only J would

Come up with that and like we’re all just laughing dying and he got to play with it oh my God that’s hilarious sorry for my accent not very good yeah you like started with it then like realized it wasn’t very good and sort of underc committed the rest of the phrase been

There been there thank you so much I see you so let’s return back to the Masters and prize money for a second so we talked a little bit about like what the incentive will be for players who are on these salaries to even compete we talked earlier like does Ben John’s have a

Reason to play singles anymore well what about no bronze medal matches having been played out you caught that in the draw and that’s why talk to me about that that’s why at first I was like oh wow like Leia withdrew and went home that makes sense I guess they must have

Wanted to play the bronze on Sunday and you know they were like I’m not going to stay around with it and then I looked at every single other Pro bracket and all five did not play a bronze medal match at all they all had one one team withdraw because they didn’t want to

Stay an extra night assuming that I only checked with one person and they said I didn’t want to stay an EXT staying for 500 bucks and another hotel room another everything I’m out of here wow yeah wow okay so I I mean I hope I don’t we don’t see

That all year that would be sad be super sad for the people who you know are excited to to go get their first bronze and they don’t want it to be by default but it also is kind of weird cuz if both teams don’t want to play and then one has to

Withdraw and the other like who does it first it’s like a game of chicken I don’t know guess if you don’t care you don’t care yeah the a pun Gora is this week yes and we are see some familiar names playing in the tournament which I

Think is fascinating cuz I know for a fact MLP players were denied the ability to play in the AP event right and yet we see Georgia Johnson’s name in the draw which is to say that she’s in a like holding patter or limbo where she’s not totally under one contract or the

Other until this merger happens well I think you could ascertain quite a few things from that yeah does she have a contract does she not does she have a special contract does she have special permission were they all already paid upfront and so it’s like you know why not why not like who’s

Going to stop me exactly yeah so I think that’s really interesting are we going to see some kind of repercussions from this like oh you played an AP so now you’re not allowed to play the PPA or you’re not allowed to play on MLP like you violated your contract hard to

Fathom it’s almost like all right who’s going to call their Bluff all right we have a huge next section update on Pro Player pay cuts and merger updates so don’t go anywhere but first we want to announce all of the winners from our last giveaway our biggest giveaway

Yet and we are going to put those winners on the screen for you to read because we don’t know who they are cuz Kristen hasn’t done it yet but here they are Onre you know now wow oh my God her and her what a great winner over here so

Reminder we’ve got Jil B paddles rainstorm proband anti pain relief products hore grips Muno shoes and rock packs basically nothing that isn’t lifechanging speaking of rock packs you guys rock packs are on an insane 40% sale for another two weeks so are you longing for a pick ball bag that keeps

You connected and charged charge it up Johnny look at this look at that solar panel so search no more head to rack.com today use code jelly be for even deeper discounts all right so let’s talk about the pro play player pay cuts and the merger update um unless you are living under a

Professional pickleball player rock you know already about the PPA MLP merger and the fact that players were asked to take 40% reductions CNBC this whole huge article on the unfair borderline illegal tactics that were being used to co co coers players into taking these Cuts so

We’re here with an update on the merger um it looked like there was a definite period of time right around Christmas that the murder wasn’t going to happen for sure it was like okay not going to happen and then what two weeks later three weeks later it was like definitely

Going to happen right and supposed to close last week and then this week um and I think uh what’s really transpired here is you had this faction of MLP team owners who went as far as to declare their anti-merger status they hired their own own legal council and they

Were going a war and then and then they decided that they were their main objection was was handled when Dundon pulled a rabbit out of his hat right yep and he said hey I get it you’re worried about the leadership of this team and here’s my

Promise to you if 6 months from now you don’t like where we’re headed I will personally buy out your team for $5 million basically provided you know a financial back stop to a lot of the anti-merger team owners and I think a lot of those were frankly feeling like

They wanted to get out anyway and if this was a solution for their fiscal worries that would you know 10x their investment I think a lot of them were like okay I’m assuaged and let’s do this yeah I mean it seems like a lot of people got in really early at a couple

Hundred thousand and then every year year there are costs associated with owning these teams and now they’re tripling tripling tripling the budget that they originally put in their initial investment they’re like whoa th this may be worth quote unquote $10 million now but it’s going to cost me

$10 million that I wasn’t really right Capital calls Etc so like I don’t I don’t I don’t blame team owners or players for feeling like deal fatigue is what we call it right they’re just like oh my gosh this is not the vision I signed up for this isn’t what Steve

Pitched me on um so I don’t I don’t blame I don’t blame players right now for taking deals and it seems like there are quite a few especially our you know pickle ball leadership all put in quotation marks right these top players who were so quick to take a deal in

Curry favor with the PPA tour I think what did Tyson McGuffin say on his last podcast uh don’t be so butt hurt and work on your brand suck it up and take your deal work on your brand don’t be butt hurt it was like yeah something to

That effect something to that effect and it’s um I think that’s a wild sentiment I think if you’re making1 to $2 million a year and someone asks you to take 15 to 20% off that makes sense that makes sense if you’re making $100,000 and someone says now it’s 60 that is a very

Different feeling yeah or let’s say you’re making 200 Grand you feel like you’re fairly compensated for where you are and you’re Pro ranking someone asks you to take a 40% reduction or $80,000 and then you know Tyson McGuff and is saying just go replace that income with

Some camps okay where else are walk me through how you’re going to replace $880,000 pick up a new sponsor that’s paying you 100 Grand a year that’s that’s a tough number to replicate on that per DM basis yeah so I can’t say that I fully agree with that and and I

Don’t blame right like Travis renm took a deal uh Leia Jansen took a deal those were two huge huge staunch supporters of the collective and working together and and what bothers me when I when I hear that they’ve taken deals it almost like condones the tactics that got them to

Absolutely yeah fear wins right it says fear wins and so while I don’t blame them like I think Le was like you know my sponsors really wanted me to do this and I think you know I can’t speak for Travis but he’s a team owner and maybe

He is like I’m I want out of this I don’t know if he does I don’t know if he feels that way but maybe he’s like if I Curry favor with Dundon now I can just get out of this mess in six months yeah get my portion of the pie and be safe

Yeah and just be done yeah it’s definitely uh a different feeling depending on which number you’re coming from that’s for sure and more than one in more than one way I um so what what does bother me though is I do feel like there’s this moment in time for players

As evidenced by the collective to work together for our not just current rights but like our future rights it’s it’s it’s so much more more than just fighting against a pay cut I think we’re all happy to take pay cuts in a transparent open Equitable Fair manner

This is about making sure we have representation on committees this is about making sure we have board representation we’re fighting for our future rights and the fairness and Equity of the sport right it’s more than just the money it’s about the rules it’s about policies it’s about scheduling all

Of those things add up to a very skewed Universe when you’re asking the players who make $2 million to take a 10% 10 to 15% cut and also get four Buys in every event they play in while the person who’s getting paid 180 or 200 Grand is

Taking their 40% pay cut yeah and having to play twice as many matches in every bracket right and so by our kind of calculations I I feel the player Collective has done a poll that there’s only really like 30 people who’ve who are done deals 30 players and even the

Majority of those still haven’t signed these like you know new company agreement so to speak 50 players seem to be like absolute hard nose on signing New Deals taking Cuts negotiating and then I think the balance are kind of up in the air so to speak they want to

Cover themselves protect themselves they want to play pickle ball they don’t want to ruffle feathers they want to be agreeable but seems like the only thing they can agree to is something that is inherently not favorable towards them yeah I think I think this is so much

More than just about pay cuts even for MLP and PP I think it’s about control control control of the players yeah you really have to ask yourself if you wanted pay cuts What playbook would you use would you come up with a reasonable across theboard transparent ask that involved an equally

Appealing comeback in other words 20% for everyone and in return will give you more freedom to choose the dates you play but we need to know what you’re in for because now MLP and PPA need to know who’s in for the draft and who’s eligible to play in what and instead we

Got fear tactics and individualized isolation Secrets rumors the the the tactics of absolute sociopaths I if I’m allowed to say that I I didn’t say that um I think I think what’s so mindboggling to me about this is if you took all you know 170 players between

MLP and PPA and you said yay you know we’re merging this is great for the sport we’re going to ask every single player to take a 20% reduction and we talked about this a little bit earlier I I really don’t think you’d have one person be like absolutely not but

Instead what they’ve done is they’ve said you’re an ml P player still on an MLP contract you’re a PPA player on a PPA contract as such we’re treating you guys differently and still to this day PPA players have not been asked for reductions like I want to be really

Really clear about that yeah really clear about that um and I think what’s so weird about that is now you’ve got PPA players saying well I don’t want to play MLP right because their contracts say x number of Team events and MLP is asking for more and they don’t want to do that

And then you’ve got the team owners who are like why even merge if we don’t have the best players playing MLP and then you’ve got a lot of MLP players saying I don’t want to play the the PPA I want my freedom give me that AP car out I want

Out so instead of just treating everyone like hey we’re just players in this new family everyone’s going to play 15 PPA 10 MLPs everyone’s taking a reduction everyone’s treated equally like that’s so easy that’s so palatable yeah why why why why make it so hard that’s the thing

If you ask yourself that question the answer is only one thing that it’s like fun yeah C people doing it for the Power Trip they’re doing it for the control just to say that they got their way instead of just being Swift and fair and and getting it done and they’ve wasted

So much time and the other thing that the other thing that’s weird is you know the organizations say they want these reductions yet they haven’t asked the PPA players and then the collective’s attorney actually reached out to PPN MLP and said hey I’ve got an offer on behalf

Of 5050 people to present you with never received a response right so again I think it all leads to it’s not this is my personal opinion it’s not about reductions even for them it’s just about control yeah and uh they still need to plan a draft and plan a Year’s uh worth

Of events and they’re they’re like using all their brain power in hours right on just figuring out the draft the draft is delayed again we believe that’s because a lot of the PPA players either don’t want to play MLP don’t want to play 10 events yeah I mean that that could skew

The draft completely someone goes into the draft thinking that they’re going to get Ben John’s and Ben’s like I’m out I don’t want to play any of them I think the the draft is probably delayed as well because I think the the merger is delayed and I think I always go back to

The podcast where you said I think we’re going to spend six months trying to rip each other’s heads off and then six months trying to get married and that’s going to be the next five years of pickle ball I mean it certainly seems that way so you’ve got 30 I hope I’m

Wrong you’ve got $8 billion of uh net worth yeah valuation we did a quick calculation on like the most public figures of MLP owners I created an entire spreadsheet and of course we all know that net worth estimates are not perfect they’re always wrong but when you start to see a lot of

Billions in front of people and I’m talking multiple yeah we’re we’re looking in like 40 billion comfortably and that’s not even counting ANH Houser bush so don’t get me started that 103 of us haven’t been paid yet but but but to me what that means is look beyond that like

What it means to me is you’ve got a lot of cooks in the kitchen a lot of smart people’s opinions yeah and that is why the merger is stalled I think you’ve got team owners as of late last night standing up and saying I’ll fund this thing stop this merger under

These terms these terms are bad put me in coach and basically delivered a a nuke yeah I mean it behooves all of them to get in on a merge that is uh beneficial to everyone on the MLP side so at least uh coming from the MLP side

You have a lot of cooks in the kitchen even if it’s only one rep from every 24 team that’s still a lot of people who potentially could be disgruntled by getting the uh proverbial shaft so so I don’t know I you know I vacillate from this is definitely going to happen to oh

My gosh I don’t think this is going to happen yeah I I guess I just always assume that a lot of the people who are pro merger are PR merger for the same reasons you just listed that they want the PPA players to play MLP and that is still absolutely not clear whatsoever

Yeah at this moment so I would you know deeply encourage players who are still being asked for reductions like just pause you know um they’re asking us to operate in a post-merger world right so wait for the the merger to happen don’t don’t get deal fatigue I know it’s hard

So I think for players who are still considering whether or not to take a cut ask yourself if you’re operating and making decisions under fear or logic absolutely well said and if the answer is fear re-evaluate take a pause take a beat and re-evaluate later yeah so so with that we wrap up

Pod 32 pickle ball is still Joy don’t let anyone tell you differently out this pickle ball life is a Tomahawk production 100% organic self-made and Homegrown Music by K dubs editing by kdubs and Jill B check out PBG goods.com and use code PB lifers for 10% off your

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