The National Pickleball League, entering its second season in 2024, is expanding from six to 12 teams, with new ownership groups from Coachella Valley, Seattle, Princeton, K.C., Houston and Columbus. The league for Champions Division (age 50+) pickleball players is taking expansion fees averaging $750K from each of those teams, more than double the NPL’s inaugural season, when the original six (from Indianapolis, Austin, Boca Raton, Naples, Denver and Oklahoma City) paid an average of $300K, NPL CEO Paul Bamundo told SBJ.
“We were very excited to see that there were many people who wanted to be a part of our league,” added Bamundo, a former IMG, NBA, Subway and JMI Sports marketing exec who assumed his role with the NPL in November.
Bamundo declined comment on the NPL’s P&L margins other than to say it is operating debt-free. He noted the NPL team founders and two outside investors, CT-based real estate investor Paul Kuehner and pickleball player Connie Burnett, as prominent backers.
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Gamma Sports, Gearbox Sports and Corona Premier will continue as sponsors in 2024, with Gamma providing the competition balls and Gearbox the paddles. Gamma Sports was also the title sponsor for a re-air of the league’s 2023 championship on CBS; another replay of that event is expected to air later this month but plans for further NPL programming on CBS are still being deliberated, Bamundo said. The NPL also livestreams its events on its website and sells merchandise but does not sell tickets to its events.
Following a combine for players in March and a draft in April, the NPL’s 2024 season will consist of five monthly events from May through September. The locations are still being finalized. Each team’s roster will have 14 players -- seven men, seven women -- and each event, which combine men’s, women’s and mixed doubles, will carry prize money.
