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Pickleball takes on the Sharks (well, kinda)

Pickleball takes on the Sharks (well, kinda)

PLUS: Partner sues face smasher & Lil Wayne buys a pickleball team

Welcome back, picklers.

Read time: 5-ish min

If you’ve ever had any doubts that pickleball couldn’t make it mainstream…

Squash ‘em ‘cause this week, pickleball PLASTERED the media world.

The reason? Money. Money. And more money. 💰 💸 💵

TODAY’S MENU

Daily Scoop: Pickleball meets Shark Tank (well, kinda)
News Stash: Katy Perry’s pickleball fundraiser. Lil Wayne’s newest investment. Partner sued for breaking paddle on her face.
Sizzling Skills: Don’t like feet? Well, in pickleball, you should.
Kitchen Talk: Are Franklin pickleballs going bad?

DAILY SCOOP

Pickleball meets Shark Tank (well, kinda)

A few newsletters back, I mentioned a new pickleball spinoff sport called PaddleSmash.

I may or may not have manifested via this newsletter… (just give me tinyyy bit of credit, okay?)

But this past week, the sport graced the big screens inside our homes and was featured on Shark Tank (ya know…the show were 4 to 5 ultra rich investors sit in comfy, leather arm chains, listen, do a bit of eye squinting, and earn millions while doing so 🙄)

Missed it? Don’t worry. I gotcha covered.

Here are the deets.

So WHAT IS PaddleSmash?

PaddleSmash combines elements of both pickleball and spikeball into a fast-paced, highly portable court game for 2-4 players. Armed with paddles, teams volley a ball back and forth over small portable nets. First to 11 points wins.

Simple? Understood? Good.

So where did this pickleball-spikeball love child come from?

Funny enough, from a very bored engineer dad seeking rec activities for his family of seven, Joe Bingham started tinkering away to invent PaddleSmash, as the nearest pickleball court was a bit of a drive away.

When two of Bingham's entrepreneurial friends, Tim Swindle and Scott Brown, tried the game, it was love at first smash. They convinced Bingham to license Paddlesmash to their new company Glacier Games.

After raising $500k in seed funding, Glacier Games honed the product design and launched it on Amazon and in sporting goods stores like Dick's and Scheels.

Since then, PaddleSmash has seen a spike in interest (see what I did there?). A TikTok video alone scored 14 million views and 350k likes. And reviews praise the game's portability and addictive gameplay.

Looking to really scale up, that’s when Swindle and Brown pitched PaddleSmash on a recent Shark Tank episode.

The Final Deal

Playing off pickleball's curb appeal as the fastest growing sport in the US, the founders hooked Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec.

In short, after a bit of uneasiness, the sharks bit on $250k for 20% equity.

So with the help of the show and investors, it looks like PaddleSmash is officially ready for the big leagues.

With America's obsession with pickleball showing no signs of waning, the company is primed to capitalize on the country's newest net game craze.

Who knows? Soon backyard barbeques, tailgates, and rooftop parties could have picklers and spikeballers alike smashing it out for PaddleSmash supremacy.

—

Watch the final negotiation (drama alert):

NEWS STASH

Katy Perry is bringing fireworks to pickleball (and the dolla bills for charity)

Happenings: We all know her as the fireworks girl with the wonky eye (no shade, all love). But this week, she’s added another token of gold to her personal brand resume: Pickleball.

The deets: Katy Perry recently hosted a celebrity pickleball tournament in her hometown of Santa Barbara, with stars like Meghan Trainor, Rob Lowe, and Kate Hudson participating.

The goal of the event was to raise money for the Firework Foundation, a nonprofit Perry started with her sister to provide arts programs for underserved youth.

The game: Perry won her exhibition match to Orlando Bloom and Maggie Brascia and the tournament drew sponsorship from brands like Celsius and Selkirk. Perry started the foundation in 2019 and hopes to use pickleball's rising popularity for charitable causes.

We love it.

Lil Wayne’s latest investment: a pickleball team

Happenings: Rapper Lil Wayne has become the latest celebrity to invest in a Major League Pickleball franchise, joining the ownership group of the Texas Ranchers.

Yes, yes. The king of the lillipops.

The goal: As the team's new strategic advisor, the goal here is to help attract fans, develop apparel collaborations, and build pickleball courts in underserved areas.

The rap mogul said he couldn't pass up getting involved in pickleball, which he called "the moment." This marks Lil Wayne's first sports franchise investment, adding to his wide business portfolio.

Smart money, young money.

DRAMA: Partner breaks paddle on her face and is now suing everyone 🙄

Happenings: A pickleball player in Kelowna, Canada is suing her doubles partner after he accidentally hit her in the face with his paddle during a match, causing injuries including a concussion.

The drama? Desiree Harris claims her partner Mario Lopez swung recklessly while she was preparing to hit the ball, breaking his paddle on impact with her face. Oops.

The suit: Harris alleges the city rec center, the provincial and national pickleball associations should have known Lopez was a habitual reckless player. She is seeking damages for her injuries, which include facial abrasions, a black eye, and headaches from the concussion.

The defendants have yet to respond to Harris' lawsuit.