Keeping up with Major League Pickleball is like having constant whiplash. Just when you think things are calm, you have a feel for the rules, SIKE!!! While it is a lot to keep up with, I think these growing pains are inevitable considering the current state of pro pickleball (we have to remember how early we are), and the leadership changes we’ve had in the last few seasons.
what keeping up with MLP rules/trades feels like
Considering the deadline for teams to blind-drop a player is this Sunday, 2/15, I felt I had a responsibility to the Brighter Baddie community to provide some clarity on what the hell is happening with the league along with my thoughts on it. If you’d rather watch a YouTube video - here you go, but read on for more in-depth information! If you just like looking at my face though, no worries😝🫦🥳 (& plz subscribe to my YT channel if you haven’t!!!)
The Palm Beach Royals want to be Royalty
As soon as the Palm Beach Royals were announced as the league’s first true expansion team I wrote an article about why I found this particularly interesting, which you can read here.
The Royals are interesting not just because they’re an expansion team, but because of their geography. You have to expect that a team located in professional pickleball’s hotbed has intentions to be great, and to be largely homegrown. This rang true with the team’s first acquisition - Sofia Sewing who has branded herself as a “Boca baddie” alongside her APP Mixed partner Casey Diamond.
Sofia signing with Major League Pickleball is a story in and of itself - she is not yet UPA exclusive but I have no doubt the powers that be are working hard to get her to move over from the APP entirely. As Tanner Tomassi said on the PicklePod yesterday, it’s hard to be viewed as pro if you don’t play on the PPA Tour (I’m paraphrasing).
Myself and a lot of other pros were surprised that the UPA agreed to do this deal with Sewing. She is undoubtedly the most intriguing female talent in pickleball right now (excluding juniors) with true top 10 potential (she’s already probably top 20), but the UPA’s decision to have her, even if only for MLP, demonstrates they’re pretty committed to expanding the league’s depth on the female side.
The Royals were able to acquire Sewing before the free agency draft due to expansion rules that allowed them “to enter MLP and hit the ground running” as Erik Tice reported. They paid $80,000 for her and could acquire another free-agent male for the same price (I think there is a good chance they don’t do this though, which I haven’t seen discussed anywhere). The new expansion rules have also allowed them to trade cash for a player, which allowed them to acquire Tina Pisnik from the Ranchers. The expansion rules left people, including myself, wondering:
Good expansion teams = more expansion, and the cost of past decisions
I had a call with Samin Ohdwani to discuss the rules and changes to the league and competition structure last week, and the main thing I wanted to understand was why the Royals were being helped so much by the new Expansion rules while the promoted challenger teams were not getting any help. His answer for me was twofold and honestly made a lot of sense.
In all sports- expansion teams doing well promotes further expansion, which is good for the league.
A few years ago, teams had the option to start in premier or challenger, and half of the teams paid a lot of money to start in premier.
The first point is pretty self-explanatory, it does any sports league no good if a team is sold and just gets absolutely shat on. Every league has expansion rules, and MLP decided on the current rules as the best way to balance fair competition while still allowing the Royals to not be a laughing stock.
Where it all began
In 2024, teams did a blind bid for how much they would pay to be in premier and we ended up with 12 premier teams, and 12 challenger teams. There’s since been logo changes, name changes, and we’ve lost some teams, but when you consider that the recently promoted teams opted to be in challenger few years ago fully understanding that their brand development and ability to have top players would suffer at the cost of saving money, I am much more okay with MLP’s decision to not provide help.
MLP is one big happy family - no more challenger
Challenger is GONE!!! I think everyone is happy about this, but no one is probably happier than the players in Challenger who had to play each other in a sort of time-loop last year. They would travel to a new place to play the exact same matches again, and again, and again, and again, and again😂 (and again at the mid-season tournament, and again at the playoffs, and AGAIN at the MLP Cup LOLOL😂😂😂).
With 20 teams in one league (some teams are merging, and others are exploring sales- which is again, another story), the primary concern is competitive balance. I discussed this with Samin, and he said the league recognizes this will be an issue and a “growing pain” of sorts. It’s their hope that there will be 3 tiers of teams:
Contenders
Middle of the pack
Teams fighting for their lives
I came up with these names lol, not him. It feels like a big family but there’s 20 siblings and the bigger ones can just absolutely beat up on everyone younger than them.
the new jersey 5s vs florida smash preview but they make the smash count every punch 1 2 3 4 FIVE
It’s the league’s hope that matches between teams in the same tier will be very competitive, and I think this will be the case. Across tiers… yeah. There will be level discrepancies but I’m sure we will still see some upsets over the course of a long regular season. The updated regular season semi-standalone structure will also ensure that Sunday’s matches are pretty evenly-matched and as electric as possible.
That’s all for this edition folks! I’ve nerded out enough, and I already discussed my thoughts on the new competition structure here. I plan on writing another piece over the weekend in which I will detail who I predict every team will drop, and in that piece I will discuss the trades that have happened so far!
dink big, dream bigger❤️ Your internet bestie, XOXO, Anna❤️❤️❤️
PS - if you’re still reading - I am hiring again!!! I am going to be hiring for two paid positions - a Program Coordinator and a Social Media Manager. If you or anyone you know is a good fit, loves pickleball, and is interested in helping me grow both my personal and professional brand, please have them apply (:.