169. The State of Pickleball Paddles in 2026 & Selkirk buys Bread & Butter

[00:00:04] All right, what's up guys? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This week we're going to be going over some big bread and butter news, some big new UPAA rule changes, updated bag from Ranger, the Partners series, docu-series from the PPA. Going to talk about a couple paddles and then the big topic this week is going to be the State of Pickleball Paddles in 2026.

[00:00:28] Just to kind of get a baseline of where we're at, maybe where things are headed. I think this will be a pretty fun one. So let's get into it. Let's do it. All right, so let's talk about the big news here. So Selkirk bought bread and butter. By the time you see this, it'll be Wednesday. So on Monday, there was like these interesting random teaser posts.

[00:00:51] So bread and butter posted a video with like no context of just Doug dancing with a boomstick. Selkirk hat. And you're like, okay, well that's random, but also it's bread and butter. Like they do all sorts of weird things. You're like, okay, maybe. And then Selkirk also posted of them hitting with locos.

[00:01:12] And so then you kind of connect the dots and you're like, okay, everyone was trying to figure out what it was. It's like, did they buy them? Is this a collab? Is there a licensing thing? I think most people assumed that it was probably a buyout, but no one really knew. I feel like at that point, once you see both companies post and then you just know the scale of the two brands, not that like, like bread and butter has grown to be a pretty decently sized brand now, but Selkirk being, I would say the second largest brand in pickleball. If not number one.

[00:01:42] If not. Yeah. Yeah. Actually probably. I mean, in terms of like name, I feel like Yola is probably at this point more well known inside of pickleball, but Selkirk by far in revenue, definitely more than Yola.

[00:01:55] So I would, it just makes sense. Yeah. In my mind that they're acquiring. Yeah. So the news came out, they did, they did buy them. And I think it's going to be very interesting. So I was, you know, I just read a lot. There was a lot of conversation in my discord. There was a lot of conversation on Instagram. And so I'm just kind of reading things. And it's very interesting seeing, I mean, now that we know it's a buyout, just like where the speculation has kind of gone.

[00:02:19] Um, but I'll leave the press release link down below. It's very long. So I'm not going to read that entire thing on here, but I'm going to go over what I think the main relevant talking points are here. So the first question that I think I saw a lot of people have was like, Oh, well, Selkirk's just going to kill bread and butter. Like their marketing isn't nearly as flashy or crazy. Like, great. Now bread and butter is not going to be what bread and butter is.

[00:02:44] Now, of course, we're going off a press release here, right? Everything's going to sound really nice in a press release, but I'll give benefit of the doubt until I've given reason to not. But it said in there that bread and butter will still operate independently with the same owners, product strategy, marketing, and website. And then Selkirk is just enhancing distribution and global reach.

[00:03:05] And then to me, that makes sense, right? Because if you're Selkirk, the people you don't appeal to most likely are the people who play with bread and butter paddles, right? Like the Loco was obviously the first paddle I feel like they had that was like truly elite performance, like regardless of marketing, whatever, like this is just really good.

[00:03:26] And beyond that, just good timing in the market of paddles, right? Like there wasn't a ton of paddles like that out there. So the timing of the release, the performance of it all just matched up was kind of the perfect storm. Yeah. So I feel like it wouldn't, it makes the most sense to let them run the way they do. But now obviously Selkirk is taking that revenue from that business because why would you want to just turn it into like another version of Selkirk?

[00:03:54] Either that or like if people are thinking they're going to kill them off, why spend all that money to get rid of a brand that doesn't like probably make that big of a dent? Well, either that big of a dent or they're not in the like space that you are, right? If they're such a different brand and they, you know, appeal to a different audience, then it doesn't really affect you. So why get rid of them, right? It only makes sense to just keep expanding.

[00:04:18] It's not like a paddle tech or an engage or something where it's like, you're more similar to us than you are not. Yeah, similar where bread and butter is just like, they're on their own island or like demographic and everything. So that's what the press release says there. Hopefully they keep it that way. I mean, it still says Doug is going to be involved, same product strategy, all that and their own website. So I think that's good.

[00:04:39] At least early, that seems like a good sign and makes the most sense. What else did I have to say on that? Oh, yeah. Like if they were just going to force them to change like, oh, hey, we're just going to basically make this like a Selkirk branding.

[00:04:54] It's like, okay, so you spent a lot of money just to do what you already do with your own brand. Like that makes no sense in my mind. Right. So I feel like you just let Doug and the people over there kind of go wild with what they do. And it's like, hey, that's great. Okay. Now what I'm curious about, obviously, they said everything's going to still run independent, but like, will prices change at all? That's I'm very curious to see where that goes. Like do prices slowly creep up? Do they stay the same? Do the existing products go up in price?

[00:05:23] Now that they're under one umbrella, does that mean something like the Loco is going to get in Finegrit? Because it'd be interesting. The Loco, I still feel like this is kind of a side topic. But to me, I'm actually probably going to do like an updated review here at some point soon, just now that the Loco has been out for a while and there's a lot of competition. But I do still feel like the Loco is a very relevant paddle in the market. Like it still performs really well. The only thing that's missing is a long lasting grit. Yeah. Now, unfortunately, in Finegrit, of all the options, is probably

[00:05:53] one of the lower tier ones you could slap on a paddle. So that's unfortunate, but it does still seem to be better than raw carbon fiber. Yeah. So it's like, okay, well, that's a plus at least. But then if it has in Finegrit, are we going to see like a $250 Loco? Like what, you know, what does that look like? Will you have both options? You know, will we never get in Finegrit Loco? I don't know. Hmm.

[00:06:15] I would probably, I feel like I would lean towards, we probably won't get that and they'll leave the prices and bread and butter like on their own island. They just want to own that side of pickleball. Sure. And then I think, you know, it'd be cool. Obviously, bread and butter has pretty out there marketing and styles and designs and stuff, which a lot of people love.

[00:06:38] I, you know, I think their designs are really cool. I've always liked bread and butter. Getting collabs with like clothing and shoes and other stuff because Selkirk does a really good job with all of that. Yeah. It'd be pretty cool. So, but an Finegrit Loco would be, I'm sure they're going to test it.

[00:06:56] But yeah, I mean, I feel like you have to at least try it, right? Yeah. But yeah, I'm very curious because then I'm like, my thought is, okay, if you did put Infinigrid on it, like does it compete with the boomstick too much? But then there are also such different brands that doesn't even matter. Yeah. Then you also got to wonder now that they're under the same umbrella, will something like a Loco get UPA approved? Like some of the Selkirk paddles are UPA approved. So would they go do that?

[00:07:19] It must. It feels like it makes sense. Now, obviously I feel like, you know, when the Loco launched, I think it could have made a pretty big splash on the UPA side. Now I think there are so many good options that it's like, it would still be a good paddle, but it's like, okay, well, there's a lot of good options now. Right. You know, like I feel like eight months ago, it was like the UPA side was looking pretty dry, especially foam paddles.

[00:07:41] Sure. But you also get added shapes, right? Not that there aren't, you know, UPA foam paddles that aren't wide bodies and hybrids, but just another option. I think there will still be people who gravitate towards that. Yeah, totally. So I don't know, it's going to be interesting, but I think everyone has known for a while that some consolidation was going to happen at some point. I mean, we saw Paddle Tech and Pro XR. Now we're seeing Selkirk and Bread and Butter. That makes you wonder like, is Yola going to go buy anyone or is Yola like,

[00:08:11] we don't need anyone, but we're Yola. What do we need to buy someone for? If Yola is going to acquire a brand, who would it be? Oh man, I got to look at the wall and think about this. I know, because like they're not going to, I would imagine they're probably not going to acquire any really small brands like Vatic or Rhombus. Like they don't care about those brands, but maybe because Yola is getting so big in the Asian market,

[00:08:40] maybe they try to acquire one of the bigger Asia brands. Yeah, I mean, that's like an interesting thought. Yeah, just with how big. Fakalos. Yeah. I mean, I think Fakalos, I don't think they're too big, but they might be a tough one to acquire because they're pretty standout now. Yeah, I like, but the only brand looking at the wall right now that like really pops in my mind would be like in 11.624, just because they're making a bigger splash on the pro scene. Honolulu.

[00:09:08] I really doubt Honolulu. Really? What if like, I mean, just imagine if Yola wants to get in, like, okay, we know that Yola is at the moment pretty anti-foam, right? Like they don't want to make a foam paddle in their line. Yeah. But I got to imagine Yola is definitely thinking about how much market share foam paddles hold and how big of a piece of the market that is.

[00:09:33] So if they just acquire a brand like Honolulu that now has a longer lasting texture, a popular foam paddle that's also UPA approved, they can just acquire that brand and that can be their foam paddle section of the market without adding one to their current line because they don't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel, I feel like there's no way 2027 is not a foam paddle. There's no way. Here's the thing. We know they're pretty against it.

[00:10:02] But they seemed to me what it felt like when we were at the Yola event was not that they were against it necessarily. Like, oh, we just think foam is bad, but it was more like the, at least the way they were phrasing it. And obviously who knows what behind the scenes, but the way it felt like it was phrased was we want to do something bigger than just here's a EPP or MPP core paddle. Right. They were saying that they, they want to be the innovators of the sport, not followers.

[00:10:29] But at this point, I mean, not, there's tons of things that can be innovative with foam cores. I'm sure, you know, their engineers over there are way smarter than I am when it comes to that stuff. So I'm not even going to pretend that I could come up with something better than them, but are you really going to release a foam paddle a year later and try and convince people that you're, you know, is that going to be a better look of like, we're not a follower rather than being an innovator. Right. Like it's something that you want to get out quicker. Yeah.

[00:10:58] So I get where they're coming from, but I feel like Yola acquiring a brand that has UPA approval, has a popular foam paddle and seemingly pretty well performing long lasting texture. I don't know. Could make sense. We'll see. I still don't think it'd be Honolulu. I'd bet 11, 6, 24. Out of all the brands. Oh man. I would lean more towards Honolulu.

[00:11:22] I feel like Honolulu for, if you're thinking a brand like Yola, like Honolulu seems more polarizing to the market, right? If people don't want the Bible verses on their paddle, like that is always a debate in the comment section. I feel like Yola would just be like, keep us out. But if Yola didn't like that, that's always something they would just change if they own them. I guess. I don't know. We'll see. I don't think Yola's going to buy anyone is my current guess. Yeah. I'm not saying that they are buying anyone. I'm just saying if. Yeah. This is all theory here, you know? Yeah, totally. Totally.

[00:11:51] But yeah, I mean, definitely seems like there's, it will be more market consolidation. There's just so many brands on the market and there's just no way it's going to be that way forever. So I'm very curious who fades out, who gets a buy. And, you know, as far as like with Paddle Tech and Pro XR, I feel like nothing. A lot of times when you're like looking at brands getting bought in other industries, like a lot of times they get shut down or it just gets worse or blah, blah, blah. But in Pickleball, we haven't seen it a lot so far, but nothing happened with Paddle Tech and Pro XR. So I'm kind of like, okay, I mean, nothing bad.

[00:12:20] Nothing bad happened, but I definitely feel like the Pro XR side shrunk. Am I crazy? Maybe because they all went to Paddle Tech, you mean? Like started using Paddle Tech.

[00:12:48] And I feel like, like at the time when they were separate brands, Pro XR was starting to become a more recognized. They were always scraping the bottom of the barrel. They're like, please let us be relevant. They really wanted to be relevant. But, you know, with like Zane and that paddle, the like grit was really popular and people were raving about that. So I feel like it started to gain some traction. And then once they acquired Paddle Tech, they kind of dumped all their stuff into Paddle Tech.

[00:13:17] And then, you know, all their players went to Paddle Tech. Now you don't really see the branding of Pro XR anywhere. Well, it's all consolidated now. Right. So, and that, I feel like that made more sense just because it felt like Pro XR never really had its own thriving brand, whereas it feels like bread and butter does. Right. But, I mean, only time is going to say, right? Like maybe when a year from now we're all wrong and it's like, oh yeah, everything just consolidated into Selkirk. People can change their mind. You know, their strategy right now might be to keep it separate. But, you know, six months from now that might not be working.

[00:13:47] And they're like, all right, we got to change strategy here. Yeah. So we'll see. But for now, I'll believe like it'll be fine until I'm given reason to not believe that. We do have the Nerdy Tourney. So this was happening last year for those of you who weren't around last year. Bread and Butter actually hosted a like content creator tournament where it was like all the powder reviewers, you get paired with a random person. And then you just play a tournament. Bracket tournament. Which was a fun time last year. So. Yeah. That's in the beginning of June.

[00:14:16] So I'm sure we're going to hear more about this coming up here. Right. You know, like I'm sure when we're there, we'll get to hear more about and kind of what the plan is. Um, so we'll keep you guys updated. But that's what we know about the bread and butter deal right now. I guess we'll see if anyone else on the wall gets bought up. We'll see. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy stuff. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the UPAA rules. So originally when this rule book came out, I kind of just, I didn't really look at it because I was under the impression it was just for pros.

[00:14:45] Because that's largely what UPAA has been, but it's definitely creeping more and more into the amateur side of things. Like it's, I mean, I feel like the writing is 100% on the wall that like PPA tournaments will one day be like paddle wise, UPAA only. They'll have their own rule book. Like it'll be a very distinctly separate thing from anything USAP. Yeah. Like we're headed that direction, whether that's good or bad. Probably a lot of ways you could debate that.

[00:15:11] I feel like they have done a better job in some regards and then we'll see if that becomes a problem later in the future. But we're going to talk about the rules for PPA tournaments. So if you play PPA tournaments and you're an amateur, you're going to want to listen up because these rules do apply to you. Yes. And some of these are pretty different. So one of the first rules that was mentioned is that this is obviously only going to be really relevant with a ref around, but I just thought this one was more interesting.

[00:15:39] So only one foot has to reestablish after a non-volley zone touch. If obviously only one foot touched the line, if both feet touch the line, both have to reestablish. But in the past, if you pushed off with one foot, both feet had to reestablish. Now, if you landed on the same foot you pushed off with and you are considered established, that other foot doesn't need to touch the ground to not be a foot fault anymore. In the past, both feet would have had to be completely flat. So I thought that was just an interesting rule change.

[00:16:07] This one, probably a bigger change. Players will now change sides at six every game. So that's not only game three anymore. And that was for sun and wind. So instead of having it be, oh, now you're choosing, okay, if we go to game three, do I want to be on the good side? You're just switching every game. Yeah, I don't like this rule. I'm fine with that. What would be bad about that? To me, that just evens it out. Think about tournaments where wind is a huge factor. But who's calling out for it to be evened out?

[00:16:36] I think that this is a strategy like this. Just you lose strategy of the game. A big part of the game was thinking like, okay, we need to decide. Are we going to serve, receive or choose side? And a lot of times, depending on venue, choosing side was a big element. And that mattered. Right. And I think that was a fun part of the game. And I feel like that's kind of lost now. No, I'm good. I'm actually not a fan. I'm actually not a fan of this. No, that to me is like taking RNG out.

[00:17:06] For those of you who don't know, that's a gaming TV. Yeah, it's like wind is RNG, bro. Like, it's like. Yeah, but again, that's part of the strategy. No, I think it's fine. I'm for making that. But I do think I want to know how many. So these rules go into effect May 22nd. So not long after this podcast. I just want to know how long it's going to take for amateurs to like get used to that. That's like saying in tennis, every game we get to 30 love and we or whoever gets the 31st, you switch sides. Like that would be so ridiculous.

[00:17:34] But then we could say that about switching six in game three. No, because you still switch sides. After sets and games. So like just switching in the middle of every game. Too much excessive. I'm not actually it makes sense in game three. Did I write this down? I wrote this down way later, but this actually ties into this.

[00:17:59] So you for games to 11 or 15, you only get one time out now instead of two. And that's because at six, that's technically a timeout. So which people should get used to that. Speaking of like so many people and I watch this happen from like so many PPAs I go to. So many people do not use the side switch as a timeout. They just walk to the other side and immediately go to the baseline. I'm like, you are losing such a valuable resource by doing that.

[00:18:28] Like if you really want to like if you're just in a groove and you want to keep going. Yeah, sure. But I feel like a lot of people just don't even know that a side switch is a timeout. You can go get some water, go do towels, take a breather. But people just don't. I will purposely like delay some of my timeouts because I know the side switch is coming. I'm like, why wait? Why use it right before potentially this side switch and then have two back to back.

[00:18:54] If it's game three and you're down 5-0, which really you probably should have taken a timeout before that point. But like why take a timeout at 5-0 right as you're about to switch sides and get a timeout? Yeah. You know? Yeah, no, I completely agree. But that's something to definitely be aware of because, you know, tournaments have historically been two timeouts. And then obviously you only get the side switch in game three. But now because of that side switch, it's a free timeout. So differing opinions on that one. Definitely. Next one.

[00:19:20] This is probably only relevant with a referee, but play may be stopped without penalty to correct player position. See, the way they wrote this actually is kind of interesting. I'll just read it out. Play may be stopped without penalty to correct player position, server slash receiver or score before the return of serve slash dead ball. So if called before the serve, you just redo it. I mean, nothing even happened. You just fix whatever, fix the score and then just serve the ball. So that's if before it's struck.

[00:19:50] If called after the serve, it's a fault. And then. But you know what? I'm just not realizing reading that rule book. Surely that is a fault on the person who called it out. So like if I'm the receiving player and I heard you call the score wrong and you serve the ball and I correct you, that must be a fault for me. There's no way that's a fault for the other team. Because if it has to be that way, because if it was a ref and they didn't catch it, then I'm assuming you're just going to play on.

[00:20:20] And if a ref did catch it, they'll just correct it almost certainly has. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine it would be that way. Yeah. But I could also envision a world where it's not. And then the last one is if the ball is already dead. So if you played the point out, ball's dead, points over, then the rally just stands as it was. That makes sense. And then you move on. So I guess that one is not necessarily that different from before. That is similar. But I just know that there that rule has changed a number of times through USAP and whatever.

[00:20:49] And people have gotten confused about like, oh no, if I called it, then we just redo it. And then there's all this. I see like this bickering of like, no, that's not what the rule is. So just be aware. Probably just don't just correct after the thing. I would not correct during a point. Middle of a point. It's always smart to just play out a point. Another one. Now, this is a big one. I feel like you and I will probably disagree on this. Okay. We'll see.

[00:21:16] Serves that are close and do not clearly comply with all service requirements in the ref's judgment are illegal and default. No warnings. Okay. I get what they're doing. But the problem is, is it's still going to be so subjective down to the ref, right? So like we're going to have refs that are like insanely strict and we're going to have refs that are the three blind mice and just don't see anything.

[00:21:46] And don't care. It'll be interesting because I feel like I could see where that could happen. I don't think this changes really anything. Well, I think what it does change is that. Other than the players who are pretty like Tyson or like pretty high up, you know, the like pretty egregious, like or all Sean, like the egregious, like they're pushing the line. Mm-hmm. There will definitely be refs who are like, no, that's a fault, which I think is good. But again, it still comes down to so much subjectivity.

[00:22:16] But I feel like for me, it's like, yes, there is still that. But what's nice about this is before the way the rule was written, it felt very much like unless the ref was like 100% certain, like they were never going to call it. Now it feels like they can go, I feel like you were breaking that rule. Now I have a little bit more liberty to say something. I wonder if there's going to be video reviews on this. I mean, I'm sure it probably would. I'm almost certain that no player ever would.

[00:22:46] Yeah, that'd be crazy. But let's just say you have a ref that is like being overly, overly strict. And you know for a fact that you hit a clean serve. Mm-hmm. That would suck if a ref just stepped in, you know, and felt like you were breaking the rules. I feel like to me, I mean, we'll see how it plays out. To me, I feel like it's going to be less of a, oh, if you're doing it right, but you just have a, I feel like it'll be less of a strict ref being like, hey, you were close.

[00:23:15] And more of like, well, now we can just punish the people who are like so obviously pushing it. Whereas before you're like, okay, well, I don't know exactly where your hip is. Now it's like, okay, that just so, that looked very obviously bad. You can't do that. I don't feel like you or me would get called for it, you know? Yeah, for sure. I've always been very safe on my serve. I've never once been called for a service fault. I don't think, well, I got called for a service fault because I served the ball before the ref called it, but not for being too high. Yeah. Yep.

[00:23:44] I feel like almost everyone who their first time having a ref does that. Yeah. Serves before the ref calls the ball. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I felt so stupid when I did that at the US Open. First time I've ever done that this year. And I was like, how did I mess that up? I played somebody in a final who did it like three times. I have played against people who kept screwing it up. And I was like, well, this is fine for me. Yep. But now, you know, no more Tysons, no more Eric Onsens, Alshon. Yeah. Even Roscoe, he pushes it. Yep. He pushes it pretty far sometimes.

[00:24:15] And now at least for amateurs, you know, hopefully. And I don't feel like most amateurs are bad about it. Like, honestly, the amount of amateurs I've probably played and felt like. I don't know. That their serve was high and also an advantage. It's usually not both. Yes. It's usually like it's pretty high, but it's clearly not being taken advantage of. So it's like it's a it's dumb, but it doesn't really matter. So I don't care. Yeah, exactly. You know this one.

[00:24:41] I mean, more appropriately named the Eric Onsens rule. A player may not attempt to influence the ball's flight after it has been legally played with a paddle on the player's side of the net. So, you know, no blowing on the ball, no fanning it with a paddle. That's actually an interesting one I just thought of. Instead of blowing it, I wonder if you could get like more air generated by like hitting it up and then like there's no way. You don't think someone couldn't generate more wind speed with swinging their paddle hard than with their mouth?

[00:25:10] More consistent air pressure by using your your lungs. I'd be probably more concerned with could someone do it fast enough? Like you're not fast swinging fast enough, but like get in position to swing the paddle quick enough. You can move a larger volume of air with the paddle, but it's not it's not pin. It's not pinpointed enough to actually get a ball to like move that distance it needs to versus like blowing with your lungs.

[00:25:38] It consolidates that amount of like air pressure down to a finer point where you can actually move an object. Well, either way, you can't do that anymore. I really think I hate this often. It was like it's right. That's the thing. It's not that it happened often and it was an extremely entertaining thing in pickleball that people like know is a thing. Yeah, and so now I feel like in an entertainment factor of the game is lost and I I actually find that kind of sad.

[00:26:08] I guess I don't really care either way. I thought it was entertaining. I liked seeing it, but it also happens so rarely that it's not like it was happening even every tournament. I would say it wasn't even happening every like four tournaments until Eric, you know, just recently did it like back to back. But prior to that, what was the last pro we could name that even did it? Yeah, it's not happened often. I feel like I could be way wrong. I feel like maybe Riley Newman did a long time ago. Yeah, I mean he had definitely tried it like a couple times whether it was successful or not.

[00:26:36] But this is like saying tweeners or hitting the ball behind your back is now distracting and you can't do that anymore. Like we're outlawing tweeners. The only thing that I see the point they're trying to make is like, okay, you already hit the ball. Now why do you need to do anything after striking the ball to influence what it's doing? Okay. What if you do in the reverse? Okay. What if you say I'm playing you? Mm-hmm. You hit the ball to me. Actually, no, the other way around.

[00:27:05] I hit the ball to you. Okay. Hits a neck cord, tips over. Okay. You barely tap it over and as it's still in the air and just barely crossing, I step in the kitchen and blow. I haven't influenced the ball with my paddle yet and I push it back to your side so it never comes over. So I feel like that's what they're trying to avoid though is exactly that. But this says you can't do it after you influence the ball. I never influenced the ball. I haven't touched it yet. You did.

[00:27:35] Player may not attempt to influence the ball's flight after it has been legally played with the paddle on the player's side of that. Yeah, there's no way they would allow that. Because now you, right? But it's not in the rules and unless they add that verbiage into the rules, I say it's good. Somebody, please, if any pros are listening right now, which I know some of you are, somebody needs to attempt this. I feel like that'd be an interesting one because so you didn't touch it with a paddle, but you also did influence the ball and you were in the kitchen. So did you?

[00:28:03] But you never, but here's the thing, the non-volley zone is you can't touch the ball. I know. I know. I never touched the ball. I'm just trying to think how they would handle that in real time. I would say, here's the thing, if this happens theoretically, if this happens in an event, they can't call a fault on it, but then afterwards they definitely add it into the rules. I'm almost surprised, well, maybe I'm not. Okay, I was going to say I'm almost surprised this one hasn't been seen more, but I guess

[00:28:28] if you think about it, if a ball hits a net court, usually you're not highly anticipating that that's going to happen. And then even less, does that ball usually sit on the net court for more than a second? So it's probably like one of those things that you're going to have to go from the non-volley zone to in front of the ball in like under a second, recognize all this is happening and then blow on it. So I guess the odds of it are probably pretty slim unless you were already in the kitchen.

[00:28:55] Like I guess if you were, you know, when some people kind of like patty cake the ball over back and forth, I guess I could see it happening in that situation. Well, if that ever happens, we'll see how to handle that one. I would love, I cannot wait. I hope, I hope this happens in a game someday, someday. Eric Gonsens, if you're listening, you need to take this back. That's crazy. Okay, next one. If the ball is not played or played and becomes dead on the team's own side, the team may

[00:29:22] promptly make an out call or briefly consult with their partner slash coach to determine in or out. Now, the reason I put this in here is because in the past you were not allowed to talk to the sideline about line calls. Yeah. Now you can ask. Okay. I don't know how I feel about that. It's interesting. I feel like people kind of did it anyways. Anyways, but people for sure did. But yeah, I mean, they would at least ask, but not necessarily be like, okay, well, that means it was in, but it definitely turned into an argument.

[00:29:51] They're just really subtle about it. You know, they were just kind of like use their eyes. Sometimes not even subtle. That true. But then the follow-up rule right after that said opponent, I must have said if, I must have missed a word here, but if opponent consulted on a line call, the response is final. So I feel like that's got to be more with a ref because like I'm imagining if you just consulted the sideline, like, okay, well, there's usually two opposing teams. There's usually two people watching. So what if both sides, one went in, one went out. It's like, okay, well, what did you do?

[00:30:21] But interesting that you can do that now. And then the follow-up relevant to that as well is coaching is now permitted between rallies and timeouts. So you know how like if any of your friends from the sideline said something that used to be illegal, now you can technically do that whenever as long as it's not during the point. So if someone was like, hey, do this, like a lot of times people would get called out for that. I don't think anyone has ever tried coaching in the middle of a point from the side. Yeah, I can't imagine. That's crazy.

[00:30:51] I mean, that would be nice. I definitely, I mean, I had a partner of mine get yelled at because they were talking to somebody on the sideline for coaching in the middle of the game. And the ref got really angry. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I mean, for sure. So you can technically do that now. That I think is just a very different rule change from what we've historically seen. So I thought it was relevant to put in here. I also am curious how that's going to be governed.

[00:31:19] Because, okay, between points, what if someone like uses, it's kind of like how they, you know, Fed does this a lot where it's pretty egregious about going over to the towel, taking a lot of time, kicking the ball to the side, you know, just wasting time trying to use it as like a mini timeout. I wonder if people are going to like try and talk to their coaches and extend that as much as they can, then go to the towel, like, and just try and gain as much timeout time as possible.

[00:31:48] When I've been like looking at all these, I've not really cared about any of it for the most besides like the blowing on the ball rule. Like I've basically just been focusing on the amateurs because like, you know, I feel like we see that all the time where someone's like, oh, hey, let's do this. And the ref's like, hey, you can't do that. And so for amateurs, I don't think anything's going to change. I think it'll just be the exact same as it was pros. It will be interesting, I guess. I guess we're thinking about it in two different scenarios. Like I'm just thinking for the amateurs because the pros, whatever that they'll have the

[00:32:15] refs, like tell them all these rules, the amateurs, like I feel like people are going to go to the next one or two PPAs. And there's going to be arguments about like, no, I heard that this is a rule now. And someone's like, no, this has never been a rule. Like, okay. Someone who just didn't know the rules got updated. Read the rule book. I will leave it linked down below so that you guys can go read it. That's all the rules I had. There's there are more, but those are the ones that I thought were probably the most relevant for an amateur to know. But if you really want to be up to date, go read the rule book.

[00:32:42] Like, uh, it'd be good for people to know, especially just cause I feel like this is going to, at some point it's the rules between like USAP and UPA are going to conflict a little bit about like for tournaments, like what rule are we playing by here? Unless it's clearly stated or whatever. So anyways, that's the UPA rules. Let's talk about that new forward Ranger bag. Yeah. The updated Ranger. So they have, they basically just made some small updates. Improvements.

[00:33:08] Bag that I've been using for, I don't know, probably close to a year now. Um, I actually really liked this bag. So let's just go over a couple of things here. So first the price I believe did go up. I want to say it used to be cheaper. It's one 95 currently it's, uh, on sale for one 79 cause it just came out. And then I think there's a code flash for another 10% off. I will say as much as I like this bag, I do think it is on the like overpriced side.

[00:33:36] Like I like this bag a lot, but I also think with how small it is, like if you compare it to some of the tour bags, like another really good, well, two good, great tour bags, three great tour bags that Dunlop one that you really like incredible the Franklin bag and the carbon bag. Those are all about the same price after codes. They're even cheaper. And you know, functionally I think they do a lot of great similar things. Your Dunlop bag has this front sleeve. Yeah.

[00:34:03] So in that regard, I'm like, ah man, like as much as I love this bag, I do think it's a little on the pricey side. See, the way I look at it for the price is do I think if you're, if you're someone in the market for a bigger tournament bag, then yes, you're going to look at this and be like, it's a small bag. It's too expensive. It doesn't fit my needs. Then obviously this just doesn't make sense. But there's a lot of people out there who don't want to carry a giant, you know, tournament

[00:34:32] bag, the Dunlop, the Franklin, the carbon's big, but not huge. This is just like a very high quality material, well thought out design bag. And yeah, it's going to be a bit more expensive, right? Like I wouldn't expect like the, uh, neonic bag is not as high quality materials. I feel like the design of this is a little bit more well thought out than the neonic bag. And so naturally it's just going to be more expensive.

[00:34:58] Also it is just kind of, you know, forward is trying to be that more luxury higher end brand kind of like if any of you know bags outside of pickleball, like, um, oh my gosh, I just blanked out nomadic. Like nomadic is just a high end like luxury bag company. Yeah. So they have high end materials like this, this textured rubber at the bottom is very nice. Now having two water bottle pockets on both sides, incredible.

[00:35:28] I did notice the issue with this bag is with just one water bottle that's completely full on the side, it would kind of tip over because the base is so small. Um, but again, like this bag, yeah, it may be pretty expensive, you know, approaching $200 is a lot. Don't get me wrong. That's a lot of money, especially for a small bag, but the materials are so nice on this. Like this mine, I, I beat up on that thing. Yeah. I mean, it still looks perfect. Same. Like mine looks brand new.

[00:35:56] I think it was more just a, like, there are definitely a lot of bags, maybe not a lot, but a good handful of bags that are in that hundred dollar range, like the Neonic. Like if I wanted to recommend someone a not expensive bag that would get the job done for probably 90% of players, I would just tell them to do that. Or even I think Batic has a cheap one. I think if you're on a budget, then those are great. But if you have money to spend, I would much rather put it into something like this. One materials are better.

[00:36:24] And I think it's just going to last way longer. And you're not going to have to buy a new bag. A zipper is going to break. Something's going to tear, you know, I, you and I live by that, you know, buy once, cry once, right? You're going to spend a lot of money up front, but you're never going to have to buy it again. Yeah. And so that's kind of how I look at these bags. And for me, obviously, I guess on the last podcast, was the last podcast or two episodes ago? Last one. Last one. I love the Dunlop bag.

[00:36:53] I've been loving that thing. I think it's great, but for the times I don't want to carry that big of a bag, this is the next bag that I'm big on. Like, I think carrying a smaller, more consolidated bag, I don't need to bring a lot of stuff with me. The Ranger is awesome. For sure. Does everything I need. Yeah, I agree. Same here. So let me just quickly go over all the new features because not a lot changed. It's more just like small quality of life things.

[00:37:18] So I feel like if you had the V1, unless you've just got a burning pocket hole in your pocket, I don't think you need to go upgrade. But I do think it is nicer overall. But it's one of those ones where it's like, if you already had a V1, it's still a great bag. So like I mentioned, it has two water bottle pockets now. So that kind of balances the bag out better. If you do carry that, that'll actually be great for me because I do frequently carry two water bottles and I couldn't put the other one in the bag.

[00:37:43] Uh, next one, there's these like D rings on the top of the bag. So if you wanted to attach your keys or something to it, you could do that instead of putting them in the- Or a towel. Or a towel instead of putting in the back access pocket, which actually I think was- Did they add more structure to the- I can't remember if it was as structured. I don't know. That could just be like a break-in thing, you know, like materials loosening up after being used a lot. Could be. And then after that, there is a luggage pass-through on the back.

[00:38:12] So if you have like a suitcase or something, there's a strap on the back and you can put it through the handle. That's a pretty nice feature. I like that because I'm in the airport a lot. So that's handy. And then the water bottle pockets do have zippers. So if you're not using it, it sucks up against the side of the bag. Yep. And then last thing, uh, in the back of the inside bag, you guys probably aren't going to see this, but basically if you go to the website, you'll see it. There is a pocket now for a laptop or you could put another paddle there.

[00:38:39] Um, cause you know, everyone who plays pickleball like claims they have a job, but somehow they're all playing pickleball at 12 in the afternoon. We all know those people. They're like, hang on, I got my laptop. Let me just go move the mouse. So people think I'm at work. Yep. So that for those people out there, you can put your laptop in the bag. I know a bunch of those. Um, so yeah, not huge updates, but definitely all new colors and new colors. I do like this blue. Yeah. They fixed every issue that I had with the bag. Um, now I really don't have any issues with it. Yep. Uh, like everything's great.

[00:39:08] I love this front paddle sleeve. I use this at tournaments all the time. That is just underrated feature. Like every pickleball bag should have that for sure. Um, yeah, it's just, it's solid. Nothing crazy. It's not like you're going from a, oh my gosh, they like reinvented the bag. It was more just, they made better the issues that were at least the first one. And it was good. People just had some things they wanted changed and they listened and they changed it. Yep. So solid bag. Um, I like it.

[00:39:35] Like I said, if you're looking for a smaller bag and you don't carry a ton of paddles, this one works really well. I guess now it could carry four paddles technically if you use the laptop sleeve. It's actually kind of perfect. That's pretty good. Uh, cause I usually don't take more than four unless we're doing some testing, crazy comparison. Yeah. Um, the only time I need more than that is when I have like a group of friends that are like, Hey, can, can you bring something for me to test? And then I'm like, okay, I gotta bring like four more paddles. Yep. Totally. Okay.

[00:40:02] Last thing before we get onto the main topic here, uh, the pickleball partners docu series. So Isaac and I are only both about halfway through this and there may or may not be spoilers coming up. So if you have not watched this yet, I suggest you turn the podcast off starting now or skip forward or skip forward. Yeah. Don't turn it off. Just skip forward. Yeah. That's fine. What do you say? Yeah. What am I? Crazy. I'm crazy. I don't even know how to get people to watch my podcast. Wild. Wild. Wild. Okay.

[00:40:30] So I don't have, uh, necessarily a ton to say about this since I'm only halfway through, but there's a couple of things. I've, I've seen some chatter online about it. You know, mostly people talking about like, did their view on certain players change before or after this? I'm less here to discuss most of that. I mean, the docu series is clearly focused on like more of the drama of the pickleball tour, right? Like talking about some of the relationships, talking about partnerships, talking about,

[00:40:56] you know, things with like QD and what they get pretty, I want to say on some things than I thought they would. Yeah. I want to say like kind of savage, but at the same time, it's not that crazy. You know, here's what I want to know when this was being filmed. Cause some of this was a bit ago. Yeah. Like they've been working on this for a minute. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to know now that it's out, how many players went, Oh my gosh, I forgot. I said that. I can't believe that is in that documentary or just like, yeah, the hot mics on courts. Yup.

[00:41:26] Things that they didn't know were being recorded. Yeah. Um, and it makes you wonder how much other stuff there was that didn't make it or stuff that there's gonna be. Yeah. I mean, if they do more or something like that. Yeah. I, you know, so I, like you said, we were not through the entire thing. Some of the interesting notes I have is one. I think they did a pretty good job filming it. I think it looks nice. The production quality is up there. Uh, they did a really good job with that.

[00:41:52] There were some elements in the second episode where there's like some pretty poor acting. I feel like something that was clearly scripted out that I'm like, okay, this could have been, you could have left this out. Um, but the stuff with like QD, I found myself like wanting to yell at my TV because you have Duke and Quang or Wang.

[00:42:18] And he's like, I cannot believe I got fired. Oh my gosh. I saw they turn on. I could not believe that. I'm like, what do you mean? Can't believe it. Yeah. You're the, you're the one. He's like, oh, I was just, I was just doing some clinics. What do you mean you're just doing some clinics? One, that's against your contract. And two, you missed an event that you were contracted to be at. Yeah. So like they were just infuriating me by not understanding that they broke the rules. I'm like, I wanted to throw something at my TV. I actually thought it was crazy.

[00:42:48] That part of it just because I'm like that they were still, they, they, they got like, you know, kicked out, banned, whatever. And then they were still filming this thing. Like, I'm just imagining being like, yeah, by the way, so we kicked you out, but would you mind being on camera? We need you to be. Yeah. Like that was just crazy to me. Maybe that was another contracted thing where they were obligated to do it, but you know, they clearly didn't care about showing up to the other obligations. Yeah.

[00:43:13] So I would have loved if like in that episode, Connor Pardo or one of the other PPA employees was, was like, yeah, not only did he break this contract, but he broke his cell contract too. When he used the flamingo. Flamingo. Yeah. So I think it's interesting, you know, it really just focuses more on the drama of things. So, you know, if you're into that, then that's going to be fun. I think if you, from what I have seen so far, if you have followed pro pickleball closely and you're into it, you probably know all of these stories.

[00:43:43] You're maybe just getting some subtle things here and there that were clarified. There's definitely a lot. It's a lot of it is like the main big events that have happened or drama things like Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrabacher splitting up. Obviously that was like pickleball wide news that everyone was hearing about. Or yeah, Kwon getting terminated. I do think though, you know, if you're maybe like us and you follow a lot of this already,

[00:44:10] maybe it's, you know, less interesting in that you're like, ah, this isn't necessarily new to me. But I do feel like if you're someone getting into pickleball and you don't know this stuff, I do feel like it did a good job getting you up to speed and hopefully getting you more invested in some of the people. Yeah. Right. I think that's what's been missing in pro pickleball is the investment in a player or reason to care. And I think this adds some of that if you're new. Yeah.

[00:44:39] If you're deep, you probably already have your opinions formed on whatever players or whatever. But I think it's good for pickleball in that we have higher production coverage of things happening in our sport. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I can see that. So yeah, so far, I feel like I'm enjoying it. Um, we'll see how the rest of the episodes go. Maybe, maybe my opinion changes so far. I feel like a lot of it has been focused on obviously because they were just big events, but a lot of the, the negative, right?

[00:45:08] Like they, they make you want to like dislike some of these people. Yes. Like the episode made you want to not like Kwong. Yeah. Made you want to not like Anna Bright for breaking the partnership with Rachel Rohrabacher or, uh, who's the other one? There's one other that I was thinking of. Uh, Alshon, right? They made Alshon kind of, uh, not that bad, but like, yeah, definitely showed his side of like just being like intense. Yeah. Yeah. It does.

[00:45:36] It will be interesting, you know, if they continue to do something like this, obviously everyone just knows in terms of like news. I mean, this is how our, I feel like our world news operates. Like negativity always generates more noise than positivity, but it would be really cool to see, you know, if the tour keeps growing storylines of someone like Tama. Yeah. Like how cool would that be? Right. Like his, his run of this most recent tournament, like that would be a really fun history to like his past. Like he's a huge skateboarder.

[00:46:06] Like he's elite level skateboarding. Yeah. And then got into pickleball. Like stuff like that is pretty cool. Like, and storylines that like no one knows. Yeah. People don't know that about Tama. So I think stories like that would be really fun to see. We'll see if they perform as well as, you know, what some of these did. But I think, you know, as the tour starts to grow and maybe there's less dominance in very small areas, it would be fun to see those stories and have those promoted. Yeah. But you know, we'll see where it goes. I mean, looking at the views on YouTube, it seemed like this thing crushed it.

[00:46:34] I feel like there's gotta be, I mean, again, I haven't watched through all of it, but at some point I feel like there's gotta be an episode on, you know, like when, uh, or at least I'd like there to be one, uh, episode focused on when like Fed and Hayden beat Ben and Gabe at worlds. Yeah. Like that was a pretty big thing, you know? I think that could be a pretty cool episode. And that's it. That's like almost more on the wholesome side, right? Like Fed is crying during the interview. That's the stuff that you're like, Oh, I'm invested. Like this guy really wants it. Yeah. Right.

[00:47:02] I think there could be some pretty cool story build up to that one too. So stuff like that could be cool. So far overall, I think it's pretty entertaining. I think they've done a good job making it. Um, I feel like I'm not as entertained or invested into wanting to watch it because I was there for a lot of this stuff, right? Like I, you know, I S I've already seen it all happen. So like I'm watching it play out and I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[00:47:32] You know, so totally. Okay. Well, that's, uh, what we think about partners really quick because I do have to be somewhere. Okay. We're 52 minutes in. I haven't said that in a while. It's nine 30. Yeah. Nine 30. I have to be at a PT appointment somewhat soon. So we're going to have to cruise through some of this. We'll see if we can get this done in under an hour here first under, under an hour. Yeah. We're going to, this is going to be a speed run. I think we can do it. Well, I don't think I'm just saying that that'd be a crazy long episode, but yeah. Okay. First paddle.

[00:48:01] This is from Mizuno. They have now made a pickleball paddle. This is going to be quick. Isaac is the only one that's hit it. I actually kind of, I haven't had a back issue in a really long time and I just kind of overdid it last week and then it kind of put me out of commission for a week. That sucked. So I didn't get to hit this. I actually hurt my back when Isaac was hitting this. Maybe this is what hurt my back. It's crazy. Anyways. So Mizuno made a paddle that was a very different. So let's just go over this. First of all, it is an edgeless paddle. Oof.

[00:48:30] That in 2026, we've already talked about this. That's brutal. Edgeless. It is a very unconventional shape. It is a extremely short handle, really wide taper throat. Short handle, like Invicta short handle. Yeah. I mean, very, very long face, very short handle. You don't say that often. Yep. I mean, even shorter, to be honest. Yeah. Like, yeah, I would say even shorter. But the big reason that this is even remotely interesting, and I just thought it was worth

[00:48:57] a talking point here, was the side of the paddle, they carved out part of the edgeless and basically there's an internal weighting system in here. These do not come out of the paddle. The only thing you can do is slide these up or down. Yep. So it's not like a metal bone where you can decide, hey, I want no weight or I do want weight. It comes with an Allen key or a hex key. Yep. It has little hex bolts. It takes half turn, and then you can slide it up or down and move it. And it has not notches, but different hash mark lines dividing. To line them up. Yep.

[00:49:27] To line up where, you know, so you can put the weights in the exact same spot on both sides or just know where you're putting it. You can split them. You can move them together. You can put them wherever you want. There's a crazy amount of combinations you could do. If you wanted to be weird and crazy like Paul Lee, you could put them on completely different sides on both sides, and then you're just a psychopath. But don't give Paul any ideas. He's going to do it now. He's going to go make a video about it. I know. Paul's got some crazy ideas.

[00:49:55] But I think it's interesting, and I really appreciate. I'll get into this more of my thoughts of how it played, but I will just say here, I think this paddle overall is a bit of a miss, but I appreciate when companies do try and make something different and aren't afraid of just trying things, right? You know, so like the blue core from Diadem, even though that paddle, I think, underperformed drastically.

[00:50:22] I think I gave them props for at least attempting to use a different material for the edge guard, right? So things like that I find interesting and I really appreciate. So this essentially, this rail system and these weights, I should have looked it up. I don't know exactly how much each weight weighs. Yeah, keep talking. I'll get info. Yeah, I want to say it's like two grams, but this basically, this entire system is basically just copy pasted from their golf clubs, right? It's like their golf drivers have almost an identical weighting system where you just have

[00:50:51] a little hex key and you can slide it and move it up and down. It's basically the same thing. So what I will say is getting into the stats of this paddle, it's a chunky boy. It's heavy. So I did a few different swing weights. I'll say the twist weight, you know, basically stays the exact same because the weights are moving just vertically up and down. You're not moving it more towards the center or further out.

[00:51:17] Yeah, it's already just, that's what I'll say is that they at least picked a great spot for the weight system. Like Adidas is the throat and the top three and nine is like what is basically going to impact the paddle the most. Yep. So twist weight is around 7.5, which is pretty impressive for an elongated paddle. But then we get into how heavy this thing is. So with both the weights at the lowest setting towards the handle, the swing weight is 119.93.

[00:51:47] So basically 120. So at the lightest swing weight setting, it's already 120. That's pretty heavy. Then you start moving the weights up. I put both the weights in the middle. Now there's only nine different slots or channels. So I had to pick either the weights being closer to the bottom or closer to the top. And I chose closer to the bottom. It came out to about 123. So went up about three points. Then both weights all the way at the highest point at the top. It was just under 128.

[00:52:17] Basically 128 if you round up. Yeah. It's, it is a heavy paddle. Yeah. Now what I will say is it has to be because if it wasn't, it being edgeless would feel atrocious. Yeah. I think when it comes to playability, the sweet spot and feel of the paddle is, I'm not saying good. I'm still anti-edgeless. It's not great. But for an edgeless paddle, it's pretty good.

[00:52:46] If we keep it in that vacuum of just edgeless, I actually feel like it performs better than most of the other edgeless paddles. The only other one I could think of is a Lux, but they don't share the same space because this is more all court power. This actually hit pretty hard. I think sweet spot was okay. Obviously off center hits were pretty bad. Spin was good. I felt like I could shape the ball really well, but it being spray grit, I feel like it's probably going to last. It's not going to last.

[00:53:16] It's going to wear pretty quick. Dinking, super easy. I feel like dinking with pretty much anything is not that difficult. But when it comes to resets, drives, drops, that's where you start to spread the gap. So overall, I will say this is a miss. I would not recommend this to anybody. It'd be pretty tough for me to play with it, mainly because of shape. I think the shape was a very odd choice.

[00:53:45] I think if they just changed the taper of the throat and added more handle length, maybe could have been better. But then obviously that might change or drastically change playability or sweet spot feel. So again, I like that they tried this. And for a big company, like I love the brand Mizuno. I played with their baseball gloves. They have really incredible golf clubs. Wait, did I say? No, I said glove. Yep. I'm losing my mind here. I think Mizuno is a great brand.

[00:54:15] And for their first attempt at a pickleball paddle, it's not the worst attempt we've seen. I also appreciate they added their signature blue color to the butt cap. It's pretty cool. I would have liked to see that more across the paddle. So, but yeah, not that that matters. Yeah. So I looked it up. The official launch isn't until like around May 18th. So I actually don't have pricing or anything on this. So I feel like that, you know, if you find out this is like 260. I mean, even at 200, it's like, I mean, there's no way. I mean, it's Mizuno. It's a big brand. It's going to be. It's going to be like Callaway. It'll probably be expensive.

[00:54:45] I'm going to say, here's my guess. 229.99. Okay. That's going to be my guess on the price point. 229.99. So with this, I'm just going to say this before we move on here, probably already spent more time on it than we really needed to. But yeah, the, you know, companies are trying to do more with this internal weighting system or something built into the paddle. And I'm not entirely opposed to it. And there may be something that works in the future.

[00:55:11] But I do think that something that is like permanently fixed to the paddle like this, and you're just adjusting weight up or down. I do feel like that is worse than if you were to just customize it yourself. Yes, most people don't know how to customize their paddle or don't know the benefits. But I also feel like, okay, with this, once you lock the weight in place, you find what you like, you're usually not changing it very often. So I feel like having something adjustable quick isn't actually that big of a benefit. And weighted tape, not that expensive.

[00:55:41] Once you've gone through like a roll and you kind of understand the basics of weighted tape. I don't feel like it's that hard to make adjustments really quick. So I'm just starting to think that a system like this is probably not as beneficial as pickleball. But what if you're like, hey, I want to have as big of a sweet spot as possible. And you put it here where it is in the middle or towards the bottom of the throat, try and increase sweet spot. And then you're like, there's my double setup. Then you're like, I'm playing singles. Now you move all the weights to the top.

[00:56:09] And now you've got more plow through, better drives. And now it's a single setup. People will just have two paddles. They'll just have two paddles. Hey, but not everybody. All right. And they're that serious about tournaments. They got two paddles. Here's the thing. I fully agree with you. I'm just trying to be devil's advocate here and come up with some reason. Yeah. Again, I think it's unique. I think it's cool. And I applaud them for trying. I agree. It's a very different idea from what we've seen.

[00:56:37] I do want to hit it myself just to see for an edgeless paddle how it is. Hopefully, you know, my back is good this week. It's not great, but I'd say better than expected. I had some pretty low expectations when I first saw it. Going to go real quick on this one because it only just came out today. And it was like very last minute. This was kind of paused. And I guess it's back. That would be the Padletech Honeyfoam. Yep. We have the 16 millimeter here.

[00:57:05] I'm just going to say if you want more information, you can go over to their website. This is an elongated paddle. I imagine they will have other shapes at some point, but it's the standard, you know, elongated shape you're used to handle like taper at the throat is maybe a little higher. So you get a little more room. Yeah, they did change the. So I believe if I remember correctly, they got rid of the TKO CX shape and replaced it with this. It is very, very similar. But just ever so slightly different.

[00:57:35] Yeah. So we actually will. I'll have more info potentially this week after you hear this pod. Maybe I'll do like a first impressions on this because. I think my opinion of it might actually be a little bit different now than it maybe would have been a little bit ago based on its feel profile. I do think at 250, it's still going to be a little bit on the pricey side for what it is with no longer lasting texture or anything like that. Um, but we will talk more about this.

[00:58:03] Also, to my knowledge, the 16 millimeter is USAP approved, but the 14 millimeter actually didn't pass USAP PB core, but it passed UPAA. So the 14 mil is approved for, uh, UPAA, but not USAP case that's relevant to people out there who are going to buy. So yeah, we'll talk more about this soon, but I just wanted to mention it. It did come out. If you're a fan of paddle tech and have been waiting for them to, uh, get a new paddle. Here it is. Nope. Sweet. All right, man.

[00:58:32] I said there's, if we can get this done in a timely fashion, honestly, we could even just end it here, but no, we won't. No, we won't. We give the California people what they want. Dude. For real. Okay. We're going to talk about the state of pickleball paddles in 2026. We do this every year. Kind of just a fun check in on, Hey, where's the market at? Where was it? And where might it be? How fast things change. We could do this every quarter. Probably. Maybe every six months. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the first one, which is certification.

[00:58:59] So this has obviously changed a lot since I would say even last year, but especially 2024. For sure. Uh, UPA has made big improvements just across the board. Their spin testing. I think paddles being allowed to be grittier than USAP has also allowed some of these longer lasting textures we've seen, like from Honolulu, like from 11624. The 11624 is like very well proven at this point to be considerably more durable than regular raw carbon fiber.

[00:59:28] And so I think that is a very big net positive for the industry as a whole. I do think the whole, is it UPA only? Is it USAP? Is it dual certified? That is disappointing in that. I think there's some confusion for the market, but if it does force USAP to eventually do a spin test and they use similar protocols, that would be a net positive. We can just have rougher paddles that have longer lasting grit. So people don't have to just replace a paddle so frequently. Yeah.

[00:59:58] That's awesome. I think that is great for the industry. USAP is still working on their spin test, right? Yeah. Wasn't that supposed to be released like a year ago? Yeah. Crazy. So UPAA, I feel like last year, everyone was very skeptical, rightfully so. Yeah. I think they've become, they've improved in a lot of ways that are really important and it feels like USAP has not changed anything. I mean, particularly, I mean, even if you just look at like the grit issue in pickleball with

[01:00:24] most paddles being over the legal limit, it's like, dude, this has been a problem since I've been in pickleball. How is this still a problem? I know. And then brands who do abide by those rules are just punished. Yeah. So it's, I think from that standpoint, like UPAA has started to really win in that way, which is like not a year ago. No one would have been saying that. I completely agree. No one was like, hey, UPAA, like that's cool. Yeah.

[01:00:51] UPAA definitely caught a lot of flack early on and I will applaud them for implementing definite improvements. And, you know, it just gives more, you know, some confidence that they're going to continue to make improvements. They're at least trying, right? They're listening. They're making strides forward where USAP feels like they hear criticism and go, no, we know better than you. And then don't do anything. Yeah.

[01:01:19] So I will applaud UPAA for listening and making improvements. And even if you're looking at like the grit issue, right? This is a whole other kind of conversation that I think would be interesting to have maybe at another point. But I think there's been this worry that, oh, if we went rougher than what USAP allows, which is kind of silly because most, a lot, I'm willing to bet you most of the paddles on this wall would fail a stare at test at varying degrees, some better, some worse. Yeah. But most would probably fail.

[01:01:48] And then with paddles like the 11-6-24 and the Honolulu, considerably rougher than what USAP rules allow. I do not feel like, while I think spin has gotten better with those, I also don't think it has even remotely come close to breaking the game. Yeah. Which I think has kind of always been the main concern. Like, oh, if we let it be too rough, it's going to break the game. But as it has been implemented currently, not even close in my opinion.

[01:02:16] I haven't played one of those paddles and went, oh my gosh. Like, I mean, looking at the wall, like the grittiest paddle over there is probably the Elite X Faklos paddle. Mm-hmm. And yeah, it's not anywhere near game breaking. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's good. Drops are really spinny. I can shape the ball really well and drives, but it's not like anyone's going, oh my gosh, get that paddle out of your hands. Yeah. Like, it doesn't affect it that much. Yeah.

[01:02:43] So I do think that is a reason for that just to be reconsidered because I don't think extra gritty paddles have been the problem that maybe people a long time ago expected them to be. That's not to say it couldn't become problematic, but I think in the current way it's been being done by UPAA, it's working and USAP's policing is not working. Yeah. I mean, what I'll say- And the brands would agree with that as well. Yeah. What I'll say is, and I've said this a thousand times, people are really good.

[01:03:10] You're probably getting sick of hearing me say this, but I think we have an acceleration issue in pickleball. Not a power issue, but an acceleration issue. I think we need to slow the acceleration of paddles down and increase spin. Just let grit go wild. Let brands come up with crazy ways to add spin to paddles, but slow down how quickly you can accelerate the ball with short swings, right? No one is complaining about like, I mean, yeah, people can hit drives really fast, even with

[01:03:40] soft paddles, right? Like you give Jack Sock a Lux or a Vatic prism. He's going to hit the ball hard from the baseline, but no one's really complaining about that. People are complaining about insanely fast shots from a tiny swing and how quickly that ball can accelerate in 14 feet. Yeah. Right. That's the issue. So if you slow that down, then, you know, and counters get too crazy, right? That's why the men's game is so slow because people are afraid to speed up and counters will

[01:04:10] just end the point quickly. I think that could solve a lot of issues in pickleball. You know, let people swing as hard as they can from the baseline and shape the ball like crazy because no one is complaining that that's too fast. Yeah. But at the kitchen line, that's where we have the issue. Right. Which even now, like, I don't really feel like I wish we'll come back to power later because that's something we'll get to later. But let's let's revisit that because I think there's some good stuff to talk about there. Yeah.

[01:04:37] But if we're talking about, you know, what is the current state of the paddles? Like, what is the build that is popular? What is currently kind of like the winning formula? I think anyone listening to this podcast could probably predict this some form. Well, it doesn't even have to be foam, but let's just some core polymer or foam in the middle and foam around the edge and EVA ring. That is the winning formula in pickleball currently. Either a horseshoe shape or a full ring. That is like definitively what wins.

[01:05:06] And I would I would lean towards more foam in that way. I do still think Gen 3s are popular and I get why they're popular. But clearly we're seeing more and more of the market. The brands themselves shift towards those designs. And that's just what players gravitate towards. Right. So, yeah. Foam and EVA rings is like clearly the build. I mean, like most of these paddles on this wall, they're all using some foam of foam center and EVA ring around the edge. How the whole YOLA thing will play out with everyone, we'll see.

[01:05:35] I don't really know. Like Paddle Tech was named in that lawsuit, but it seems like they're moving forward with their paddles. Yeah, they don't seem to be too scared. Like, did they figure something out? Did they come to an agreement? Who knows? Right. Um, no idea there. But, uh, yeah. That, like, clearly seems to be the defining characteristic of paddles. I do think Gen 3s, while still popular, obviously YOLA has theirs. Uh, it does feel like, you know, I feel like of all the YOLA launches I have seen, I'd be

[01:06:02] curious if they're feeling this internally as well, but it feels like one of the weakest launches I've ever seen. Like, I'm thinking the original YOLA, huge. They signed Ben, obviously. And that paddle was awesome. I, at the time, yeah, it was incredible. It was so good. Like, heavy, but it was so good. The second one, I think YOLA had great momentum. Even though there were other good competing Gen 2s, I still think that one was a hit for YOLA. Most people upgraded to that. Gen 3s, we obviously all know how that panned out. Everyone went and bought one.

[01:06:32] The mod, the 3s, like, very well popular. The 4, I would say even when the 4 came out, everyone who was playing a YOLA went and bought it. I think that's, the 4 is when people really started to complain, but people still bought it. Yeah. You heard a lot of complaints online about the 4, oh, it's too overpriced, it's not that different, blah, blah, blah. They're not changing anything. And yet you still saw them everywhere. Yeah. And now the 5, I mean, I've been to a handful of tournaments now, and I have not seen a lot of 5s.

[01:07:02] I'm seeing, you know, a handful here and there, but not like when the 4 came out. Yeah. I feel like it's not as much as the 4. I still see them. Yeah. All over. Right. But I feel like it's a lot less to me than what I've seen. Maybe that's the circles I'm in. I don't know if I'd say a lot. Less. But definitely less. So it does make you wonder like, okay, was that because it wasn't a big enough change? Is it just because it's a Gen 3? And people are like, look, we got a lot of Gen 3 options now. Obviously, RPM has been popular. So it's like, where...

[01:07:32] Three years in a row, the same thing with price increases. People are probably getting pretty sick of it, you know? So that could be a sign that Gen 3 is declining with all the foam options coming. It could be because of the price increase and it wasn't that different. I personally think it's more because the performance of those $100 paddles has creeped in on the premium brands and people are just getting sick of these price hikes. Yeah. You know?

[01:07:58] And they're fine with spending a third of the money on a lesser known brand. I'm very excited to revisit this next year. Uh, just in terms of foam versus Gen 3. Uh, and again, look, I think it can be, you know, everyone can argue endlessly on like, oh, foam or Gen 3, whatever. I don't even think that matters that much. I think as time continues to go on, I think more and more people are going to keep shifting towards foam. I think we're already seeing that and we're going to get to that in just a second here with the pro game.

[01:08:26] But there's clearly still a very defined line between some players. They're like, look, Gen 3 is what I play the best with. That's what I want. And other players are like, look, Gen 4 is fine enough for me now. But I do still think there's that divide. But instead of like, you know, maybe beginning of this year where Gen 3 was maybe more popular, I feel like that line is shifting the other way now. Yeah. Right. This is what it feels like amongst, you know, friends. I see what they're using on the courts, tournaments, so on. Okay.

[01:08:55] Let's talk about pros because we did do a bit of a survey on this or go figure out what pros were using for the last two PPA tournaments. So the last time we talked, I actually can't remember when we said this on the pod, the exact split. I want to say it was a 60-40 split. 60% were Gen 3. 40% were Gen 4. For men's, it's 50-50 now. Really? Yeah. So we have a 50-50 split, at least for the last couple tournaments. So again, we're seeing foam creep into it more now that pros, because before they just didn't have a lot of foam options. Yeah.

[01:09:24] A year ago, everyone was like, why don't pros use foam? Everyone's saying foam is so good. Why don't they use it? There were virtually no foam options for most of the brands. Yeah. Yeah. Carbon had foam. And I feel like a big chunk of that 50% of Gen 3 users are because they're signed by Yola. And they don't have a foam option. We're going to get to that with women's because the numbers get a little bit more interesting there. But it does seem like when a company introduces a foam option, the players switch to it. Yeah.

[01:09:53] At least that's what we're seeing with a lot of them. Right. So when we go to women's, it is not a 50-50 split. It's all over the place. It is Gen 3, 63%. And this was of, just to be clear, this was of the top 30. Yeah. Because it's just easier to get the top 30 and figure out what everyone's using. Top 50, some of the players' socials are harder to find and figure out what they're using. But so top 30, 63%, 19 players using a Gen 3 on the women's side. Gen 4 was 30%.

[01:10:20] And then 7% are roughly Gen 2. Hard to say exactly, but believe it's a Gen 2. Yeah. And then I was like, okay, well, so of those Gen 3s, what percentage of those are Yola? And it was, or actually, hang on. This might have just been, was this of, 43% of those were Yolas. So a lot of Yolas in there. And it's crazy. And then, of all the Gen 3s used, none of those companies offer a foam paddle except one player

[01:10:49] who was using Luz, which was Kaylin Christian. I believe she was using a glider, and they obviously do have a foam option. Yep. But of all the other ones, they just don't have foam options. Yeah. So kind of what we were talking about, it's like, we don't know if they would prefer it or not because it's not even an option. Right. We'll see a year from now. What's the split going to be there? But I do think the argument of, oh, pros only prefer Gen 3, none of them like foam. I feel like that argument is getting a bit tired or like, it's just not even a valid argument anymore. This is not true.

[01:11:19] 50-50 on the men's side. If they all still prefer Gen 3, then why are we seeing foam keep creeping up? Yeah. And again, a huge percent of that 50% of Gen 3s is signed players to brands that don't have foam paddles. Franklin, Yola. Yep. Warping Point. Fakalos. Yep. Right? So like, they're just not, they don't have foam options. Yeah. So, you know, if someone like Franklin, you know, makes a foam option, let's see what they switch to. Yeah. Right. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Yeah. You know?

[01:11:49] I thought the warping point was foam, or at least the ones that these players are using. When I looked at their website, I did not find a full foam core paddle. I kept seeing all the images of paddles I kept looking at, and I thought I clicked through all of them. I thought that it was polymer. Hmm. Okay. I could be wrong there, but to my knowledge, they were all a Gen 3 style paddle. Okay. Yeah. We'll see how that pans out in a year.

[01:12:14] The next topic I do want to go onto, and this will be an easy, quick one, sweet spot. I think sweet spot is probably one of the lowest talking points of paddles that it has ever been, because basically every single paddle on the market that is coming out has a good sweet spot. Yeah. It is very rare that any of these, I mean, I'll read some off the wall here. Let's go the Loco.

[01:12:41] Let's go the Vapor Power 2, the EPP Turbo, the MPP Turbo, the Thrive Ignite, the Vatic Pro Vesel Power, the Friday Aura, the Aura Pro. Any of these recent ones, the J2CR, the Holbrook Fuse, none of those, in my opinion, have a sweet spot that I would tell someone, like, oh, yeah, you got to be a little concerned about this. It's just unusable. Like- Doesn't exist anymore. Some of them, yeah, they may get a little bit better with weight.

[01:13:09] I'm not saying they're perfect and you don't ever need to customize them, but I'm talking back in the day when you were looking at a Gearbox Pro Power Elongated, a Paddle Tech Bantam, some of those paddles where you're like, holy cow. A power air. A power air, where it's like, this is genuinely bad and you need to know it's bad. Yeah. That doesn't really happen anymore. It's pretty difficult to make a bad paddle. Like, even, you know, if you take a boomstick, like, yes, there are paddles with, like, elite sweet spots. The boomstick's one of them.

[01:13:36] But also, you slap that much paddle on a lot of these other paddles, they will also have a very good sweet spot. So, I think it's interesting just that sweet spot, you know, everyone wants a good sweet spot, but I would say it's not something that even needs to be mentioned. It only needs to be mentioned, like, when it's a problem. Yeah. Assume it's good unless told otherwise. Yes. At this point. Right? Like, every paddle's going to be to a point where it's not a complaint, unless it's something

[01:14:04] kind of like the Mizuno paddle, where it's like, okay, there's just some interesting choices made here, and it's not that great. Yeah. But otherwise, you know, if they use, like, the smallest feeling sweet spot that I can think of on the wall right now of a recent paddle. I can think of one, and you might not agree with me. Okay, well, what's yours, and then I'll say mine. The Joy. Okay, yeah, that I would agree. No, I did agree. I had a pretty rough time using that paddle.

[01:14:32] Yeah, the Pickleball Apes Joy S. I agree. That one, I was like, this, you know, it's been a while since I've felt something that, like, the sweet spot was this difficult to use. Yeah. And then the one- Without adding weight. Yes. The one that came to my mind that I wouldn't say was bad, but I would for sure prefer to add weight was the Volair Shift. Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it improved. But that's, you know, partially could because it's a 14 millimeter. And that's expected. Yeah. I think for 14 millimeter options, the sweet spot's not that bad. Yeah.

[01:15:01] But I think there are better options in the 14 millimeter realm now. Um, but yeah, I would agree. I would agree with that. Yep. So yeah, sweet spot. I think it's, it's not a pretty mute point. Everyone's pretty good. Yeah. I feel like you'd have to do something special to have one that's bad at this point. Yeah. If you're using the formula everyone's using EVA and an EPP or MPP center, it's fine. Or even just, yeah, some variant of that. Yeah. Next up, long lasting grit.

[01:15:27] So obviously, yeah, I think everyone predicted that there was going to be a lot more of these. I do think now, uh, particularly with John who has, you know, been the fastest to get some of these grit results with his cannon. We're seeing kind of what the clear winners are. And a lot of that's lined up exactly with how my hitting has been going, which is great. I'm glad those line up and it's not different because that'd be a whole mess for everyone. Right. But like in my opinion, the clear winners right now, Honolulu, 11, 624 and Spartus.

[01:15:56] And then the rest are all varying degrees of better, but maybe not as good. Like in fine a grid definitely seems to be on the lower end. Uh, actually. I just think, I think with in fine a grid, the problem is there's a lot more variants from unit to unit where there's some that are like crazy gritty and have withstood time really well. And there's some that are just not like, maybe it's just thinking sprayed as well. And it wore out a bit quicker. Yeah. I'm, I've been testing mine.

[01:16:24] I think I've hit just about 50 games on my boomstick and we'll see if I even, I might even retest it now just to see how much it's dropped just to get a baseline. But, um, yeah, that one definitely seems to be on the lower end compared to like the ones I just mentioned. And then one that I've only gotten to do my serves on, uh, but the Aereo Cyclone, I, you know, a lot of questions about this one. This one has the nanograph. I want to get to this one.

[01:16:48] I think John has kind of already shown this one seems to be, I can't remember exactly from his chart, but potentially one of the least durable, not just raw carbon fiber, long lasting grits. And I do think from what we're seeing that just because someone claims a longer lasting texture does not mean it will perform the same as everything else. So I, I'm seeing a lot right now where a company like the one with a nanograph, everyone goes, Hey, it's got a longer lasting texture. That's awesome.

[01:17:17] But no one's actually talking about like any results except like John. So it's like, I don't think we can give credit just cause you say it has longer lasting. Oh yeah, for sure. No, there has to be testing done till, till credit is given. So I think you can claim whatever you want, right? I can claim, I can come out with a paddle and say, it's mine. I can claim this gets 10,000 RPM or last forever or last forever, but does it? Yeah. You know, that's not true. So you get, it has to be testing done. So I think we should stop giving credit before it's due.

[01:17:46] Even just, you know, before John's stuff came out, like I've looked at this under a microscope and I just feeling this area cyclone. It to me just kind of feels like raw carbon fiber. So I was already skeptical to begin with. And then John's, John's results showed at war pretty quickly. We'll find out from some real world hitting if that happens as well. I might even just go through a session or two and see if it kind of matches the pace of raw carbon fiber. Cause we've seen that those tend to lose about five to 10% surface roughness in one session. Yeah.

[01:18:17] So, you know, you can find out pretty quick with this, if it's going to perform similarly, I think. But I just wanted to point out with that, that not all of them are equal. There's clearly some winners and some that are better than raw carbon fiber, but not better, better. Yeah. We've got three standout ones. And then the rest are kind of like just varying levels of like, okay. Yeah. Like, you know, maybe better, but not like going to last like some of these. So I'm sure by the end of the year, we'll have even more, some more winners, some more losers, obviously.

[01:18:47] But huge net positive that we have this. Better for everyone. Best guess on which brand is going to come out with the next well-performing, long-lasting texture. Well, you know what's interesting? What I want to know with some of these longer lasting textures, because if you think about some of this, it's not always a fair comparison between all of them, because think about the ones that are UPA approved versus only USAP approved. Right.

[01:19:16] Look, at the end of the day, I think what matters is which one lasts longer and which performs better. Right. Like, okay, it lasted longer or it didn't last longer. But if let's say we had, we were testing a UPA boomstick or we were taking a six zero paddles, which I think they were saying in my discord that they are going to have a UPA diamond tough. Will they perform the same when they're UPA versions and the grit is larger and there

[01:19:44] is more of it for it to have to wear down? That's what I'm curious about. I'm just surprised the Spartus got USAP approved. Yeah. I mean, it's with how well it's been performing. It's like, is it because of the friction on it? Like, is it right? I don't know. Like that is the only one I think so far that is not UPA only and is performing really well, performing really well. Yeah. Because the other ones is, you know, Honolulu's blue grit and hex grit. And those are only UPA approved. Yeah.

[01:20:10] You UPA versus USAP being just completely different rules is like one side's allowed to bring a butter knife and the other side's allowed to bring a bazooka. Yeah, exactly. Like it's just not a fair fight. So that's why I'm curious if more brands are shifting that way, do the results of these tests change? Right. So we'll see. But if I had to guess just in my mind of thinking who owns, runs the brand, the person and like I could imagine could come up with something really good.

[01:20:39] I bet we got to be thinking the same company. Gearbox. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like if anyone's going to come out with something really good, well-performing, long-lasting texture, it's going to be Rafa from Gearbox. I'd like to think if they just did something like UPA where the rules are, because right now a lot of the stuff is basically just USAP approved. Yep. Yeah. I'm curious if they would do something. If Gearbox moves towards just using the UPA rules and designing inside of that rule

[01:21:06] set, I bet Rafa could come up with something pretty crazy. I would agree. So, all right. That's longer lasting grit. We'll see where it continues to go. But I think right now we're seeing some very promising results that I think will be good for the industry. Yeah. It's going to be awesome. Yep. I agree. Okay. Let's talk power levels. So we can kind of come back to what we're saying. I think with where power is now, after all of the rules and all the different caps have

[01:21:32] been in place, I think we have largely seen it level off in terms of we don't see any crazy outliers. I think we're in a pretty healthy spot. I don't think most people are usually complaining about power or paddle. Power paddles being much of a problem like we were a couple years ago. Yeah. It's definitely a lot less. The only one I can think of is like Cyclone, Boomstick, Inferno. Yeah. Those are the only ones that are, you know, like Locos up there.

[01:22:02] But people don't really complain that much about it. Right? I've only seen a few videos. Like I saw one video online of some guy complaining about someone using a cyclone. Yeah. I think I saw that video as well. But that's about it. Yeah. It's not much. I can feel the difference when I play against some of those battles. Like Infernos in particular, when I do play against those, I'm always like, oof, this guy can hit the ball pretty hard. Yeah. But it's never so much that I feel like I can't play the game.

[01:22:28] Whereas back in the day with the mod and the gearbox, it did feel that way. And maybe it was because it was newer, right? That level of power was new to the game. We just got so used to it. Yeah. You know, we've had it for so long. And now it's just like, okay, we know how to play against it. Whereas maybe we didn't used to. But I don't feel like it's, no one really talks about it anymore. No one's like, oh man, I can't play because this paddle is too hot. Like you're going to hurt me. I don't feel like we see that as much anymore. Yeah. So I think that is interesting.

[01:22:56] And if anything, I almost feel like because of the lifetime ball compared to last year, now that we've had a full year on it, I feel like we're almost seeing people like myself included going, you know what? I actually don't need the hardest hitting thing anymore. If you give me something like maybe in the low tier power, almost even all core, like I'll be happy. Like I don't, like I said in my MPP turbo review that just came out, I think it's a good paddle. I would recommend it to a lot of people, but for myself, it's too much. And I actually don't play that well with it. Yeah.

[01:23:26] Even though I can recognize it's good. So I almost feel like there's a pullback a little bit of like, not everyone needs a hyper power paddle. Right. Which is a, probably never thought I would be saying that given how the industry went about a year and a half ago, two years ago, where it felt like you couldn't compete unless you had one. But I feel like it's, you know, there was just this big arms race of every brand trying to come out with the most powerful paddle. And I think people are just kind of getting bored of it. Yeah. Well, I think they're realizing, Hey, you know what?

[01:23:53] When everyone's got one, like I don't necessarily win cause I can hit the ball harder. Yeah. And also just, you know, it gets stale and everything becomes the same, right? We're seeing that cyclone inferno. They're all just, they start to feel the same. Yeah. Yeah. Very similar. So I do think obviously depending on your region, we've talked about this ad nauseum, but the ball you use and the temps matter a lot. We are in slightly colder climate, uh, you know, in the summer it does get pretty warm

[01:24:19] here, but like getting hot now we play a lot of indoors with the lifetime ball. That's very different than someone in Frank, uh, Florida with a Franklin ball. Yeah. So that doesn't mean power paddles are irrelevant. If you play with a Franklin. Yeah. I would say, I don't think I would have much of an issue with a turbo, uh, MPP turbo with a Franklin for sure in the hot weather, but indoor when it's colder, 60 degrees and a lifetime ball. Yeah. I do have a hard time. So keep that in mind. But I think power pretty healthy spot overall for the game. I don't hear a lot of complaints anymore better than it used to be.

[01:24:50] But like I said, I would like to see the acceleration slowed down, right? How springy and poppy these paddles are. I think we could lower that and then allow higher grit so we can shape the ball. I think you're going to get to see people move laterally more. People are going to have to be a little quicker. Um, there's going to be more shots below the net. You're going to see more rolls and flicks out of the air. So I just feel like it would add a lot more to the game. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see if that ever happens.

[01:25:19] Then people just ripping it at each other. I think it would be interesting to try and watch them go down again just because I think you would wipe a lot of paddles off the market, which I think would be problematic in that it's like, oh, let's say you lowered it, you know, pop wise. Let's say you got rid of the Inferno, the Cyclone, the Boomstick, the Loco. Like, let's say, you know, you drew the line in the sand wherever. Kind of frustrating to have to go through that again where we have to like, oh, now we have, I'm just going to make up a number here. PB core 0.40 approved. Yeah. That would kind of suck just for the industry. It would.

[01:25:50] But at the same time, we see this happen in other industries like baseball. Dude, the amount of different bat certifications is insane. And how many times it changes like from when I played in high school and the bat certification back then to now. Dude, the bats I used back then are not legal anymore. Sure. So like it changes all the time. Yeah. And would it suck, especially because we have so much that would have to change in pickleball? Yes.

[01:26:19] But if it ever becomes something that's deemed necessary, you just kind of have to do it. Well, sure. Yeah, if it was deemed necessary. I just feel like right now, not much of a problem. So it's like, whatever. Yeah, that's fair. But okay. I got like 20 minutes before I got to get out of here. So let's cruise here because we got a handful more. Yeah. All right. Paddle feel, I think, has become a much bigger topic this year, more so than it ever has been. I feel like paddles always felt a little different, but they kind of always followed a relatively similar formula.

[01:26:48] And John Q kind of introduced this, made a lot of sense. I mean, we were all using these terms, but actually putting it on a chart made sense. So basically, John introduced, you know, the like X and Y axis where it's like on the horizontal axis, you have stiff and hollow. And then top to bottom, you have soft and stiff. Just a way to kind of like position paddles and explain because some are more stiff than others. Some are more hollow than others. And it's like, okay, well, I can kind of roughly plot it on this chart and say, hey, a boomstick is way up here.

[01:27:17] And, you know, a vapor power two is a little bit lower and it just helps the viewer, the audience understand better. Like, ah, this is what he means when he says this and I can visually see it versus trying to picture what someone has in their head. Yeah. I think it's been very good having this chart, though. I do think in some ways, maybe this is just the nature of paddles and not necessarily due to the concept of the chart. It's gotten a little complicated in that not everyone agrees on how a paddle feels.

[01:27:44] Sometimes you'll hear someone say, oh, I think this is really stiff and hollow. Or maybe I think this is soft and hollow. Or, you know what? I don't think it's quite as stiff and hollow as you think it is. And I feel like maybe sometimes that could be confusing for like an audience. You know, if you're watching reviews, you're like, well, which is it? Obviously, you can kind of read between the lines and go, okay, well, five people said this, one person said this, or five and three, whatever, and go, okay, well, if most of them agree, maybe it's this.

[01:28:10] But I think paddle feel now that power and spin are becoming maybe a little more normalized, the next thing is how your thing feels, right? Doesn't matter how powerful or how much spin it gets if you hate it every time you hit it, right? If every paddle felt like a metal bone, but it had the best spin and power in the world, I don't know that people would want to use it. Wouldn't be very enjoyable. So I think paddle feel might be one of the next things where maybe with these quadrants, companies can kind of go, you know what? We have a stiff and hollow.

[01:28:39] Well, let's make sure we have a soft and dense as well. And then, you know, fill out whatever category. So it's like every range of player is covered and at the different power levels. Maybe that becomes more of a thing when the rules and regulations are like, well, we can't make it more powerful. We can't make it spin more. What now? Right. I think that is another area that companies could start exploring more. Um, cause even myself, like I don't mind stiff and hollow paddles, but man, like some of the soft and dense paddles, I'm like, Ooh, these actually like feel good. Like I like when I play with this, you know, for sure.

[01:29:09] So I just think that's an area companies could start exploring. Yeah. I mean like the, the regular aura from Friday is a great, you know, dense and soft paddle or the coral. I really want to play with that more. Yeah. The aura. Cause I think I might, I'd probably like that. You'll probably, I think you're really going to like that with some weight. Yeah. I think you're really going to like the aura. Yeah. So, okay. Okay. That's paddle field. Next up durability. The only thing I'd really have to say on this is, you know, we obviously know gen three still break.

[01:29:36] Uh, MPP has been disbonding more than EPP from what we've seen. It seems like maybe there's some potential fixes. We'll see if those actually hold up longterm, but I still think it's less than gen three core crushing. Oh, I agree by so far. But I do think if you look back to, you know, when the Genesis launched and like disbonding was the worry, but it like never happened. Now we're starting to see that happen more and more with the MPP paddles. I don't think we're ever going to have a paddle that just can't or won't break.

[01:30:06] I agree. There will always be something about a paddle with every design and look, prove me wrong and we'd all be happy. But I think everything can and will break. We are smashing a, you know, pretty firm pickleball, you know, a wiffle ball materials are all just going to break down over time. You know, the amount of hours that we put on these paddles and how hard people are hitting the ball now and just how hard the actual ball is.

[01:30:35] There's always going to be something that's going to break. Yeah, unless something I feel like becomes like replaceable on the paddle, you know, to where it's like, you know, I think whether it's polymer or foam, things will change. Things will wear down. Maybe you won't have as much pop. Maybe you won't have as much power. Yep. And the heat and all these things we put it through. I do think it sometimes is like unreasonable to expect it to last a long time. But then I also look at something like a tennis racket and I'm like the frame of that is like I could still use what I used when I was a kid. But you think about it.

[01:31:02] It's, you know, we're working with plastic glue and foam. Yeah. Okay. I agree. Right. Yeah. These materials versus complete frames of carbon fiber and strings that replace or, you know, other, you know, leather and other sports like gloves and metal. Like it's just they're better materials that last longer. Yeah. Right. Or easier to fix. Right. Fixing a pickleball paddle doesn't really exist unless you're just gluing an edge guard. Agree. So I agree with that.

[01:31:31] I just think it's hard to solve every complaint that there could be. However, I would love if the Gen 4 paddles would not, especially with longer lasting grit. Can we not have like edge guard issues? Can we just like. Yeah. The most basic of issues. Those need to be solved permanently. But, you know, again, going back to what you're saying, it's like it's glue while you're smacking this paddle in a lot of different ways. Like how much can it do? Glue and plastic. And particularly with how these, you know, EVA ring foam paddles are designed.

[01:32:00] The most amount of flex and vibration in the face of a paddle is going to be that ring. Right. That has the most give. It's the softest point. It's going to move the most. When you have a small surface area of glue attached to that edge guard and that's what's flexing the most, it's pulling and ripping away on that glue constantly. So it naturally, that's what's going to break. Totally. I agree. Okay. One of the last few big ones price.

[01:32:29] So this, I mean, it price, I would say has actually been good for the last handful of years. I think in the state of pickleball paddles, I usually end up talking about this pool of lower priced budget paddles has gotten bigger and better. Yes. So I, you know, I often hear people complain about like, oh man, pickleball paddles are getting more expensive. This is ridiculous. They shouldn't be this expensive. And while I might even agree with that, I don't think that's wrong.

[01:32:55] I also think we have so many good a hundred dollar options now that it just, it's interesting to me when I hear this. Cause I'm like, guys, this exists. Like you don't have to spend 200 plus if you don't want to let's rattle them off. EPP turbo, MPP turbo, Friday fever, VATIC pro prism. You want control? You want all court? The saga from VATIC pro you, oh, you want power from VATIC pro. You got the VESOL power. Uh, you have the Luz cannon. If you want a gen three, you have the 11, six 24 original power series, which is now a hundred dollars.

[01:33:26] Also a gen three. I'm sure there's even more that I am missing, but like the cheap options all exist, cover a wide variety of players and they're all good. Yeah. You might want the $333 boomstick, but that doesn't mean those other hundred dollar paddles can't compete with the, that for sure. If it does everything you want. Yeah. You're going to have to spend that much money. But if you're a little less picky, like the a hundred dollar paddles perform just as good. I agree.

[01:33:55] I mean, MPP turbo, you're going to tell me that doesn't hit as hard as every other good power paddle and also have a really good sweet spot. Yep. You can't tell me it doesn't, you know? So I do think when people say that, I'm like, Hey, look, if you want a cheaper option, it exists and it might even be better for you. Yeah, I agree. You know? So the, the companies that are doing a great job in that price range are killing it. I hope they continue to kill it. Um, if Vatig does end up having a really good longer lasting grit at a hundred bucks, have fun.

[01:34:24] Other companies have fun. Obviously there's field profile and stuff in there, but like, that's going to be hard to beat up a lot of the market. Yeah, for sure. I think that'll be really good. So yeah, price is in, I think a really, really good spot. Um, next, I just want to talk about paddle shapes. Um, not to cut you off, but you're, you're running low on time here. We got nine minutes, baby. And we only got three left. We can do it. We can do it. Here we go. Okay. Paddle shapes.

[01:34:50] This is interesting because it's standardized a lot more than it had been in recent years. So obviously I would say hybrid is now like very definitively accepted as this is normal. Like hybrid in the back in the day, he was like, Oh, like no one has a hybrid, like six zeros got a hybrid and maybe like two other companies. But now hybrid is like pretty much every company's got a hybrid paddle. Uh, and if they don't, it's requested. Yeah. Now that I think Yola's done it, like what? Selkirk's like the only big one left out that doesn't have a hybrid.

[01:35:20] So that's pretty normally accepted. And then also just the way the shapes are built. I feel like we've kind of landed on a couple common designs and this is not a criticism. I think this is actually fine. We know what works and companies are leaning into it. Elongated paddle. The handle, basically the Perseus shape, 5.5 inch handle, pretty standardized there. The wide body, actually everything is kind of like standardized on a five and a half inch handle, right? Yeah. Like it works. We know it works.

[01:35:50] It's good. The hybrids have it. The wide bodies have it. But not all 5.5 inch handles are created equal. This is true. I, that is something I wish companies would fix how they measure. I wish that was more uniformly agreed upon. But generally speaking, you don't see like a 4.75 inch handle and like a six inch handle. It's like everyone kind of agreed that somewhere between 5.25 and like 5.6 is like the accepted range. Yeah.

[01:36:14] Like the, I want to say it's the Aura Pro, the wide body might be measured at 5.5, but let me tell you, playing with it, don't even, don't tell me that's a 5.5. Get out of here. Sure. Yeah. I feel like the elongated handles, like when they advertise it as 5.5, it probably is closer to like 5.6, 5.75 maybe. And the wide bodies, while they might actually be at 5.5, it's not the, it's not the same

[01:36:43] as the elongated 5.5, which is frustrating to articulate to viewers. Like exactly. Oh, this 5.3 actually feels like a 5.5, but this 5.6 actually feels like a 5.2, 5. Like it's kind of ridiculous, but it is a thing. But I think it's good. You know, we have the three shapes. We've kind of found what works across all of them. And if you prefer one of them, most companies are going to carry it. Yeah. Which is great and great to see. So honestly, the last two things I was going to talk about, I don't even think we really need to go into it.

[01:37:13] I was just going to say paddles have become more maneuverable. The really heavy end has mostly gone away. Elongateds are usually under 120. I think that's a great range. People can weight them up if they want. But yeah, just in a good spot. Paddles aren't super heavy. We're not seeing a lot of 125 plus. Yeah. Like I feel like we kind of used to back in the day. Right. So I don't know. That's what I think the state of pickleball paddles are right now. If we miss something that you want to hear us cover, let us know. But I feel like that is... We can definitely do a part two on this.

[01:37:42] There's just so much to talk about. Yeah. But I think that kind of covers most of it. You know, I think we're in a pretty good spot. I like where we're headed. I'm excited to see where it's going to keep going. Yeah. So if you made it this far, this one... We didn't think about word of the week. The word of the week this week is... We don't have anything good. Just say gotta go. Gotta go. Because I gotta go. You gotta go. I gotta get out of here. But thanks for listening, guys. We appreciate you.

[01:38:11] And we will catch you next week. Peace.