MLP Commissioner BREAKS DOWN Massive Changes

[00:00:05] Alright guys, we've got MLP Commissioner Samin on the show for I believe the third time. MLP is kicking off this week in Dallas and we've got a bunch of rule changes, format changes, and all that stuff. We also want to kind of ask like what is some of the future of MLP as well so nobody better than Samin to have on the pod.

[00:00:30] Appreciate it man, good to be back with you Zane. I know we've had a couple of these. Nico, it's my first time doing one of these with you so I'm interested to see how you stack up to your co-host over here Zane Navratil but at least from what I've listened to albeit minimal it sounds like you at least kind of know what you're doing. A little bit, a little bit, a little bit. So we'll see, we'll see. The jury's still out. A lot of positive, a lot of negative comments. Negative comments I think come from all of Zane's burner accounts trying to regain control of full host of the pod.

[00:00:58] What do you mean? Like Pickleball on social media is just full of optimists who love complimenting everyone, right? I haven't seen any of that negativity that you're referring to. Yeah, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's just directed as me. I don't know. Zane's never had anybody say a negative word about him ever. That's true. Yeah.

[00:01:18] Oh, all right. Well, yeah, let's so why don't we start with that? So you get any criticism over the new format that we've got this year? And so I'll kind of just quickly highlight it. But people will figure this out very quickly if they tune into MLP Dallas.

[00:01:35] But essentially, every weekend is two pools. Depending on where you finish in your pool, you get matched up with somebody from the opposite pool. The number one team faces off with the number one team from the other pool to basically determine a winner for the weekend.

[00:01:56] And you don't get points for individual matches. You get points for your overall tournament finish. Anything else to I think add or is that a decent high level? You nailed it. And like the way we've always framed it, at least internally, is the first three days of the event around Robin, right?

[00:02:15] You play everyone in your group. And it's upon us as the league and everything that we're going to be putting out on social media and on site and on the broadcast to sort of articulate like, hey, how are teams stacking up relative to each other during group play those first three days? And hopefully, you know, some of those fans that have been with us from the start of MLP remember like this is kind of similar to that format.

[00:02:36] And then on Sunday, you know, or excuse me, the last day of the event, day four, in this case, it's Monday. So we're going to call it Super Monday. But the rest of the year is gonna be Super Sunday. You're going to have the top teams from each pool face off. The ones play the ones, the twos play the twos, the threes play the threes and the fours play the four for event standings points.

[00:02:56] So I think the biggest criticism, you know, which is fair is you guys changed it again. Come on. But at the same time, I think we heard a lot of the feedback from last year, which was well, what's the importance of match 13 of 25 of the regular season where, you know, the slice are playing the night owls. And I think it was always hard to sort of articulate why that was important. And so I think the switch this format should really help just sort of create incentive structures throughout the entire weekend versus

[00:03:25] you know, teams maybe not as excited to play another team on a, you know, Friday afternoon. So that's kind of the ultimate goal here. But that's the way to think of it first three days round Robin last day of the weekend in this case, Super Monday. You know, you'll kind of get the best on best the second on second so on and so forth. Yeah, I see personally, I love Nico's my podcast. Okay.

[00:03:51] Um, no, I love it. I actually think that was a huge problem from, uh, from the, from the previous seasons was I think people were used to, uh, a winner on the weekends from old MLP. I also liked the idea of the regular season. This is kind of a, I think a very interesting hybrid model. Uh, I feel like I've started talking about a couple of years ago. So I like it, but Nico, anyway, your podcast.

[00:04:18] No, you basically took the words out of my mouth. I was going to say people love tournament format people. I think like the end of the season culmination last year, I think the biggest criticism I saw was like the regular season was a bit of a slog, right? It was just back to back to back and the games kind of blurred together. Now they're kind of contained in a weekend, uh, for a specific reason, you know, and then each weekend feels separate.

[00:04:41] So no one's saying that the PPA feels like a slog. And so I think you got the best of like MLP, uh, and PPA combined. So I like it when, when it came out, when the rule changes came out and the format changes came out, I said, I don't know what people are going to complain about. Speaking of the negative people on the internet. Um, and actually I think it was like the first time there was like nothing that anybody said that, you know, against these changes. Um, so, so I love it. Um, so I mean, one question I have for you is,

[00:05:10] does every team play each team the same amount of times in their pool? Um, or is there like a strength of schedule? Like when I, I'm a 49er fan and the first thing I do when I see the schedule is I'm like, Oh, the Niners just got boned. They have to, they have the hardest schedule and then they have to also travel like to Australia once and then to Germany once as well. But, uh, how does that work?

[00:05:30] Yeah. Um, the short answer is no, there isn't full parody in the schedule. It's actually more like the NFL, um, rooted in trying to keep teams going to events within their geography. So for example, we've got an event in Dallas and an event up, you know, in a couple of weeks in Austin, both the Dallas flash and the Texas Rangers are going to be at both of those events. And so you're sort of getting these like geographic concentrations that lead to not every team basically being at every event enough times to play each other.

[00:05:58] So, um, we did try to like Mac ensure that there wasn't, um, you know, an overweight in terms of how many teams play. The other ones are in the same group as the other ones as much as possible. But at the same time, like, look, it's impossible. I don't think it's fair to achieve full parody. No sport in America has like full schedule parody. And so as much as, you know, I got some gripes from team owners. I'm sure Zane will complain at some point that the slice have a tough pool. Like that's kind of the way we set it up.

[00:06:28] Every team is that much. Come on. I don't complain that much. Yeah. What team are you on? And then like, look, you're, you nailed it on the event winner part because formula one does like an amazing job of this, right? Where they have a season long, you know, race, um, both at the driver level and the team level. But then every weekend, you know, they're popping champagne in Monaco and, and Vegas and Miami and, um, everywhere else, Melbourne that they, they sort of have races at.

[00:06:56] And I think our goal is to emulate a lot of the same. You're going to see some fun, um, sort of visual cues, uh, that are handed out to the winner. I'll leave it at that. Uh, but this is kind of something that I'm excited about. And then our goal is like, how far can we take this in terms of the future of MLP? Like, is it going to look like this? Um, going forward, my hope is yes, we're, I'm sure we're going to learn some things, but I think we've settled on a format that makes a ton of sense for not just like the 2026 season, but also going forward.

[00:07:25] So you mentioned formula one, and this is just a, a thought that I had. Is there some way that you could have an individual chase, right? Not only you've got the, you've got the constructors, right? So you've got Mercedes, you've got a Red Bull, you've got whomever, but you've also got the individual drivers. You know, could you have something like that in, in MLP where there's actually a couple of individual winners based on how many regular season matches they win or something like that?

[00:07:54] Yeah. I mean, I think our MVP is a version of that, right? Like Georgia won the MVP last year. Um, and only one, the MVP comes out of a hat. Like you're, you have a vote. Nico has a vote. Like, don't blame, don't blame us. We don't do anything. We give it to the media. We give it to the teams and we give it to the fans. And last year, like 4,000 fans voted on who should be MVP. Um, and their, their vote actually, I genuinely mean this counted.

[00:08:21] Um, and so I think like you bring up an interesting point because in some respects, like every sports property is sort of always trying to balance individuals and like creating personalities versus team. And formula one is like a perfect embodiment of this because they aim to do both. And what I've seen at least in like tennis and golf and others is they're also trying to identify their team format, right? Golf.

[00:08:46] I live golf for a moment, RIP, but they've got TGL. They've got the Ryder cup. Tennis has the Davis cup labor cup. So I actually think like our individual format is the PPA. Like that's where you want to be the best. You want to race for something. You want to be really, really good at singles, gender doubles, mixed doubles. Like that's the format where you can shine and MLP is more about the team aspect. And I think one of the other sort of fun changes we made this year was there are no PPAs in between MLP.

[00:09:13] It's just straight MLP for, you know, effectively 14, 13 out of 14 weeks. And I actually think it's going to feel a lot like what playoffs feel like for other sort of large sports that are typically in the NBA's case, three months and the NFL's case, you know, two, two and a half months. And so I'm actually interested to see how that like condensed schedule leads to some more excitement and sort of the buildup to the finals in Central Park.

[00:09:38] Yeah. I mean, there's no more than a single week off in this entire time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, I think the, all the changes, even the way that you are able to do substitutes now with, uh, with the players, I had zero negative notes on anything. Uh, I think that like people can complain about things being changed, but like they're going to complain anytime something has changed. If it's changed for the better, like let's keep changing it.

[00:10:07] I don't, I think we should make changes to PPA. I mean, we did, we just had a new rule book come out led by, uh, Onisha, Courtney's involved, Howard, the whole crew. Like this MLB is still changing stuff, right? It's not as drastic as the way of the MLP has changed over the last couple of years, but MLP has run maybe 25, 30 total events ever. We've run 30 events total. Yeah. Including last. Yeah. So, right.

[00:10:35] Like let's keep changing until we figure it out and make it the best product. Yeah. So anyway, I've been excited about all of those changes. I'm excited about the, uh, single specialists coming in for dream breaker thinking like a, a Chris Hayworth coming in for Brooklyn or something like that. Those guys are going to be like the, the closers. Uh, I feel like they need like a closer intro song when they come out or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, what is it?

[00:11:03] Uh, Edwin Diaz for when he was on the mats had the sort of trumpet going. Oh yeah. Yeah. I like that. That's actually a really good idea. I'm intrigued too. I'm, you know, I'm curious for y'all's perspective because you'll probably talk to, it seems a lot more of how, um, if, if the level is close or they feel like it's close in singles, do you think teams actually go, you know, with the math?

[00:11:25] So examples in my mind that I've been thinking about a lot are like, uh, a Jeannie Bouchard for Jade or a, um, John Lucian Goins for Hayden. Like, I'm actually curious saying like, from your perspective, you're playing doubles, right? You played gender, then you played mixed. You consider yourself, I'm sure like a decent singles player, but if they come back, you know, and say, oh no, Tom Protec's jumping in for you. Like how, like, how does a player internalize that?

[00:11:54] Like, do you, is it better to talk about it before? Do you do it in the moment? Do you wait to see how they play it out? Like I'm interested to see how teams navigate this aspect of the game because the dream breaker lineup also doesn't get submitted until after the doubles are done. Like it's not something they're doing the night before they're doing it in the moment. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm really curious to see how teams utilize this. Like I think Brooklyn, obviously you got Hayworth on the bench.

[00:12:20] He's coming in for Riley a hundred percent, but it gets more interesting with like a Hayden and a, and a luch, right? Where the, the Delta between their skill level is not nearly the same as it would be between Riley and Chris Hayworth. And so do you prioritize somebody who on paper is a better player or somebody who's a little bit more warm and has gotten those nerves out of their system a little bit more through, through the doubles match? So I'm excited.

[00:12:47] My guess is if the duper is within a quarter point, I think you go with the player that's played already, I would guess. But on the flip side of that argument, you could say, you know, Hayden is not warmed up for singles. Luch has been over there playing singles for 45 minutes on court 17, right? Um, Hayden hasn't played singles since, uh, two weeks ago or something like that. Right. Yeah. So there's a counter argument to that too, but I'm excited to see the strategy surrounding that.

[00:13:17] Yeah. Especially when the moment gets bigger. Right. So it's one thing, you know, during round Robin play, maybe, you know, you got to a dream breaker against the team that you may feel like you didn't need to, had a dream breaker to win against. But so be it. What happens when there's like real pressure, right? It's like a super Sunday moment or it's the playoffs or it's the finals. Like I'm, I'm just really interested to see how this shakes out in a way where, um, I think it'll create like storylines for us. Um, you guys are gonna have plenty of content to talk about. I guess.

[00:13:47] I'm hoping, I'm hoping somebody gets upset that they get taken out of the game. You know, I talked to both Darren Klinger and Blaine Hovignier, and they said the exact same thing on separate occasions, which was four points of singles is nine day different than a singles match. Right. Like CJ Klinger can go in and dominate four points of singles, you know, just throw it all out, you know, empty the tank versus, you know, maybe, you know, Alex Crum can go in and actually win the game. Right.

[00:14:14] So, uh, I, I could not imagine a world where in an important game, Hayden says, yeah, go ahead, Looch. You know, you take my spot and I'll let you play. Like I, the personality is going to, you know, I think shine through. So I think to Zane's point, I think it's a combination of duper and then a combination of like mentality. Right. Like it depends on the person. Right. Riley's an obvious situation where he already knows what's happening. But, uh, when you have a Hayden or, you know, Zane is like, you know, whether it's you or Tom, right.

[00:14:43] It's like, um, you know, what your personality is like, you know, whether or not you're saying, give me the ball and you're not to take it out of my cold dead hands or, uh, you know, Hey, let's, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll succeed to succumb to whoever it is. So I think the other, I think, Oh, good. Good. Zane. No, all you, uh, the other aspect I'm like actually intrigued by too, is like sort of playing against that as well as the development piece. Cause like we're at a point now where I think for as long as MLP has existed, this is the most stable footing.

[00:15:13] I think the business or the league has ever been on. Right. I'm not even saying that to like self-fulfilling. And so what I mean by that is like what I saw in the draft is teams start to strategize for the future versus the today. And that hasn't always been the case. And so like an example of that in my mind was Tama on the black diamonds, you know, sort of everyone and Connor gets a bad rep, right. For not spending and everything else. Like the guy forked up what would, I would have said was probably above market at the time to secure a player like Tama.

[00:15:44] Obviously it's turned into a pretty, uh, at least on paper, good move so far. But I'm interested to see like how much does he allow Tama to play, develop, play gender, play mix, play singles, LC Hendershoot. Um, like you've seen teams start to LA, uh, like take chances on younger talent and see if they can develop them. That's the, and are they going to give them reps or are they going to say, Oh, Hey, look, I've, I've got a chance to make the playoffs here.

[00:16:11] Like I just want to put my best, you know, 20, 26 roster out there. Well, I think, I think the substitution rule as will help that. I think if the shocker up three zero, they're definitely putting LC in and goings in for their, for their two doubles or something or something like that. Right. So I think that gives interesting opportunities for, for some of those players, uh, which I think is a good thing too. I think, uh, seeing more of, of them is, is solid.

[00:16:40] Um, speaking of which up and coming players and whatnot, uh, I don't know anything about this. I don't know what you can, can or can't share about this, but we also just saw major league pickleball Asia announced, which is going to happen at the end of this year in November and December. Is there anything that you know about that or, or want to share about MLP Asia? Yeah, I'm pumped about that format.

[00:17:03] So we're still working through with our team over there, but high level, it's going to look a lot like champions league where you've got sort of country specific, um, competitions taking place, culminating in the winners of those countries, specific competitions coming to a single event. And so what we're trying to figure out now is, you know, how do we ensure like you've got top talent? Do we allow some of obviously the U S talent to go and compete over there? It's condensed.

[00:17:29] Um, but it's a, you know, sort of that feedback from us is, Hey, concentrate MLP over a specific time period versus, you know, in years past, we've like had those six events across the year and it was really difficult to follow. Um, and I think what'll be cool for us to see is how that format resonates with the audience over there.

[00:17:50] Cause I think over here you've seen, you know, it sort of draws a different type of energy, I guess you can say, um, when you're at MLP events versus, versus PPA. And I'm kind of curious to see if we get the same effect, but high level, like it's going to be awesome. Uh, obviously, you know, I both am supposed to say that, but I mean that. And I think that structure where you're leaning into like the country element is really cool. I think that's huge.

[00:18:14] I mean, having myself been over there a few times, you know, it was so funny in Da Nang last year where Ben and Dekel were playing on center court and there were four Vietnamese guys playing on, you know, court eight. And the entire crowd could not give less of a shit that Ben and Dekel were on center because they were all fired up about this Vietnamese rivalry match because there's rivalries between the different factions and the different paddle companies, different government associations over there.

[00:18:44] Like, I just think that the country by country stuff is probably even more important in, in Asia. So that'll be an interesting format. You know, I'm fishing for information because I want to see if I can play what, what nationality do I have to declare myself to, to, to go play? I've got half Indian. My mom's from India. You got, you got the right last name. So that's a start. Uh, no, I, uh, last name. Oh, really? I'm playing for the Czech Republic. It does kind of sound. Uh, Kapoor.

[00:19:13] I can, I, you know, I might change the name to Kapoor. That's a good Indian last name. Go Zane. That's what I meant. Go Zane Kapoor. And then we'll make you extremely eligible. You can team up with Armand Batia for, to, to lead the men's double squad. Yes, sir. All right. Deal. Um, all right. I know, uh, relatively, uh, tight podcast here. I wanted to talk about one other interesting new thing that did not get enough love. The paddle tech one point challenge at the beer city open.

[00:19:43] I'm fired up about that. Yeah. 256 players competing in a one hunt, one point challenge for $25,000. Uh, similar to what the Aussie open did. Uh, take us through, take us through a little bit of that. Yeah. This is going to be awesome. So, uh, during the beer city open in grand Rapids, our MLP mid season tournament Thursday to Sunday, we're running this, uh, the paddle tech, um, one point challenge. And we're gonna have 256 amateurs sign up.

[00:20:12] So there'll be broken, you know, or paired up. They can submit as a team into, you know, 128 doubles teams. Those teams are going to compete. Um, we've got activation courts. They're going to play a one point challenge at, so we'll put them all into a draw. We'll go from round of one 28 down to 64 down to 32 down to 16. So once we have 16 doubles teams left, that'll be about 32 players.

[00:20:38] We'll then pair the 32 with pros for, to kind of recreate a round of 32. And we're going to run that on championship court Saturday and Sunday. So towards the end, every team is going to be an amateur player and a pro player. And once we get down to the final and a doubles team wins, hold up. We split those two apart.

[00:21:03] Uh, the amateur gets to choose if they want to serve or receive and they play a singles point for $25,000. Um, so I'm pumped because it means if at minimum, uh, an amateur player has at least a 50% chance, right, of, of making it to the final and actually winning some money versus this just sort of being, uh, you know, a chance for pros to make more. Wow. That's, that's the end of the day. I'm trying to understand the same.

[00:21:31] And so I play this match, uh, you know, and then Zane decides, I'm going to get to the top 16. Zane sees the bracket and he's like, I can carry Nico to the finals and then just completely whoop his ass in one point, uh, after this. And then Zane takes all my money. Uh, yes and no. Cause you get to choose, right? Let's say you're playing the singles point and you're like, Oh, I want to serve or I want to receive. And you might say like, I want to receive like, and Zane lofts you an easy serve. Cause he's too nervous. Cause if he misses the serve, he loses.

[00:22:00] It is like, there's no, uh, there's no, there's one chance at it. You saw the Yannick center do that in the Australian open. So I actually think like, yes, there can be some player strategy on, Hey, do I pair myself up with a weaker singles player? But like you were talking about it in, in MLP dream breakers, it's just one point. Like, that's right. You, you just rip one forehand or one backhand down the line or, or, or the probe misses a serve and you just want yourself a bag. All right.

[00:22:29] I'm, I'm, I'm signing up. Zane, don't pick me. Don't worry. We're going to run it that way where the pros are going to draft from the amateur pool. So once we're down to the 16 amateur teams, you know, 32 amateur players, we're going to take the pro players that have been nominated and say, okay, like go down the slot list and draft who you want to play with. So we're hoping that that leads them to kind of scout a little bit as well. Ooh, who gets the first pick? How do you determine who gets the first pick? Is that drawn out of the hat?

[00:23:00] You gotta have a, it'll be tied to the title partner. Let's put it that way. I did see, I did see that. I was like, I need Zane to send me a new paddle tech paddle. Cause I saw the team that has the most paddle techs gets to choose server receive on the one point. So, uh, I'm buying one right now. Nico's going to, you know, bring the paddle tech up to check paddles with the referee with the little approved sticker. Is this UPA approved? Yep.

[00:23:30] Tosses it to the side. Go use his, you know, illegal Ignato which paddle or whatever he's using these days. Exactly. And look, it looks like we're going to be at a point where we're actually going to have like easily filled the 128, you know, the doubles teams, the 256 players. So if you haven't signed up yet, like you should sign up because it's filling up quick and the proceeds, you know, it's a $5 registration for you go to the Belknock Park Foundation. So I think it's an amazing cause and it should be a really, really fun event.

[00:23:59] And I just can't wait for the nerves when we get down towards the final rounds. Yeah. Same here. Well, Samin, we got one other question for you and then we'll let you go. So, but, you know, I think we're both very impressed with all the changes that have gone ahead of time for this season. I don't have any negative remarks about any of them and trust me, you know, I would let you know if I did.

[00:24:23] What do you feel like is now the main hurdle for Major League Pickleball? Like what is the next battle to be fought for MLP? What's the biggest thing to overcome for MLP? I mean, I think there's two. One is how we allocate players to teams like Anna Bright going for $1.3 million. Amazing. Also unsustainable. Just call it what it is. I think same thing with, you know, what the five spent for Georgia to pair her with Anna Lee.

[00:24:50] And so I think for us and these two things actually really do go hand in hand. But the first is how are we allocating players onto teams in a way that's sustainable long term? And I think we've got a lot of work to do to figure out what that looks like because at the same time, like you've got a disparity in what teams are clearly willing to spend or what they believe winning is worth. And then, you know, the second part of that for me is how do we put together a business model

[00:25:19] that ensures that teams can actually generate meaningful revenues? And so hosting events has been like a very good step forward in that. The Dallas Flash share in the economics of the event for MLP Dallas this weekend. Columbus, same thing. Austin, so on and so forth. And so what we really need to identify is how we can ensure teams can generate revenue and have like a real business such that, you know, they're then incentivized and excited to spend on talent because winning drives better revenue or better business.

[00:25:48] And that's what like every sports league has accomplished in some respects, like the Lakers being good means they can charge more for courtside seats and media rights and everything else. And in turn, they're willing to go into the luxury tax and spend on LeBron. And then Luca and Austin Reeves. And so I think that's really like 1A and 1B on my, you know, sort of to-do list coming up, you know, during the middle of the season and hope that by the end of the season, we've

[00:26:15] got a structure that makes a ton of sense and we're able to kind of put forth and use going forward. But that's really the root of it is how do we get players onto teams and how do we ensure that teams have a legitimate business model that allows them to sustain these things long term? Because the format's exciting. Like the league's in a great spot. The events are going to be better this year. And so I feel like we're doing, we've got a lot of tailwinds and now it's just really about nailing kind of this structure piece. Yeah. Love it.

[00:26:44] Is there any world in which you could have a salary floor like you have in the NBA? Yeah. I mean, we throw a lot of things at the wall and see, you know, kind of what makes sense. There's salary floor, there's obviously salary cap that other leagues and teams have. Do we institute a structure like what the other leagues have where the worst team gets the first pick? And you're sort of that incentivizes tanking, which the NBA has got a massive problem with. So we don't really like that.

[00:27:40] Right. Meaningful matches between, you know, the mad drops and the shock or whatever. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think the, the, I'd agree the biggest, at least competitive thing right now is the disparity between the top teams that are spending millions and the bottom teams that are spending hardly anything. Yeah. And it's a delicate balance, right? Because some of your top players, one of their favorite aspects about PPA is they get to play with other top talent. Um, they get to pick their partners. Right.

[00:28:08] And as a result, like you do get the best on best, then it's like super high quality play. You know, when you think about Friday, Saturday, Sundays for, for, for PPA events. And so I think at the same time, like what I don't want is to disincentivize top talent from like being excited about MLP. Um, because they, you know, maybe have to play with the player who, you know, all of a sudden they're not getting the ball at all. Cause 90% of the balls are going to, you know, Nico instead of Zane. If you guys run team with all due respect, um, and so, you know, it's like a balance there

[00:28:37] because I actually think like what we don't want is for the game to almost look like skinny singles because there's two players that are getting 90% of the balls and they just happen to be the weaker players on each team. I don't, I don't see that as a problem. And I think that the level is so high, even if, even if you had been paired with the, the worst male in major league pickleball, I still just don't think that you can really ice somebody out 90% and in the modern game, like.

[00:29:07] Fair enough. I don't know. I, I, I did, I did see, I still remember the matter ops with Ben and your, your current teammate, Hunter Johnson and Hunter Johnson was basically playing like Jesse Irvin and standing two feet away from, from the kitchen line in the corner, getting 80% of the balls and Ben rolling his eyes into the back of his head. Yeah. But here's the thing, even in those matches, like Ben was taking most of the court, but it wasn't strategically sound.

[00:29:33] I think he was playing too much and they ended up like not playing particularly well together. Like Hunter would have been much better playing 33, 66 as opposed to 85, 15. That didn't help anybody. So it was a bad strategy, I think. But anyway, that's, that's neither here nor there. Re-roll Ben. He makes mistakes too. So. Fair enough. All right, Nico, anything else you got for Samin or should, can we let him go back to his, uh, his wedding in Hawaii? No, this is great.

[00:30:03] Thanks for coming on, uh, can't wait to watch MLP this weekend. Uh, and I think, you know, my, my, my hopes for MLP is that more of the casuals of pickleball begin to migrate towards MLP. I think right now it's like for the diehards and the sickos and you're starting to get more and more people that, that like it. But I think this is where the energy is in pro pickleball. And so hope it happens. Yeah. There's a learning curve and like my goal is, you know, do what we can to share, but you guys have a huge part in that. So tell people, help them make, make sense.

[00:30:31] If you were like, Hey, it would be really nice if we had this or that. Um, you know, my, my phone is, is I'm usually pretty responsive. Zane can attest to that. So, uh, but I appreciate it. I love what you guys do. And I'm excited. Most importantly for this one point challenge where you two are inevitably going to have to be paired up together. Oh, a hundred percent. All right. We got to run it. See ya, Samin. All right.