Professional pickleball tour attracts full-time players, offers $2 million in prize money

Professional pickleball tour attracts full-time players, offers $2 million in prize money

Yahoo Finance reporter Josh Schafer details the rise in popularity of pickleball and how lucrative of a sport it has become for its professional players, and also speaks with the sport's founder and a star player.

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Professional pickleball tour attracts full-time players, offers $2 million in prize money

Sat, May 28, 2022, 5:04 AM

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back. Pickleball's rise continues to garner more attention. The sport has grown nearly 40% since 2019 and now boasts more than 4 million players worldwide. But what became many Americans favorite social distancing hobby during COVID-19 is now turning into a career for some players. Our very own Josh Schafer is here with more. So Josh, you actually spent the morning at one of these professional tournaments. What did you learn?

JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, Rachelle. So I spent the morning over at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Training Center, where the Association of Pickleball Professionals is playing its first-ever Franklin New York City Open. The tour is dishing out $125,000 in prize money this weekend. That includes $10,000 for the singles winner, $10,000 for each person that wins in the doubles. And so I spoke with CEO and founder of the APP, Ken Herrmann, who told me they have players on the tour right now approaching six-figure incomes from pickleball. And that's before sponsorships.

And so this weekend right now is really a big step in the right direction for the sport. Playing at that Billie Jean King Center, streaming on ESPN+. Herrmann told me he's actually learned from King in the past and feels like pickleball's rise was inspired by how King started the Women's Tennis Association. Let's take a listen.

KEN HERRMANN: I was fortunate enough to listen to Billie Jean King many times in my role as serving as a coach for player development. And I just was always amazed and fascinated when I would hear her stories about how she started the women's tour, the WTA. And you can see the picture of the nine ladies holding up the dollar when they broke away from the men's tour back in the early '70s and broke in their own tour. And you know I was just always mesmerized about how Billie Jean would go off and have meetings in New York City with sponsors and then have to get back to Florida that night to play Chris Evert in an exhibition match, and how she could do that.

Professional pickleball tour attracts full-time players, offers $2 million in pr...