Season One Super Finals on the Life Time Rancho San Clemente in San Clemente, California. The Seattle Pioneers play the Los Angeles Mad Drops within the Premier League mixed doubles competition.
Source: Major League Pickleball
There’s trouble in pickleball paradise.
The Skilled Pickleball Association and Major League Pickleball at the moment are at odds after announcing in November that they’d join forces and merge team competition leagues.
The PPA told CNBC that MLP has not yet signed the partnership deal they verbally agreed to 10 months ago. PPA owner Tom Dundon and MLP owner Steve Kuhn had agreed to operate the joint league under the MLP brand name and format. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed on the time.
“I do not know what Steve Kuhn’s intentions were your complete time,” Connor Pardoe, PPA Tour CEO told CNBC. “I do not know if he led us down a road to get access to our players to attempt to be in a stronger position here later.”
Pardoe claims MLP executives have recently gone radio silent. He also said PPA was made aware by a few of its players that MLP had begun reaching out with lucrative offers. He said PPA would consider litigation if MLP were to improperly poach players.
Kuhn told CNBC that there are “quite a few misrepresentations of reality” happening, without providing specifics.
On Thursday, MLP announced it has begun to sign top players to multi-year, guaranteed contacts. The deals include a player off-season and enhanced financial security.
“We expect that is an amazing thing that may make MLP more beneficial. So we’ll make the players lives more successful and higher. And we’ll also proceed to raise the game and help the game grow,” said Kuhn.
He said if the PPA is willing to pay their players more, he’s willing to discuss aligning with the league.
“We asked the PPA to hitch us in paying players more, and their response was that we pay the players an excessive amount of,” Kuhn told CNBC.
Within the last yr, MLP has seen continued growth with latest, high-profile ownership groups, growing team valuations, latest sponsorships and media deals. In July, MLP announced Julio DePietro was taking on as CEO. He took over negotiations of this deal from Zubin Mehta, who resigned from the board.
The competing leagues have had a sophisticated relationship.
The PPA historically has acted as a tour-style league for the very best players on the earth. Two  years ago, Kuhn introduced team style pickleball. Since then, the 2 leagues have operated independently.
