MINOR LEAGUE PICKLEBALL SOCAL SHOWDOWN 2023

0:00 I have been playing for 10 years 0:07 actually started pickleball in 0:09 California 0:10 [Music] 0:14 it feels good man it feels good right 0:18 all right 0:19 playing my early pickleball is 0:21 definitely stressful 0:23 um exciting 0:24 it's a team sport so it's really it's 0:28 high energy environment I would say it's 0:30 like 0:31 playing minor league pickleball is it's 0:33 a lot of fun I would just say yeah I've 0:35 been playing Pokemon journal for a 0:36 little over a year 0:37 I am kind of the OG of pickleball I've 0:39 been playing since I come from Seattle 0:42 Washington so we grew up playing 0:43 pickleball my whole life so it's kind of 0:46 how I'm in this mess 0:48 I'll pickleball the world of pickleball 0:50 Jake's a beast my name is Jake hobon and 0:54 I'm the commissioner of Minor League 0:55 cricket ball the difference between 0:56 major league pickable and minor league 0:58 pickleball it's giving amateurs a 1:00 opportunity to compete in the same 1:02 format as Major League pickleball same 1:04 team format same scoring rally scoring 1:07 we really took major league pickable as 1:09 a whole and simplified it a little bit 1:11 for amateurs to compete the same exact 1:13 format we guarantee a certain amount of 1:15 matches we guarantee it on a certain 1:17 schedule and time frame we are really 1:19 just an affiliate and partner with major 1:20 league pickable we actually added the 1:22 duper 22 Division which is pretty much 1:24 the highest level of amateur team events 1:27 that would be right below Major League 1:29 duper is dynamic Universal pickleball 1:31 rating everything we do is based around 1:34 duper how we format teams essentially 1:36 between duper 16 18 20 22 it all is 1:40 equivalent of duper scores that fill up 1:42 those teams with more athletes coming 1:44 into pickleball people's duper is 1:46 actually exploding in the last six 1:47 months so we added another high-end 1:49 division which is duper 22 and it's 1:52 really relatable to Major League Piqua 1:54 at the high level my name is Shelly Wong 1:56 I'm from Huntington Beach California and 1:59 I'm here playing minor league pickleball 2:00 I'm the team captain for team zico and 2:04 we're playing in duper 20. minor league 2:06 pickleball is different than any other 2:07 type of amateur event they guarantee 2:10 games they give you an entire day's 2:13 worth of game you get a team format that 2:15 means four players two women two men you 2:17 get to basically play with this team for 2:19 the entire duration of the tournament 2:20 the camaraderie is great you do really 2:23 develop chemistry I come from basketball 2:25 and so I'm used to a competition kind of 2:27 sport for women especially in pickleball 2:29 there's actually more parody I think 2:31 between genders that there aren't any 2:33 other sport I think females here can 2:36 Thrive you know alongside eyes and uh I 2:39 think I I love the competition minor 2:40 league to me and to other players is a 2:42 stepping stone to Major League 2:44 pickleball they have what duper a duper 2:46 22 which is the highest amateur level 2:47 you can play at and a lot of those 2:49 players are extremely good players 2:50 they're low end Pro players are our 2:53 players trying to move up to Major 2:54 League pickleball this is a perfect 2:56 stepping stone and it's also just really 2:58 exciting to play even if you are not a 3:00 pro even if you're not an aspiring Pro 3:02 huh Ron Ponder and I'm the director of 3:04 officiating for duper so I'm responsible 3:07 for repping and getting Reps for the 3:10 referee tournaments uh minor league 3:12 Collegiate series and water qualiness 3:15 duper really is 3:18 efficient at ratings with duper in these 3:23 team events 3:24 very seldom do we see someone who is 3:27 just like here and the other team is 3:29 here it's always it's right here 3:32 so and that makes it nice you've got a 3:35 chance so open play and this is 3:38 something pretty unique to pickleball is 3:42 I came here last night didn't know a 3:44 single person 3:46 put in my paddle and 12 minutes after I 3:49 got here I was playing a match with 3:52 three other three other people uh in 3:55 tennis you call up your friends you know 3:58 I played tennis for years I probably 3:59 played with a total of 20 people over 4:02 the years I played tennis other than in 4:04 tournaments because you stick with the 4:06 people you play with I've played with 20 4:08 people last night here so you know 4:12 that's that's the open play the team 4:14 concept the players really enjoy it it's 4:17 Unique uh as opposed to the rest of 4:20 pickleball and you know it's just fun 4:22 cheering on your team members something 4:25 like 29 of pickleball players have never 4:29 played a sport before in their life it's 4:31 really easy to learn it's hard to master 4:34 but you would be laughing five minutes 4:37 after you picked up a paddle to play 4:39 it's just it's easy you can mock your 4:43 opponents across the net and they can 4:45 hear you it's just a lot fun it's very 4:48 very social so my name is Sharon 4:50 team Big Ink energy I live in Irvine 4:54 California which is about 20 minutes 4:57 away uh my name is Meg and yeah team big 5:00 big energy and I'm from California 5:03 and I'm Eton also team energy and I am 5:07 from Orange California 5:10 Ryan thank you energy Newport Beach 5:13 California represented she got that last 5:16 match at the end right 5:20 a lot of panicking at the last minute we 5:24 need a team name and uh it just I think 5:26 it came to me right yeah it was Sharon's 5:29 grandchild yeah okay this is our first 5:32 event 5:33 all day uh two rounds 5:37 we got a little practice in before this 5:39 but we don't know each other so we're 5:41 not like unfamiliar I play with Megan 5:43 the tournament before but this is our 5:45 first time playing with these deadly 5:46 gentlemen no no no no seriously he's 5:49 never played a team before this is our 5:51 first competition for with the guys 5:52 Sharon and I have completed together 5:54 before us no Take that you got it 5:59 you're so close to your teammates on the 6:01 court you're close to your opponents on 6:03 the court and there's just a really good 6:05 social energy 6:25 I have been playing for 10 years 6:29 [Music] 6:33 actually started pickleball in 6:35 California I wouldn't go that far but it 6:38 definitely is it's cool to see how 6:40 come in such a relatively short period 6:42 of time if you think about it so it's 6:43 been a lot of fun I think there's a I 6:46 think there's a lot of potential for a 6:47 lot of growth I think there's so many 6:49 things about this sport that appeal to a 6:51 lot of different people 6:52 um that I think it's just gonna keep on 6:53 growing I agree I agree the approaches 7:02 right love you tennis 7:06 I don't come from a sports background 7:09 but that's kind of you I would say 7:11 that's kind of the unique thing about 7:13 pickleball is you get it's not just like 7:14 tennis players or Rocket Sports 7:15 backgrounds you get people from all 7:17 weeks of life you can have the 7:19 professional lovers some of the best 7:20 players they never played tennis at all 7:22 in their life so it's kind of cool that 7:24 it kind of levels the playing field 7:25 people bring different things to the 7:26 game I think that's what makes it so 7:28 interesting and so much fun yeah 7:39 he takes the cake I think he plays the 7:42 most yeah yeah probably I mean 40 hours 7:45 it's a full-time job pretty much every 7:46 night every night for a few hours I mean 7:49 you're probably most people that are 7:51 playing regularly are playing somewhere 7:53 between 15 and 20 hours a week probably 7:55 yeah they're they're famous pickleball 7:58 that's interesting is you either try it 8:00 and you're like that was fun I'm never 8:02 gonna do it again or you get completely 8:04 hooked and there's not really a big in 8:06 between there's not a lot of people to 8:07 play once a month yeah it's a very 8:10 it either grips you or you tried it and 8:13 you're done so you get this polarization 8:15 that happens where you're either people 8:18 that play regularly are into it uh yeah 8:21 I mean with minor league pickleball 8:23 um I think it's a really good way to get 8:25 yourself out there if you are interested 8:27 in playing pro and it's a really great 8:28 way to practice into your format 8:31 um so I you know I would love to play 8:33 pro I'm sure everyone else here would 8:35 too but so does everyone right my name 8:37 is Warren pretorius and I'm with the 8:40 company versus Sports so I'm a president 8:42 of the company that's where we've been 8:44 involved in you know different sports 8:46 including tennis tennis is where we got 8:48 our stock doing analytics live streaming 8:52 and then we also do video assisted 8:54 replay so I got involved with my with 8:57 major league pickleball doing VAR and 9:00 VAR is just video assisted Replay for 9:02 the referees where we put like 32 9:04 cameras on the court and the players 9:07 will Challenge and then they'll you know 9:09 come over to the booth the reference 9:10 come over to the booth and check to see 9:13 if the call was good or not okay for 9:16 miningly pickable at this event that you 9:18 see out here we have cameras up on all 9:20 the courts and we're streaming live and 9:22 then we also have two of these courts 9:24 over here the main courts where we have 9:26 a little bit of a production going you 9:28 can see the team out here and they we 9:31 we're basically looking at three 9:32 different views and then also with 9:34 scoreboard integration so this is a new 9:38 you know New Concept with with minor 9:40 league pickerball as it is with many 9:42 other sports is trying to you know allow 9:45 people to go online and to be able to 9:47 watch any of their action on any of the 9:49 codes 9:50 we monitor our analytics we do after the 9:54 fact so we developed a whole model for 9:57 Major League pickable which is based on 9:59 rally rally scoring there's up to 21 you 10:03 know they play a little bit different 10:04 format from from regular side outs 10:07 scoring so what we're doing is we're 10:09 keeping analytics so that hopefully 10:11 majorly pickleball and you know USA 10:13 pickleball any of the organizations will 10:16 get to understand their sport better we 10:19 are still very much on that learning 10:20 curve because there's the Assumption for 10:23 me is is not to not to make the 10:25 assumption that because it works in 10:27 tennis or in some of the other sports 10:29 that we're doing that it will work in 10:31 pickleball 10:32 so it's a much more complicated than 10:34 doing what we're doing here with the 10:35 live streaming is actually the VAR 10:37 they're the video assistance referee 10:40 because there you've really got to be on 10:42 your on on top of your your game because 10:44 you've got eight cameras and when a 10:46 player challenges they need to be able 10:49 to review that call immediately 10:52 yeah so so our involvement is a company 10:53 with the growth of the sport I think 10:55 that I got involved with pickleball 10:58 because I could I could see what was 10:59 happening so it's um it's uh there's a 11:02 lot happening out there as I said it's a 11:04 little bit of a wild west out there but 11:06 I was amazed that there was not as much 11:07 no analytics or no no a single place 11:11 that I could go to to get analytics so 11:14 we decided we needed to to get on board 11:16 and the way to get analytics is you need 11:18 the footage so to get the footage we do 11:20 the live streaming and then we've got 11:22 the footage that we can build a database 11:24 so yeah we I'm very very 11:26 um I'm very very positive about it's a 11:30 positive outlook on on pickleball 11:33 I grew up in the tennis industry very 11:35 heavily involved you don't see this many 11:38 active fans and players attending tennis 11:42 events oh yeah it's crazy and you can 11:44 just see around you can see how many 11:46 people they are usually at tennis events 11:48 people play and then leave they don't 11:50 hang out and yeah players are picnicking 11:54 and having a good time and partying and 11:55 that so the energy is totally different 11:58 and it does bring other challenges but 12:00 you know we're we're look like we're in 12:02 it for the long haul hi my name is hi uh 12:05 I'm here today to learn more about how 12:07 to run the minor leagues culture I'm 12:09 going back to Vietnam in two weeks to 12:11 run duper Vietnam as a virtual club and 12:13 spread the minor League's culture to the 12:16 countrymen so what got me interested to 12:18 Bringing uh pickleball to Vietnam was 12:22 um the market need for to connect 12:24 tourism with the local player base right 12:27 now in the country we have 80 plus 12:29 courts with seven major clubs throughout 12:31 the country and there's a plan to build 12:33 a piccolo Stadium One champion one 12:35 grandstand with 10 surrounding ports 12:37 options for vendors to play around by 12:40 the end of the year so a lot a lot of 12:43 loose knots and we're hoping with duper 12:45 support with MLP where we can tie in all 12:47 of those connections and build something 12:49 beautiful 12:50 I think it's something new uh very 12:52 rarely do you find a common ground where 12:54 18 to 24 year olds can play with their 12:57 grandparents in the 60 and above and 12:59 have a good time sometimes you worry 13:00 about their health sometimes you worry 13:03 that 13:04 um that they're not going to be able to 13:05 move that well however the court is a 13:07 quarter size of a tennis court it's more 13:09 about placement there's a big mental 13:11 aspect and we youngster we like to skip 13:13 on the ball 13:15 um so yeah yeah so I think there's some 13:17 there's something there it's not 13:19 proprietary but it's something that you 13:22 have to play to experience 13:24 I think it's the fact that it's the 13:26 perfect mix between a game and a sport 13:28 and every player like plays the way they 13:32 want there's people that enjoy it more 13:34 recreationally but then it can be 13:35 extremely competitive my name is Caesar 13:38 I'm the head of operations for minor 13:40 league pickerball and the whole goal of 13:42 building this pathway for pickable 13:44 players is bringing all the excitement 13:45 of Major League pickable to amateurs I'm 13:48 actually based outside of the US and a 13:52 very good friend of mine he told me to 13:54 you know join duper he was like just 13:56 join me for for three months I need 13:58 someone I trust to you know start 14:00 building duper internationally 14:01 everything went well I fell in love of 14:04 the industry of pickleball and here I am 14:07 a year and a half later it's been hard 14:09 to figure the way to build something 14:11 engaging and meaningful for pickable 14:14 players with this new format so it's 14:16 been a lot of trial and error and we're 14:18 already at the end of the season and I 14:21 think we've found the street spot so now 14:23 kind of we figured The Sweet Spot is 14:24 four matches a day and it's working 14:28 pretty well you know men and women can 14:30 play together and the physical aspect 14:33 you cannot it's not that important like 14:36 other racket sports for example Fidel 14:38 which is super popular in Spain or 14:39 tennis 14:40 he's now I mean working for a startup it 14:43 can be you know pretty hectic you need 14:44 to wear a lot of hats so I I never 14:47 thought I would be running tournaments 14:49 when I joined duper since I started 14:51 leading all the international 14:52 Partnerships but it just it had to 14:55 happen it happened we were a small team 14:57 so it was like you know let's go 15:00 I'm going down tonight 15:06 [Music]