In pickleball, hitting the ball ever so gently just over the net into a narrow zone called the kitchen is known as a dink.
Well, the professional pickleball wars of 2023, thought to be put to rest with last year’s merger of the two leading circuits, reared its head again for some not so gentle dunking.
On one side is pro pickleball player Jillian Braverman, who led a short lived effort in late 2023 to question if not block the acquisition of financially strapped Major League Pickleball by the better funded PPA Tour (they now are under one entity, United Pickleball or UPA).
Yesterday, she sent out a bevy of posts on X suggesting the merger is a failure and that the UPA had to take out an emergency $10 million loan.
Ten months after the blockbuster “$75 Million” merger between Major League Pickleball (Lebron James, Tom Brady, Anheuser-Busch) and Tom Dundon’s (Carvana, Top Golf) backed PPA Tour, the new entity (the UPA) needs an emergency bridge loan of $10mm by January 15 to meet its…..
— Jillian Braverman (@jillybpb) January 2, 2025
That got some heated pushback on X today from Samin Odhwani, UPA’s chief strategy officer, who beside countering Braverman’s financial take, blasted her–some might say gratuitously–as a-want-to-be influencer searching for clicks for her podcast.
“It’s unfortunate you’re not good enough to play with the best on the top tour and you have to resort to clickbait to fuel your career as a micro influencer. Seems like this time of year inspires you to make false claims —looking forward to seeing what’s next.” Odhwani tweeted.
Jill, let’s stick to the facts—happy to help you with that. I just left a role with @KDTrey5 , Thirty Five Ventures, and @boardroom to become Chief Strategy Officer at UPA. I moved my wife and newborn to Dallas yesterday because, after meticulously reviewing the financials and https://t.co/jMaOqQsa3L
— Samin Odhwani (@SaminOdhwani) January 3, 2025
“Since you like to make false claims, should we remind everyone when you said MLP players couldn’t play PPA events? What happened there? Or when you claimed to have over 100 players committed to your collective—should we share the truth on that?” he added as part of the tweet string.
Braverman said in late 2023 she had organized dozens of players in a collective, a sort of junior union, which was in the process of hiring lawyers. That effort appeared to have ended with the MLP-PPA merger.
MLP, the team version of pro pickleball, spiraled out of control with runaway team payrolls and a brief frenzy of celebrity buyers including Patrick Mahomes and Lebron James. PPA is the circuit for individual players, akin to a tennis tour.
In her Thursday tweets, Braverman wrote, “Maybe we should rewind to last December when the two-year long war between MLP & PPA ended with an uneasy merger between the frenemies. Inherited in the merger was $30mm in annual player salary debt—driven up in a war over players between MLP & PPA pre-merger. On the road to the merger, MLP asked its players to take 40% salary reductions, whereas Dundon’s players (PPA) took little to no reductions; a player’s coalition was formed and attorneys were hired.”
Dundon is Tom Dundon, the billionaire UPA owner and also owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes as well as TopGolf.
“So, will the UPA survive 2025? Or will it be Pickleball’s Fyre Fest: a gorgeous, celebrity-laden, deliciously decadent, soon-to-be relic unless a change of leadership…and/or continued funding / bail-out occurs?” Braverman tweeted.
In response Odhwani wrote UPA, “will be a $1B+ business. Here’s the reality:
-The league did $50M in revenue last year—right on plan, which is a miracle in a merger year and a testament to (CEO) @connorpardoe_pb , our operating team, and ability to execute.”
In a phone interview, asked if Braverman represent a slice of players with concerns about the financial well being of pro pickleball, Odhwani turned to her podcast, saying that, “if you both look at who goes on her show as an example, you have a handful of other media outlets that are constantly having players filter through, provide their story, provide their background, some of their own perspectives. And to my knowledge, that level of flow through has not all been the case on some of her media platforms. It just seems to be a sort of amplifier of her own voice.”
Braverman did not reply for comment.
Odhwani said he is coming out so strongly because it is important to set the record straight and not let rumors fly.
“So it appears that, based on what I’ve seen from her and her actions, the goal is to get views and clicks and attention, and I just wish that she put a little bit more diligence into her reporting and framing such that it wasn’t all full of falsities,” he said.
As a relatively new professional sport, it is not surprising that pickleball would have some labor pains sprinkled with some heated rhetoric. While the teams on the Major League Pickleball side of the UPA fiefdom could hypothetically unionize, the PPA players–like in tennis and golf–are independent contractors who cannot unionize. They can form players’ groups, and that process may be slowly sorting its way out.
The $10 million loan Braverman referred to is financing from ownership to fund the past takeover of two MLP teams and to buy out some player contracts, Odhwani said. Ownership hopes to make a profit off the two teams by reselling them in the future at a profit, Odhwani said.
Braverman ended her tweet thread writing, “The only thing for certain in 2025? You guessed it. More drama.”
If you ask Odhwani, there indeed will be drama. But only on the court.
