Q&Ace: Tom Davidson, Founder of the Amateur Pickleball Association

Tom Davidson is a force in the world of amateur sports. In 2006 he founded Pastime Tournaments, which hosts baseball competitions for young athletes across the country. Then, in 2021, he took his talents to pickleball.

Davidson started the Amateur Pickleball Association (APA), an organization that's hosted dozens of pickleball tournaments since its inception two years ago. After seeing participation increase by 400% this year, Davidson and APA have big plans for the future.

Davidson sat down for a chat with theTUNDRA where we discussed everything from how he got into pickleball to the future of the sport.

Q: Tell us how you came up with the idea to start the APA.

A: Well, it goes back to my background in baseball. In 2006, I started a travel baseball company that runs baseball tournaments for high school kids around the country, hosting at college venues and universities like Notre Dame, Michigan, and the Louisville’s and TCU’s of the world where we rent their baseball fields.

For pickleball, we originally started as the same concept. We were going to Pepperdine and USC and Georgia Tech and flipping their tennis facilities into pickleball because there just weren't that many opportunities to use facilities and we had all these contacts at colleges across the country.

Q: With such a strong history in baseball, what was it about pickleball that appealed to you?

A: I'm a member at a club here in Indianapolis where I golf and started playing platform tennis during the winters. They flipped the club's two hardcourt surfaces into pickleball at some point and I jumped into it then. That led to some of the platform tennis players during the summer starting to play pickleball. I'd only played pickleball maybe a dozen times before I was like, “Look, this thing is just going to be incredible.”

Q: What do you think makes pickleball so conducive to amateur play?

Tennis is a really, really hard sport to be pretty good at. With pickleball, there are so many levels and so many age divisions, that everybody can actually get pretty good at the sport. What I think makes our tournaments unique is that we have eight-year-olds and 80-year-olds competing in the same event. So the market is just massive compared to a sport like baseball – for us, we're hosting just 14 to 18-year-olds – it's a very specific group.

Q: What would you say sets APA apart from other amateur pickleball tournament circuits?

A: We have essentially become known as the weekend warrior group. So all of our tournaments are Saturdays and Sundays. We really don't do anything Thursday or Friday, leading up to the event. I think the majority of participants for us are working individuals who have jobs during the week so we're catering to them on the weekends. 

Q: Do you think Pickleball will resonate more going forward as an amateur sport, or do you think it's going to be primarily focused on the pro level?

A: I think it's going to be an amateur-driven sport. The amateur side has so many more participants across the country. There are very few places you can go and just play pickup baseball with a couple of your buddies. You have to have 12 buddies that are going to go play and you have to have 12 other people that are going to play against you. Pickleball is so unique that you only need three friends that are of similar abilities. And there's just so many more people that can participate than most other sports.

Q: Where do you see the APA three or four years down the road?

A: Last year was our first year hosting tournaments. We had a little over 2,000 players participate. 2023 is our second year hosting and we'll have close to 10,000 players having participated this past year. I think we'll continue to see more of that incline in participation in our events as we hone in on what format these players really want to see. I think you'll continue to see this huge growth in indoor facilities. I know there's a lot of talk out there about whether pickleball eventually turns into a 90% majority indoor sport. I think it makes a lot of sense, especially in states that are north of whatever line you want to do in the country, where it's gets cold. In Indiana, we're playing pickleball for maybe nine months out of the year, and then you're done, unless you have an indoor facility. The next phase of this for really huge growth is my generation, or maybe just slightly younger, telling their kids, “Skip tennis. Let’s go play pickleball.” And what that will do -- that'll really just have the pickleball space explode.

Q: So do you think it's a misconception that pickleball is more for an older audience?

A: I'll share some stats with you from our events. Last year, our average age for those 2,100 players was 49. This year, with almost 10,000 players, it's 39-years-old. A 10-year gap in a year in participation is huge. It's not like we've got some 70, 80-year-olds playing that are outweighed by a bunch of juniors. I would say 90% have to be 25 to 50. And those are some athletes. There are some really good players in the those age groups.

 Q: What are you proudest of about the APA so far?

A: It’s growing our brand and catering it to the participants. I think a lot of brands just say, “This is the way it is and we're gonna stick with it. You can either come or you can go, it doesn't matter to us.” I think with us, we've certainly been extremely flexible – more flexible than I was with our baseball company when we started that and even to this day. [In] the pickleball space, a lot of our participants become our friends and family. I think that's the biggest upside that the sport has. It’s competitive, yes. But it's very much a networking, friends and family activity. [It’s] the opportunity to meet everybody and grow your reach.

Q: Tell me a little bit about what you do outside of organizing APA tournaments and organizing baseball tournaments.

A: My primary job is in baseball. I run a company called Pastime Tournaments and we do baseball for high school kids around the country for exposure, recruiting stuff, playing in college and professional facilities.

And I'm a full-time dad. I've got an eight and almost 11-year-old girl and boy (respectively), and I'm a full-time taxi driver, basically. They've got their basketball and soccer and tennis and all that kind of stuff. That's a seven-day-a-week job by itself.

Q: How are your skills on the court?

A: I don't get to play nearly enough. But, you know, I am a two-time pickleball champion at my club. I won with a guy last year who is a nationally ranked padel player, he's a former Division I tennis player. Then I won with a new partner this year, with our club runner-up for tennis. I've played in a couple of tournaments and done relatively well, but, you know, I'm just busy running the events. So when you are getting the opportunity to play in some of them, I'm usually playing because I'm filling in for somebody who didn't show up, or got injured the day before, and it leaves somebody without a partner. As long as it's within my skill level, I'll jump in and play, even in our own events.

 Q: What’s your favorite part about pickleball?

 A: I just like the camaraderie that it builds. I played college baseball. A lot of times, the competitiveness is like a hatred from this side to that side of the field. For pickleball, I've never really felt that. It's more of a “Hey, there are four of us playing.” And by the time event's over, you know everybody, your network’s grown.