We Texted Ben Johns for Episode 200

[00:00:00] I don't think I've ever been to a Sizzler. Yeah, I used to go for the salad bar. I don't know. Come on, Nico, you didn't go for the salad bar. Okay, so the salad bar at the Sizzler has salad, but also it has nachos, and most importantly, it has a soft serve ice cream. Yeah, there we go. The truth comes out. The truth comes out. It's true. It's true.

[00:00:28] All righty, guys. Welcome back to The PicklePod. Not just any PicklePod, but the 200th episode of The PicklePod. This week, we're going to chat through everything that went down at the PPA in Kuala Lumpur. We'll also talk about MLP Asia. We're also going to have the founder of The Dink, Thomas Shields, on to come talk about some interesting industry developments. There's been a lot of news about pickleball facilities closing.

[00:00:57] There's been a lot of hype surrounding Padel. We're going to talk to the founder of The Dink about those couple of things, as well as just shoot the shit with him, as we normally do. So if you guys like what we do here at The Dink, give us a like, a newsletter follow, a subscription. I don't know. Do all the stuff you're supposed to do. Social security number, whatever you want to do. Help Thomas keep the lights on at The Dink, all right?

[00:01:21] Yeah. Zane, I heard that there's a statistic that only 3% of podcasts ever make it to 200 episodes. And when they decided to add you as the host, that number took a nosedive. I think it went to 1%. When they decided to put me on as your co-host, I think we got even lower. So we are beating the odds. We are like 0.1% success. And here we are.

[00:01:50] We're still alive. We're still kicking. We're going to go to 300. We are not. Annaly Waters single streak. This is going to be the podcast streak that outlives Annaly Waters. So. Wow. To the moon. Lots of hype surrounding that. Okay, Nico. Well, let's start with KL. All righty, guys. So this week, the PPA was over in Kuala Lumpur. And it was 1,000 points. So you had a decent chunk of American pro players head over there.

[00:02:19] Funny enough, 1,000 points is the exact same amount that's happening in Arizona this upcoming weekend. So we won't beat this to death. But this is the third or fourth time that the PPA has actually been in Kuala Lumpur. I think it's the fourth time. I think the biggest names from the U.S. that went over there were Tama, Gabe Tardio, Caitlin and Brooke went over there. Augie Gah making his Asia debut.

[00:02:49] Jesse Irvine and Alex. Sarah Dennehy and Danny Townsend. Did you watch any of that at 3 a.m. your time? Fuck no. I did not watch any of it. I did not watch a ton of U.S. Open. That also happened at 3 a.m. So, you know, we talked about whether or not pickleball is a nighttime sport, whether or not it's a morning sport.

[00:03:15] People were quick to get in our comments to mention golf and running and cycling all happen in the morning. I don't care. I don't watch any of those. But, no, I check on match day to see who won. I see a little bit of the highlights, see if there's upsets. But, no, I didn't see too much. Jayne, did you? No, I didn't watch a tremendous amount. And we'll go through some of the results. But, yeah.

[00:03:43] I think that now that it's happening with more frequency and there's more overlap between U.S. players and Asian players, I think some of the initial hype has died down. Like, you know, last year, the first time we went to Malaysia was, I think, a really big deal. And the first time that we went to Vietnam and all that stuff. And then this year we had Anna Lee heading over to Vietnam. And we had the whole Hong Nam Lee versus Christian cheating scandal thing.

[00:04:11] Like, I think it's now just another event that's much more difficult for Americans to consume. Hopefully, easier for people in Asia to consume, obviously. And I think that's important. But I do think that the huge hype surrounding it is just a little bit more normal now. Yeah. And the U.S. players are learning how to travel and learning how to beat that ass when they go to this event.

[00:04:40] Because people were asking, like, how many, you know, Asian players are going to win or medal? Well, the finals was 100% MLP players. 100% from U.S. MLP. And the winners were all Americans, right? Like, when I say Americans, I'm, you know, I know Gabe Tardio and Noah Cliff. You know, I'm saying people that play PPA year-round, right? And so... U.S.-based players is probably the best way to put it. U.S.-based players. Exactly. There you go.

[00:05:10] Sorry. So, yeah, I was surprised to see that there was, you know, there may have been a few upsets, but not really. And chalk prevailed, at least from, like, a U.S.-based player's perspective. Yeah. I think part of the struggle previously was adjusting to the lifetime ball. But now you have the... I'm sorry. Adjusting to the Yola ball in those conditions. But now you have the opposite.

[00:05:36] You know, you have the Asian-based players having to adjust to the very fast pace of play of the lifetime. And I think that's a much more difficult adjustment than the opposite way. Personally, I always think it's easier to go from a fastball to a slow ball than it is to go from a slow ball to a fastball. Yeah. I have a problem with all balls. But, yeah, I think... Pause. Be cool.

[00:06:05] Zane is a ball handler. I, on the other hand, have a difficulty with them. But, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Conditions are a little bit more normalized. And they did what they needed to do. It came out and won. I got, you know, double goals for Gabe Tardio, for Jesse. He had double silvers for Danny Townsend. Tama coming through and winning big in singles. So, yeah. That's PPA Asia.

[00:06:33] Anything in particular that you thought about when it came to Kuala Lumpur? Besides the fact that now Gabe Tardio is number one in the world? But I do think that, you know, we saw a lot of players climb, I think, artificially through the rankings during MLP when there weren't, you know, when there were a lot of points going on in Asia and not a lot of competition from the U.S. side of things.

[00:06:57] And so, with something like KL being worth the exact same amount of points as Arizona, like, if you are simply seeking points, you should have gone to Kuala Lumpur as opposed to playing Arizona. And I think that there's a couple things. First off, I think that the points are slightly off for Asia. I think that that's obviously to try and encourage more U.S. players to go to it.

[00:07:22] But, like, so I don't have a problem with that, but I do think that the players are getting slightly artificially more points. Now, again, I think we've talked about this on the podcast previously, but this exists in tennis, too. It's way harder to score points in the U.S. than it is, like, India or Africa or, like, Turkey or something. People go to where the points are easiest to find. And right now, I think the PPA is incentivizing people to go grow the business in Asia. So, I actually somewhat agree with that.

[00:07:51] So, why didn't you go? I didn't want to. This is a point for you, Zane. You could have got, like, I don't know, 12, 25 points. I don't know. Nico, point chasing is not something that I'm particularly worried about right now. How many points is it for a first-round exit? You know what? That's a good question. I don't look at the points too much. I thought you had that memorized by now. I would if I looked at the points. Yeah, no, I don't.

[00:08:21] I'm not a point chaser, clearly. You know, at this point in my career, I'm like, you know, I'm kind of trying to hang on, do my best. I'm not, you know, striving to be world number one anymore. You know, maybe I'm more striving to be world number one podcaster. Better suits my skill set. Bless his heart. But, um, oh, go ahead. No, I said bless your heart, Zane. Bless your heart. I was on a podcast this morning. Uh, and they said so many nice things about you.

[00:08:51] It made me sick. But, but they did say they're like, they're like, it's impressive that Zane's like, you know, the, like the transition of like your career. Like, I don't know how to describe it that, you know, we've talked about this before, but the first time you and I met, I did not know you at all. And I was like, Zane, your, your, uh, your Twitter bio says like number three singles player. I'm like, that's, that's not true. But you could say number one podcaster, which I think you immediately then changed it.

[00:09:17] And, uh, anyway, it's just kind of cool to see, you know, the transition and Zane, I don't, I don't foresee you to be somebody that is rolling through past his prime at age 40, trying to compete and just getting absolutely dominated. There's other things for you. Yeah, no, I, that doesn't interest, interest me. Yeah. That's so much. Yeah. Like I like, I have other stuff. Maybe I'll go play pro Paddle. I will not. You know what? I thought about that.

[00:09:43] I was like, I feel like Zane is going to leave pickleball altogether just to, I feel like you're in love with Paddle. It's like the honeymoon phase. Paddle might be your mistress. I don't know, but I'll, I'll try and text Zane. Hey, this is what we should do on the podcast. Hey, do you want to chat about this, this opportunity, whatever? And he's like, I'm playing Paddle. I'm playing Paddle. I'm playing Paddle. You say you only play two times a week, but every time I'm talking to you, I feel like you're playing Paddle. So playing with that cool 30 year old crowd, rich people.

[00:10:10] I don't know, but, uh, no, I have it for a pickleball folks. It's been fun. I mean, it's good cross training actually, like for, for pickleball. It's really fun to be like a kind of a beginner at something again and like, you know, figuring it out. I feel like for the most part, my pickleball game is what my pickleball game is at this point, but like Paddle, I'm getting better every single time. Um, so yeah, no, it's fun. It's been fun to just be in that, like learn and everything is new mode.

[00:10:38] Funny enough, everything is new, but my paddles. Paddle tech is now making Paddle rackets, which is weird to me that the sport is called paddle tennis, but they call the equipment rackets. Like somebody make that make sense. Um, but yeah, anyway, they're making Paddle tennis rackets. Yeah, that doesn't make sense either. No, no, just think about that for 0.2 seconds and then, yeah. But anyway, that's been a good time.

[00:11:08] But something going back to the points problem, um, of equal points in, in, uh, Asia versus the US. Something I think they need to do is I think we need to give MLP individual matches points. Like the Davis Cup, you can get a couple points. It's not anything huge for winning Davis Cup matches.

[00:11:31] Right now, I think in the, I think it's like your top 14 tournament results get added into your ranking for the PPA. I think it needs to be top 14 results plus anything that you can do in PEEP in MLP. Maybe those are only worth like, you know, 20 points per individual win, but those are like bonus points.

[00:11:54] So I think you need to have some sort of bonus for playing MLP here in the States as opposed to just cleaning up, you know, 500 ranking points in PPA Tokyo while none of the top American players are there. Yeah, that makes sense because they can't play.

[00:12:12] I don't think they need them, but, uh, and as of now, the Asian, the players in Asia that are racking up those points for the most part are not, they don't seem like they're crossing over playing in the US too much and like taking somebody's seat away. But it could be a problem in the future for sure. So we also had the MLP Asia draft. So there are six teams. It's like a five week season. Did you, I mean, there was like nothing really surrounding this, uh, marketing wise.

[00:12:42] I didn't really know what was going on until somebody texted me today. Hey, MLP Asia draft happened. Did you know anything about this? No, I, I, I was today years old when I found out that MLP Asia was a thing. I knew there was MLP Australia. And then we had our run of show together for today. And I had to text you also this morning. I was like, there was a draft for MLP Asia. And apparently Tom went number one. What the fuck is happening? I don't even, I didn't even know.

[00:13:10] So, and, uh, I, I'm confused because why would Tom want to do MLP Asia when he's needs to do PPA? Uh, and because you have, you know, there are some player like players, notable players, Tom, Armand Batia, Grayson Golden, uh, Zoe Wong, Caitlin Christian, like Lacey Schneeman. Like what, when did they decide that they were going to be in this league that we didn't even know about? Did, did anybody offer you to be in this league? You could have spent five weeks in Asia.

[00:13:39] Yeah, no. So I think it happens at the end of November into like middle of December or something like that. I thought about it. It didn't really make sense for, for me to, uh, to do it. But, uh, yeah, a few of them are doing it. So it sounds like there's six teams based out of a few different countries over there. And I think, uh, I think that'll be interesting. Um, yeah, I think the biggest names you sort of hit on the head, Jamie Way, uh, my teammate as well.

[00:14:08] But yeah, MLP Asia. So we'll probably talk about that at some point when that happens. How did Lacey Schneeman drop to 18? To me, I don't understand. Like, I'm looking at this list. I'm like, Caitlin Christian went eighth. Lacey Schneeman went 18th. I, I feel like they're better than that. I don't, Jamie Way went 10th. Yeah, that was crazy. I don't know how Jamie wasn't like a top three pick after like Tama and, and whomever. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[00:14:38] Tama, Jamie, I would, I would have probably gone like Tama, Armand Batia, Jamie, uh, and then like Lacey, Zoe and Caitlin. Obviously I'm biased, but I don't know. That was, that was wild, but, uh, interesting to see how this goes. Uh, I have not, I know nothing I was looking at. I know the, the, uh, some of the captains, they got like a Ling Wei as a captain of one of the teams. So she wasn't drafted. She's just on the team. Yuda Funamizu is on team Tokyo.

[00:15:07] Kwon Do, my guy from the Viet Panthers. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we will, uh, cover that more at some point. Hopefully, hopefully the matches are not happening at 3am. I'm sure they will be. Um, but the closer they are to not past Zane's bedtime. The, the more likely he'll watch. Yeah. Before we get Thomas on the podcast to, to chat about facility closings and impact of

[00:15:36] Fidel, Fidel, let's, uh, let's read some comments from last week because we got some good ones and we keep saying that we're going to do this regularly and you guys keep giving us gold in the comments. So we are going to commit to doing this as a weekly segment because there is just so much gold in the comments. If Nico doesn't source these, I'm going to talk to Thomas later in this podcast about getting him fired, replacing him.

[00:16:03] Let me know who you would like to replace Nico on the podcast. Yeah. So how, how should we do this? Should we just take turns reading them? Yes. Let's go through some of them. Yeah. All right. Bicycle Thief says, I wanted Fed to say to Hunter, must be nice to not have to play doubles. That's pretty clever. Cause obviously last week we had the, uh, the Christian Alshon saying to, uh, to, to Hayden must be nice to not play singles. Yeah. I see it.

[00:16:34] Here's one. We got, uh, Chad Tura. We rosing. He, uh, 1896. However you say your name says got the paddle up and moved his feet. JW Johnson beat top seeds. Wonder what happens if Nico gets up or gets paddle up and move feet to which this one other troll, uh, his name is Zane Navratil replied. Wonder what happens if Nico could get anything up.

[00:17:03] Hey, do we have a Merrick health ad treat here? Well, I, I, I think that one of the sponsors of MLP is now blue chew. So I'll just reach out to them and, uh, we can solve some problems here. Fair enough. Um, people really didn't like your readings of the 11, six 24. So Kevin grams, 38 Oh nine says Nico in quotes, fuck 11, six 24.

[00:17:33] Dude. That's why I loved, I love them. They're so great. The name is ridiculous. It's funny. Um, it's, it's memorable cause it's awful. I don't know how to describe it. Yeah. This is the way that you, if you want to be, I guess for those of you who are watching that are not listeners, but our company owners and would like to sponsor the pod, this is how you can expect to be treated. We are equal opportunity offenders. Love you. 11, six 24. This one says, I'm like you, Nico. They call me the Pinoy statue of Liberty.

[00:18:01] When playing that's from John par Paul, Marcelino 21, 21. Um, I appreciate it. I think. Okay. So the next one comes from BD fitness, seven nine, nine, four. Do they even have sizzler anymore? And I was actually debating, like, I feel like I talked about that with somebody else recently. Like I was going to, I looked up sizzler and the only one near in Austin is permanently closed

[00:18:30] afterwards. But apparently there are still like 50 or 60 sizzlers somewhere. When's the last time you were actually at a sizzler that came out of nowhere, Nico? Yeah. I've, I think probably the last time I went to sizzler, I was maybe like 12. How about using you've been to sizzler? I don't think I've ever been to a sizzler. Yeah. I used to go to like, for like the salad bar. I don't know. I'm like, uh, but then we moved to, you didn't go for the salad bar. Okay.

[00:18:57] So like the salad bar at the sizzler has salad, but also it has like nachos. And most importantly, it has a soft serve ice cream. Yeah. There we go. The truth comes out. The truth comes out. It's true. It's true. I was like a little kid that was just like, how minimally can I eat a sizzler before I can go straight to like the swirl? So that, that was the case. I will tell you like one time, this might be TMI for whoever else.

[00:19:25] So we used to go to sizzler for like the, all you can eat salad bar for some reason. And then we moved to Reno and Reno has a ton of all you can eat foods like Reno and Vegas. Right. So it's a difference. So we no longer went to sizzler. But when I lived in California, we went to this place called JJ North. Also all you can eat a restaurant. And if you know me, I'm like, um, if you couldn't tell a get your money's worth out of the all you can eat restaurant kind of guy, even at, as an eight year old kid. Right.

[00:19:53] And my dad's like, why are you filling up on bread and mashed potatoes? You gotta get your money's worth. I was like, I don't care. I'm gonna eat everything. Right. And so I'm, I'm eating like until I'm sick at JJ North's and I'm like, oh no, I'm going to be sick. And then I go to the bag. I go high, like kind of hightail it to the bathroom and basically make it just right past the door. And sadly projectile vomit all over the place in the bathroom floor. And then I'm like, oh no.

[00:20:20] And I'm like about to turn to go to my parents and shame to let them know. And then all of a sudden I just hear and see out of the corner of my eye, this guy, because what happened is like, you know how bathrooms kind of like have a curve, like you walk in and you go around and then there's like the urinals and stuff. So that's where the, where it happened. And he just like steps around the corner and you just hear, oh shit. And then he, he literally falls down, um, on my JJ North, uh, all you can eat buffet.

[00:20:47] So that I've now been traumatized of, of buffets, uh, but that happened. That is an experience. You've been traumatized. That guy. That guy. I, I don't know. Just a poor guy. And I'm just sitting there eight years old, trying not to cry. Um, but anyway, great story sizzling. Um, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this guy says, oh, I thought it was about me.

[00:21:13] I thought it was about me, but Samudra Q3D on Alshon's singles complaint says you make pickleball look bad, like a sport for low team men and then call them a church going boy. I don't know what that part means. I get the low T comment. I got nothing to add to this guy's comment. And we got some mean ones too. These are the ones that I liked the best. This wasn't even in our script doc. I was just looking through.

[00:21:41] Mentazi one says Nico needs to clear his throat. Sounds like he's gargling Hayden's nuts again. I tried to find that one and I couldn't, I saw it and I was like, oh my God, I don't even remember what I said about Hayden. I feel like if anybody is a gargler is you when it comes to Hayden, but, uh, why, why I got to get that, uh, guilty by association. Good one for that guy.

[00:22:08] Now, the biggest question is I'm not sure what side of the screen you and I are on, but this one says from, ah, yes, Miguel. I'm going to be honest. I try to watch these, but I hate the dude on the left. I don't even try to remember his name. His whole vibe is just ass. All right. Leave us a comment. Who's on the left? I don't even, I have no idea who's on the left and who's on the right. Who do you think he's talking? I'm usually on the right. So, so you're, we're stacked. Okay. Yeah. That could really be a stray at either of us.

[00:22:38] So we'll take that as a cumulative insult. Another cumulative insult. Too many projects, 64, 67. Can either of you say a complete sentence without using the word like? Every other word is like. Too many projects. You should like start your own podcast. Fuck off. This is true. How dare you? How dare you?

[00:23:03] And speaking of which, the last one I see is some guy says he met Zane at Newport Beach four years ago, likes the pod, but quote, my one thing that I wish you wouldn't do is use vulgar language, including the F word. I don't watch you guys hardly ever now. I know you guys probably think I'm dumb or weak. Stay thirsty, my friends. Okay. A little most interesting man in the, in the universe. Uh, Dosakis reference. Those are some great ads. No, honestly, I, I get that.

[00:23:33] That's something that I hear. Uh, I hear loud and clear. And I don't think that somebody is, uh, I don't think anything less of people who don't want to swear, but where I'm coming from and where I assume you're coming from Nico is what you see is what you get with us. Like we don't come on here and act differently. If you meet me in person, if you meet Nico in person, we are the same assholes that we are on the podcast.

[00:24:02] And so I think people burn out of doing content if they're pretending to be something they're not. It's part of the reason why we've hit 200 episodes. I come on here. I be myself. And yeah, that includes some swearing every once in a while. Um, not pretending to be something that I'm, I'm not. It helps me enjoy doing this and, and helps the, the longevity. But again, if you're not somebody who likes it, I get that.

[00:24:31] Maybe we're not right for you. We're not trying to be everything to everyone. Yeah. And if you're watching the episode, we want you to leave thinking they are who we thought they were. Oh, you finally got that one, right? Yes. I don't know what you said for the last 30 seconds because I was practicing that in my head. Uh, I could only get it once, but if you've listened to the pod for a few months, you know that that is a struggle for me and I'm very proud of myself.

[00:25:01] Yeah. You nailed that one. Final. It's like me pronouncing Zoe while. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I get it. Definitely don't think less of, of anybody that, uh, that doesn't swear. Uh, just, I'm trying to be myself. Perfect. All right. Well, we're going to do this. Those are gold. Um, we'll read the creative and funny mean ones. Uh, we'll read, uh, if you've got other questions and whatnot, we'll read those too,

[00:25:31] but we're, we're committing to having the, the commentary be a part of this. Uh, if you've got, um, other thoughts, questions, things to debate, uh, check out the pro pickleball talk discord as well. Nico and I are pretty active in there and it's just a fun place to shoot the shit and, uh, talk pro pickleball. Exactly. But Zane last thing. Do you have these? Oh, I do. You got yours. I got my pack.

[00:26:01] Sick. All right. We're going to rip a couple of, um, we were, uh, we were in New York and we met the guy who runs the dub, uh, trading cards. So I don't really know too much about these. I just figured it'd be fun to, uh, to, to rip them and see what we got. All right, Zane, we're going to do one thing here. We're going to just, just like a small bet is a $10, a $10 bet. You're going to guess one player in your pack. If you get it right, I'll give you 10 bucks.

[00:26:29] If I get mine, right, I'll give you 10 bucks. Ooh, uh, give me, give me JW Johnson. Okay. I think I am going to get, give me Tyra Black. All right. Do we each read one off at a time or what? Yeah, let's do it. I don't even know how to rip you. Oh my God. I'm like, I'm so nervous. I'm going to fuck this up.

[00:26:59] I mean, is this like the Pokemon cards where you like put one behind it and, uh, and then you, you, you, you know, which one's going to be like, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe the best ones in the last, I'm not going to do that. So, all right. My first one, I got a Clayton Powell. Clayton Powell. All right. I like it. Alexa Scholl. Okay. I got a Matthew Barlow. All right. Ranked 355 in doubles.

[00:27:29] Wait, what? I feel like that's not right. 355. Oh, wait, maybe these are points. I think that must be points because he's got 355 doubles, 75 mixed, 1,363 singles. Yeah. Those are points. Points. Okay. This is Naomi Wynn. What I don't understand. What's in the front? It just says 2.91. I don't know what that is either, but yeah, I don't know what that is. Hmm. I don't know. Yeah.

[00:27:59] I don't know what those, those decimals on the front are like, or the number in the front. I got Kylie Ulery here. So we got 50 number 54 has got to be maybe their, their ranking. They're like composite ranking or something. Maybe. What's weird is my, my first one was 56 and then then 57. This one's 58. So I was just going in order. I don't, I don't understand. Um, mine's going reverse order.

[00:28:26] Uh, I got Ava, uh, Caviato. Okay. I got Braden Jacobson. Oh, nice. Daria Walchuk. Okay. Chris Crouch. Chris. Damn it. I was going to say Sophia seven. I got Sophia seven. I was going to pick her, but I was like, maybe she's not, not signed PPA and they won't have her. Damn it. Um, I got Sam Parker.

[00:28:56] Oh, dream breaker specialist. Here you got it. I was like, is Nick? I'm going to say something. Oh man. Michael Lloyd. I like it. I got Augustus. Augustus. Augustus. Augustus. Augustus. All right. We got Max Freeman. Okay. I got Tyson McGuffin. Augie Guh. Oh, we both got an Augie Guh.

[00:29:25] I both got an Augie Guh. Megan Dazon. Ooh. Got Elise Jones. And I got Brooke Buckner. I feel like these go in like order of like, uh, how, uh, good they are. Like valuable, like rarity. Yeah. Maybe. My last one. No way cliff. Okay. Yeah. Do you have another pack or just one? I do have another pack.

[00:29:56] Should we rip one more? We'll rip one more. We'll go faster through this time. Also, now that we know my, my thoughts, one, one of these are super cool to, uh, I wish there was like, they weren't all holographic. I wish it was like you had a bunch of regular ones and then you have like one special one, you know, like Pokemon. So. Yeah, I agree. That'd be, that'd be kind of cool. All right. I'll go first this time. Same person. All right. Christopher Crouch. Ava Cavitaio. Okay.

[00:30:26] Dreambaker specialist, Sam Parker. Daria Walczak. Ava Ignatowich. Sophia Seving. I was also going to say Will McKinnon. Here we go. Oh, nice. Emma Nelson. Goat. Chicago Slice teammate. Let's go. Angie Walker. Martina Frantova. Coming back from injury from volleyball, Lane Sleeth. Shout out CG.

[00:30:58] We got Alexander Crum. Ooh. We got friend of the pod, high T specialist, Blaine Hovignier. Stop. Wait, frame that one. Put that one. Put that one in the sleeve. Put that one in the sleeve. We got Callie Joe Smith. I just made up the Joe part. It's just Callie Smith, but. We got Kiora Kunimoto. Nice. Good little rookie card there. Millie Rain.

[00:31:26] Speaking of low T, we got Zane Navratil. Oh, let's go. Oh, yeah. We got Liz Truluck over here. All right. And then we got my biggest one. Wow, you are second to most popular. That's impressive. Let's go. The last card I have. Hayden Patrick-Quinn. Oh, nice. Goat. Yeah. I got Chris Hayworth. Chris Hayworth. This is fun. I mean.

[00:31:56] I like this. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Not a sponsor of the pod. Dub. Not endorsed or anything. They gave us a couple of these. I thought it was pretty cool. So, yeah. You can check them out. I think we do actually have some sort of exclusive discount in the Pro Pickleball Talk Discord. Oh, nice. I'll drop that in there. If not, I am just a total freaking liar.

[00:32:24] But I'm pretty sure I talked to the guy about getting like a discount code for the Pro Pickleball Talk Discord. Yeah. And you can get big packs. Like if you're invested, you can get like an 18 pack and you can just basically get every single player, put them in your thing. And my guess is that eventually maybe they are valuable. I saw those Ben Johns playing cards going for a lot of money. Someone bought like all of them. Oh, yeah. Somebody like cornered the market. What do you? Oh, wait. This is the same thing. Okay.

[00:32:54] Huh. There's like different, different like names and stuff on these. I think this is all the cards. But there's different. Oh, like maybe this is the rarity of them. Each color. The colors are the rarity ones. So like the gold are the most valuable. And then after that, like I think silver and then blue and then black or gray and then gold. You mean red? I don't know. I'm colorblind. I'm colorblind.

[00:33:22] What's the color that is Anna Bright and Christian Alshon? Is that orange? Yeah. It's like a reddish. Okay. I don't know. Okay. Yeah. And then you got. Oh, there's like silvers. And then you got black, blue. Okay. Interesting. Nice. That's pretty cool. Yeah. One of these days we'll have to debate whether or not we think some of these players should be in the high tier or not. Does it like is no way high tier. I mean, he did win gold here.

[00:33:51] Um, so we'll see Hayden, Anna Lee, Federico, Gabe, Georgia, Ben, Anna, Christian. Yeah. I feel like that's pretty right. I might've put in, let's see, maybe like a Paris, Jackson. No ways in blue. No, no ways at like a lower tier. So. Okay. Paris Todd is in the lower tier. It's a surprising Catherine. Interesting. I wonder if players see these and they're like, next year I want to be in the, in the high tier.

[00:34:21] I need to, I need to step it up. Yeah. Huh. Who knows? Maybe we'll have to buy the next year's version. Yep. All right. So Zane, for the most part, pickleball clothes are hella ugly. I have to admit, like people have a bad taste in their mouth with pickleball and everything around it usually doesn't help. Whether it be like goofy clothes or goofy shoes. And every month, every year, it seems like people are getting better.

[00:34:47] Cooler shoes, better looking paddles, uh, and clothes. No exceptions. And six zero, they created this, uh, performance line that they just launched. And they'd been absolutely fantastic. I got a shirt in blue and in black shorts in blue and black. And I like to mix and match cause I don't want to look like a blueberry, like an overstuffed blueberry. Um, so I wear the blue and the black, uh, usually the black top as much black as I can.

[00:35:15] I am not like light color fit yet. Um, it is performance apparel. So it's slightly slim fitting and it's meant for people that want to look athletic. It's really hard to mask that for me. So black has been fantastic, but I may not look like an athlete after I'm done playing when I watch myself back on video. But as I'm wearing the clothes, I feel good. I feel like Christian Alshon. Hmm. Yeah.

[00:35:43] I can only imagine what that feels like. Same. Um, whether it's a good thing, whether it's a bad thing, I'm feeling athletic. Uh, it has caused me to smash more paddles. I think, I think the clothes actually raises my T, but, uh, yeah. So if you want pickleball apparel, that looks good. Makes you feel like Christian Alshon raises your T unverified. Uh, you can check out the six zero apparel launch. You just go to six zero pickleball.com.

[00:36:11] I have been told not to read it or spell it out as much as it says it in the ad read. Cause people can read, uh, even Zane, they said. So six zero pickleball.com. Check it out for good apparel. All right. Welcome back to the podcast. It's been a little while. My, the founder of the dink, the founder of the pickle pod, uh, Thomas Shields. Welcome back to, uh, your show, I guess.

[00:36:39] Never thought I'd be nervous to be on my own show. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, Nico and I, you know, we took it to another level from, uh, from what you and, uh, Tyson Apostle did way back in the day. Yeah. Well, I was listening to old episodes of me and Tyson and we would just get on and ramble and shoot the shit, have no valuable information. And, uh, like I was playing it for, for my girlfriend. She was like, people, like people listen to this.

[00:37:08] Like, yeah, yeah. A few. Yeah. Honestly, same. Uh, that's, that's what me and Nico do. You, my wife has the exact same question. 200 episodes later. Yeah. But you guys are crushing it now. You guys are like 10 X what me and me and Tyson could bring in on a, on a good episode. So. But what was the, what was the initial like vision? Did you know this was going to take off? Why'd you start a podcast? Like were there, I don't even remember it.

[00:37:37] This is kind of like the first real big pickleball podcast. Yeah. I mean like the only one that I can think of that existed and they, you know, they still do some stuff here and there, but I would say it hasn't been running consistently since then is Eddie and Webby. Yeah. A lot of people know Eddie and Webby. They were like, as far as I'm concerned, the first pickleball podcast, like one of our first newsletter issues covered, you know, things they were saying on, on their show.

[00:38:05] I think we were the first one to be like on the ball, pickleball news, talking anything and everything. And we've been consistent. I mean, there was like a quick hiatus between Tyson leaving you joining Zane. And remember it feels right. It was like our, our number one podcast during that time. And then when you came back on, so that would have been like a few months, but for five years,

[00:38:31] four or five years now, uh, and again, the only one I could think of was like Eddie and Webby. So shout out Eddie and Eddie and Webby. I think they're still rocking the podcast every once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. They still do some stuff here and there. Um, but yeah, no, this was never, like I never wanted to be on a podcast, but we had this agency we were working with who were helping us like get sponsorships and stuff like that. And they worked with golf brands, other sports brands, gambling deals, draft King,

[00:39:01] uh, you know, genius sports. Those were the biggest revenue drivers for sports media brands at the time. Everyone was talking about how gambling is coming to pickleball, right? It's been tried. It gets phased out. It gets tried again. It gets phased out. Now probably your best option is like one of the, like, you know, Cal She or, or poly market. But basically it was like, if you want to make real revenue, you need to start a podcast and you need to get a sports betting sponsorship.

[00:39:31] And around that time I had become friends with Tyson apostle. And, uh, he was kind of doing a bunch of different podcasts, like in the survivor world and others. And he had conveniently texted me right around then, like, we should start a podcast. So a few different things came together and I was like, all right, fine, let's do it. Like, if you watch the first episode saying you were on it, it was, I had no idea.

[00:39:57] It was actually until we were doing the research for this episode that I was actually the first guest. I had no idea. Yeah. I thought it was Irina, but I think Irina was second. You were number one. So, uh, you know, you've been on it since day one. Technically. Technically. At least a part of it in some way. We'll, we'll take it. Um, well, along those lines, aren't you glad you started a podcast and didn't take that time and money and put it into a pickleball facility?

[00:40:27] Yeah, definitely. And I'm really happy I'm not on the podcast anymore. That's, that's, uh, that's best part. So. Yeah. Well, what we wanted, we, we know that you've been generally just working more on the business of the dink and, and whatnot.

[00:40:44] And so we wanted to ask you one of the things that the dink recently put out there was the closing of a bunch of different, the closing or reduction in sale price of a lot of these different pickleball facilities. For a long time, it was kind of like build it and they'll come and there just wasn't enough facilities.

[00:41:07] But I'm curious what your take is on the, on the research that the, the dink did any key findings that you found there? Yeah. Well, I don't want to take too much credit. It was, uh, David Johnson over at the business of pickleball. He'll publish stuff on our site every now and again, he's a contributing author. So most of it was done by him, him digging into some of these publicly available reports. And then some of the broader analysis and research that's been done.

[00:41:33] I think in general, what people will take away from that article that might be wrong is that the facility boom is, is like over. It's not facilities are still increasing, just not at the clip they once were. And there is an increasing number of facility operators who are like, I don't like this business. I want to, you know, get this asset off my books. I want to sell it.

[00:41:57] And what we're seeing is like, you know, nine of, uh, the, there were like nine facilities that are for sale of the many that are for sale that recently changed their prices. And they reduced them drastically, which is like an average of 39%. I mean, that's a, that's a big drop, right? Um, I don't think it means that like the business model isn't viable. I think we would want to look at those facilities. What markets are they in? Are they saturated? Where are they? Are they indoor? Are they outdoor?

[00:42:26] There's a lot of variables, but, uh, I think the general takeaway is like, yeah, it's just not as easy as everybody thought it was going to be to open up a pickleball facility and have a great business. So, um, they're facing a little bit of reality, but I think there's still a lot of operators out there that are having a lot of success. Yeah. It seems like, it's like the traditional like market correction of any kind of like boom, right?

[00:42:51] Like whether it be AI stocks or tech stocks or internet, whatever, it's like to the moon, little bit of a crash. And then it continues, you know, at more of a sustainable pace. And I think there's probably a lot of people that just thought like, if I just throw money at it and open it, it'll be fine. And then now you realize that you have to like build a community and like the more that you have programming and, you know, the people feel part of a group.

[00:43:19] And which is why people go play pickleball in the first place. That's, what's going to make your facility successful. Not just show up, open the doors, do nothing. And so I think you have, you know, absentee style owners that are getting phased out. You have people that don't know how to run and getting phased out to your point, people that maybe just don't enjoy it. Um, and now you're probably going to move at a slower pace. So I guess my question though, is I see like, for example, it says here, the pickleball Academy, five locations.

[00:43:45] It went from 4.1, 4.5 million to 2.15 million. Do we just pitch in and do we buy five facilities together? This is three of us. We'll just, let's just, let's buy some facilities. Zane, Thomas, let's do it. We could crowdfund it. See if the listeners want to, want to fund it. I'm not going to operate it. I'll just, I'll, I'll sit there and watch you guys do it just like the podcast. But yeah, I'm down. I can contribute about $50,000 of student debt.

[00:44:16] There's no way you still have student debt. I don't. I don't. I inherited, I inherited some of my wife's student debt, but the interest rates are low. So we're just hanging out on it. We could, we could, we could pay down the student debt obviously, but there's not really much of a reason to right now. So anyway, that's a different. You put your accounting, it's your, it's your accounting background. It's, you know, it's, it's smarter to sit on the debt for now. You'll pay it off later. Exactly. Exactly. But I am willing to contribute it to this new business.

[00:44:46] You're going to be the CEO because you're the only one who understands accounting. And that's one of the biggest issues with a lot of these facilities. So I don't know, man. I just think that, I think that people think it's going to be really fun to operate a pickleball facility, but it could, because they love pickleball, but it's an, I get the sense that it's an operations job. It's not a pickleball job. And so I think that that's where some of the, you know, some owner operators are really going to, to love it and enjoy it.

[00:45:13] Like I was actually just at this, uh, pickleball facility on Friday called bangers pickleball over in, um, over in South Haven, Mississippi. It was awesome. They had like six owners there. They had a really cool event with, you know, stuff going on for the Ronald McDonald house. And like, they enjoy it, but that's because there's six of them, I think, and they can all have their own little bits and pieces and still actually enjoy the fun parts of owning a facility.

[00:45:39] I feel like if you are the owner operator, that just turns into a brutal grind. And that's probably why, you know, a lot of them are looking to get out of, of the facility game. I would think. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can grind, you know, all, all year long and not see any growth. Right. It's, it's almost like you're just trying to sustain it at a certain point. It's tough to scale it. The exciting part about a business is growing it.

[00:46:05] And once that initial momentum wears off and now you're just grinding day in, day out to keep something alive, I think it can, it can wear on you, which is why maybe we're seeing a lot of these independent facilities go, go up for sale. But they also have, I think some of them are, are franchises as well. Like I think some of David's analysis was like, some of these franchises are getting hammered.

[00:46:28] Do you have any like thoughts or, or insights from where you sit as to why that might be? Is it just oversaturation? No, I don't know.

[00:46:39] Maybe the one, one thing I could, you know, just, uh, pull out a thin air here is like, if you are just taking a blueprint and trying to replicate the playbook of a larger franchise brand versus building something in your community for your community, you might miss out on the most important thing, which is like getting people there. We're going to bring other people there.

[00:47:05] And, um, so you just sort of lose maybe that like homegrown feel. Yeah. Yeah. I believe it. Yeah. I've, I've always sort of wondered other than the ability to move quickly, I've kind of wondered, you know, what value is the franchise name actually bringing to the individual operator?

[00:47:28] And I would imagine that a lot of that is what's causing this, you know, the people wanting to get out of these franchises. Yeah. Well, it's like the, the perception that, okay, you're going to work underneath this large corporation that theoretically has it figured out. That's why they're able to build so many facilities. If somebody, if you have the perception that you're going to be handed a playbook and just be able to run it from day one, that's sounds a lot easier than if you were trying to figure it out yourself.

[00:47:56] So it is like attractive, appealing at least initially. Uh, but then now you have additional costs that an independent operator wouldn't have, which is paying a franchise fee. And then maybe you want to innovate within your facility because you need to change some things and, um, you want to grow in different ways, but like you kind of have to abide by whatever Pickler or Pickleball Kingdom hands you. It's like, you do this, you don't do this. You're supposed to run them a certain way. So you have less flexibility.

[00:48:23] Every market's different without that flexibility. You know, you might be beholden to the guidelines that you were handed and you can't adjust when, when things change. Yeah. So I'm curious, you obviously have plenty of insight into just your own growth as a business. Like I do. So does Nico. We all have our own numbers about, you know, the Pickleball audience. But what does this mean in your opinion for Pickleball more broadly?

[00:48:53] Like, is this the end of the boom? Like, where do you stand here? No, I think Nico said it well. It's like a correction, right? And it's probably actually a healthier thing for the market for it to continue to grow and sustain itself. Like, valuations had to come back down to reality. Now people reevaluate. There's still going to be more facilities opening.

[00:49:14] And at least they're going to do so with a better sense of the actual financials and the actual business they're investing in versus sort of these like flashy inflated valuations, which can lead people to invest in businesses that they ultimately end up not wanting to run. And then they just want to sell. Right. So I think it's a good thing. I think it should happen in an industry that's returing. So if you've got money burning a hole in your pocket right now, it's not going into a facility again.

[00:49:44] But if you're investing somewhere in the Pickleball space, and I'd be curious your perspective on this as well, Nico. Like, where are you dropping a hundred grand investment right now? Nico, you first. Oh, wow. Um, shoot. Honestly, Zane, if you haven't heard, I come from like corporate tech. Everybody knows.

[00:50:13] Everybody knows. Um, I think there's more technology that an infrastructure that can be built somewhere. I, um, whether it be like, I guess I keep thinking of, of different apps that, that makes sense that bring it like, so do, I think do is like genius, right? Because once it becomes kind of readily accepted, the more people that use it, the better it gets. It's not going anywhere ever.

[00:50:40] Dooper as much as like either people hate it or Vare comes or somebody else comes, right? I don't think Dooper is going anywhere. And so I just think that there's other opportunities in Pickleball to create Dooper-esque programs, whether it be in facility management, coach management, or even player. Um, like, um, what was I saying?

[00:51:05] You know, one thing I've always wanted to build or was thinking about is the, you know, the app Goodreads. Any of you familiar with that? Yeah. Yeah. So, so my wife is like avid readers. And if you read a book, you probably know about Goodreads, but basically you read books. Oh my God. Uh, the only books that are not on Goodreads. Um, but basically you read a book and you say whether or not you like it, you rate it, you have your like to read list, your liked or don't liked whatever summaries, et cetera.

[00:51:32] And I just think there's opportunities in Pickleball for people to share things like that. Paddles. I like the shoes. I like the facilities. I like, and, and have more connected experience depending on whatever the product is. So I'm not exactly sure what the right answer is, but I just think like community based products in the tech space in Pickleball, whatever that looks like. That's my answer. Yeah. I think it's still, I think it's still probably your best bet is paddle manufacturers, but just making sure you're, you're picking the right one.

[00:52:02] There's a lot that are going under. I've talked to three recently that are probably just going to close down. Uh, there are some acquisitions happening. Like if you can have good marketing, nail the product and get the word out there, the margins and the scale is still kind of insane. You know, there are some insider numbers now on some of these paddle brands that started up in the last two years and they're making tens of millions of dollars a year with.

[00:52:32] A few employees. It's like pretty insane. How sustainable is that? I'm not quite sure, but, uh, yeah, I would probably still invest in like the, the equipment. Hmm. Interesting. So along that, uh, along that, uh, the, the tech line that you mentioned, Nico, there's an interesting one that I've been getting some experience with recently. I've been playing some Padel. It's a lot of fun.

[00:53:00] And, you know, there's plenty of conversations surrounding like, oh, is Padel going to take over pickleball? All that stuff. We'll, we'll get to that. We'll talk about that. But there's this app that kind of seems to run everything in Padel called Playtomic. It's like their rating system. It's their court booking reservations, everything. And it was like, honestly, a pretty good user experience. You can set up games. You can split up payments with everybody.

[00:53:26] You can add accessories, pick courts, like everything. I feel like something like that, or you don't have to be a member at any of these different places, but you can go drop in at any of the facilities surrounding you might be like the, might be the play. I know they are, you know, kind of expanding into pickleball. And so that'd be a pretty hard thing to, um, you know, upend, I suppose, if you were to create something like that.

[00:53:55] But this app was like, I don't know, it seems like the, the one-stop shop that pickleball sort of needs. Imagine like kind of combining Duper with court reserve, being able to pay and arrange games and everything within one app is something I see. I would invest in, in that. I would invest in it. I wouldn't try and run a business like that. No, why not? It's a hard thing to do. If you win, you win big, but there's always a lot of losers. And, uh, also I don't think I'm smart enough to build something like that.

[00:54:24] I'd have to outsource everything. This is, that sounds genius. And I think this is where like, I brought up Duper earlier. I feel like if there is one company that really wants to kill all of pickleball, like kill it in the pickleball space is Duper. I think they're the ones that can do whatever they want. They have all the emails, all the users, they're not going anywhere.

[00:54:47] So if they wanted to create court reservations or tournaments or whatever, like I just feel like Duper could create so many different things because of the sheer number of users that are not going anywhere. I'm not sure what their plans are. I've done like a Duper coach certification and I thought like that was going to take off. And then there's my Duper coach, whatever. But like, I just feel like Duper has, if they want to, they can really own pickleball. Yeah. I think that's going to be an interesting battle.

[00:55:14] I would imagine in the U S Duper has to have a lot more names than Platomic does. Platomic was like, it seems to be the, the King of Padel right now in that. Cause I've never booked a court without it. Yeah. It'll be fascinating to see. Cause Duper could very well go into the Padel market that way. I would think. Well, but does Platomic give you the rating? Yeah. Platomic has their own rating system as well. Is that like the one that people care about? Is there a consensus?

[00:55:43] Like this is the rating that matters most. It seems like, I think there's a couple different ratings just like there is in pickleball or tennis, but like maybe it's just, maybe it's my echo chamber of being in Austin. Maybe, maybe, but like people go by their Platomic ratings. Yeah. I don't know what my rating, I'm a three Oh, by the way. What are you? I don't have one. I got it through the app.

[00:56:11] I got it through and I've probably Platomic embedded in this, this app system that they used to run the club. But, uh, I don't know. So like Duper is more of a household name than as far as I'm concerned. Like I know I'm a three Oh, but I don't know what rating system that is. And if it's even legitimate. True. Yeah. I think it's there. I think it's their own, but getting back to the, to the other question, like Thomas, you been playing any Padel?

[00:56:41] It sounds like you've got a rating at least. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I had a, I had a good streak there. It's, it's very humbling. I have a pickleball is humbling in that like you can, you know, like I was, I considered myself like a decent high school athlete or whatever. Right. And then you play against guys who's like are completely uncoordinated and they just absolutely whoop you because they know the game better. I think Padel is that times 10 and it's way more patience. I'm somebody who just wants to like hit the ball and like play with power and be quick

[00:57:09] and like, you know, poach and stuff like that does not work in Padel. Like you will get your lunch handed to you by people who look like they've never played sports in their life. So it's much more of like a thinking man's game. I think, um, even though when you see the highlights, it looks like a more athletic pickleball. It's fun. I mean, we've been playing in New York. It's really, really expensive. Yeah. That's, I can't, that's part of the issue.

[00:57:35] I think too, with its growth is like court time, the equipment you're paying so much more than you would pay for pickleball. Yeah, for sure. I mean, even in Austin, like I'll play for an hour and a half and I'll pay 32 bucks, but so will the other three people. And if you want a covered court in the summer here in Austin, it's 45 bucks each. So whatever that is, that comes out to 180 bucks for, for an hour and a half, which like, yeah, that's, that's a lot.

[00:58:05] So, I mean, a lot of people are talking about like, and you know, if you didn't think deeply about this, I could see it. Whenever I go to the Padel places, they're like totally booked unless it's the middle of the day. Like I went to Padel 39 here in Austin yesterday and it was pretty much packed at like three o'clock. They were also showing the U S open and it was just like a good place to hang out, which I think that some of these Padel places are, are nailing as well.

[00:58:35] Like they're kind of like fun hang spots as much as they are, um, you know, places to go play Padel competitively. I feel like that's something that Padel is getting right where some of these pickleball facilities got wrong, right? Like an ace, you go, you play, you leave. Like there's no food, there's no hangout, there's no watch the game on TV, that type of stuff.

[00:59:03] What is the Padel, Padel like, uh, consumer like? So I think the issue is pickleball players play so much pickleball, right? So like they're, they're not happy unless they play three hours a day. And in Padel, I, it sounds like pricing wise, no one is going to play three hours a day every single day. Maybe I'm wrong, but like, which is, I think why half the people like going to like a pickler or an ace because they're like, I'm in, I'm out. I'm not here for food.

[00:59:31] I'm here to grind pickleball points for four hours in a row and open play. Uh, but then there's like chicken and pickle or, you know, whatever different club that sounds like the Padel experience. Like are Padel players playing every single day? I don't know. I mean, I've been playing like maybe twice a week for the last month or so. Um, so I don't know. I'm not like a, I wouldn't consider myself a Padel player. I'm just starting out. Thomas might actually know a little bit better.

[00:59:58] No, I don't know anybody who plays as like crazily as pickleball players too, right? Pickleball players are avid. Yeah. But the Padel consumer, I think is closer to like a golf or a tennis, you know, it's a, it's a higher disposable income. And there is that aspect similar to a golf or a tennis where like part of it is networking and part of it is just being among people that are, are like-minded. Um, whereas like pickleball, I think spans the spectrum more. Yeah.

[01:00:25] I noticed in, in Austin, I mean, there's definitely like a type. It's like you're, you're pretty, you're pretty well off like, you know, health conscious person in their late twenties to late thirties. There's definitely a type. Now that's also just kind of a lot of people in Austin to begin with. But that's what I'm noticing over there. But you know, in comparison to pickleball, yeah, you have, you have anybody and everybody.

[01:00:54] I do also think that for me, I can't go play Padel for three hours the same way I can play pickleball. Like I think that the sweet spot for pickleball is around two and a half hours and then you have diminishing returns and it's easier to push past that two and a half hours. Once I hit an hour and a half in Padel, I'm hitting diminishing returns. And I feel like it stops being enjoyable at all after like two hours.

[01:01:23] So I feel like people aren't going to want to play the same four hour sessions in Padel the same way they are going to be in, in pickleball. Huh? Sounds like, sounds like racquetball or squash. There's no Padel court within 200 miles of my house. I've never played. So I'm, I'm just imagining what it's like. I feel like I'd be actually pretty good at it because I played a ton of racquetball growing up as a kid. I know how to play tennis. I can play pickleball. Like I'm not saying I'd be good off the bat.

[01:01:49] I'm just saying that I feel like I would have the skillset or the geometry to figure out how to play the sport. It looks fun. I thought the same thing. You know, this is actually one of the places where Nico's just disgusting lack of footwork would actually help him. I think, you know, the ball goes off the wall. It just comes right back to him. Whereas me, I see the ball going past me. I'm like running back to try and get it. I'm like, Oh wait, it's going to bounce off the wall.

[01:02:16] I'm like running back and forth like a, like a squirrel in traffic. Like a golden retriever. Yeah. Yeah. You just, you feel really dumb when you play. Cause like your instinct is always wrong. You never know where the ball is going to end up until you played like a good amount. It's a sport where like getting a lesson actually goes a long way. Whereas pickleball, I feel like you can kind of get by without lessons. Just keep playing with better, better players and get reps. Paddle. It's like, you kind of got to learn the way the game is played for it to even be like truly enjoyable.

[01:02:45] Like, well, uh, I'm shooting my shot here. Uh, the closest Paddle facility to me is like in the Bay area called Bay Paddle. I think they're putting up a couple of facilities now, which is nice. So shout out to them. Never been there. They also have pickleball, but Bay Paddle, if you're listening, please invite me. I would like to go, um, and make my experience not terrible. Um, set me up with some noobs that I can, uh, I can feel good about, but, uh, yeah, I'd love to try and figure out how to play. And then I can actually understand what the hell you guys are talking about. Yeah. Fair enough.

[01:03:14] This is going to bore a lot of people. Nobody cares about pickleball. All right. We'll go back to pickleball. So 200 episodes, we've had some good ones. We've had some bad ones. We want you Thomas to actually give us a grade on each one of these different episodes for reference. These are our, I believe our 10 biggest episodes that we've done.

[01:03:42] And I want you to, uh, basically give them a grade on, uh, on. Yeah. How much you enjoyed these different episodes. Okay. I already, I glanced at the list. Maybe it was halfway done. I already have some discrepancies with the list, but let's, let's, let's see what you got. All right. Um, let's go. The, uh. Also, is this the life of pickleball?

[01:04:09] This is like since five years ago, or is this the Nico and Zane rendition? Uh, Nico said, Claude, can you please put together a leaderboard of our, our list? And so I'm not sure exactly if they're on like five different YouTube playlists and it didn't catch anything. But, uh, so that, that's, that's the level of detail I went on these. So they look, it looks like it's a lot of new episodes. So there's probably some ones in the past that are not on here as well. Yeah. I think there's a couple in particular I didn't see.

[01:04:38] And I was like, but go ahead. All right. Well, why don't we do this? Why don't you give us instead, give us a top five pickle pod episodes of all time. Okay. Ben, uh, which was three years ago. Um, we had Colin. He's close number two. And then there was one where we talked about the split of Ben and Colin. Neither of them were on for that episode. It's dope. Oh no. We had Colin. Colin.

[01:05:06] So Colin's like two of the, two of the top three. Uh, the Annalie Waters episode, both of those are up there. Every time we've had Leia on usually does pretty well. Uh, Hayden's up there with his episode. We did with him two years ago. Um, and then Anna Bright and Travis have had pretty, pretty decent episodes as well. I don't remember the Travis one that well. Anna Bright.

[01:05:34] I remember we should get her back on the pod. Unfortunately, I don't get the sense that, uh, given, uh, our, our current relationship with Leia, that she's going to want to be on the podcast anytime soon again. Um, she did officially quit the podcast a couple of years ago, only to come on again recently and then again quit. And, but this time we're blocked on social media too. So yeah. Uh, anyway, that one might be a long shot. We might not be getting Leia on anytime soon, but she's always welcome.

[01:06:04] Um, yeah, no, I couldn't even find her from like my personal Instagram. I'm like, I haven't even, what, what I, what you're blocked. What did you do? Yeah. Like I don't even say anything anymore. That's pretty good. That's fun. Zane, what are your, what, what, what is your, uh, couple of favorite episodes? I mean, I liked the Ben one cause we got really nitty gritty into some of the paddle technology back when that was like a really big thing.

[01:06:33] And I was, uh, also following that more. I think we got to go Hayden and Gabe in studio in Atlanta with those guys just saying so many things that they shouldn't have. So many. Like, like Nico told me about the editing of the, that podcast. And he's like going back and forth with Hayden and Gabe. And like, are you sure you want to say that? And they're like, yeah, it's chill. And he's, he's like, yeah, but really?

[01:07:00] Like, are you sure you want to talk about X, Y, or Z? If you don't know what we're talking about, you guys got to go back and listen to that episode. I don't think we really talked that much about current pickleball stuff. So it's a good evergreen episode. I can give you a little inside, inside, like, you know, but behind the scenes, typically I'm not involved in, you know, the editing process, what goes out, uh, in the rare circumstances that something maybe needs to be caught.

[01:07:30] I'm usually not even involved in that, but that episode in particular, I got hit up by a few different people being like, yo, you got to give this a listen before it goes live. Cause there's some questionable stuff. Some stuff made it that I think still went under the radar and was absolutely hilarious. And then I think there were one or two things that got rightfully, rightfully cut. Um, even though those guys like didn't ask us to do that, like, I think they were cool to let it fly.

[01:07:57] Um, but we were, we were trying to be adults in the, in the room on that one, but it still ended up being like a great episode. We, we were like chaperones for Gabe and Hayden. Like we, we, I was like, all right, we cannot cut this and it's going to just kill it. But for the sake of your, you know, your sponsors, whoever else, you know, your career will take some of these out. Uh, especially cause they're like 20 years old.

[01:08:24] Um, on the other hand, uh, what, what I think maybe Zane might, my favorite moment in, in my brief experience on pickle bot history is when we had James Ignatowish on and he talked about the Selkirk paddle, never laughed harder in my whole life. He's old. I'm not cutting anything out that he says, but if you guys miss that, that might've been the greatest one-liner in the history of the pickle pod. Check out James's episode. My God. All right.

[01:08:52] I got a, I got a couple other moments that I can, I can rattle off here. Um, when we had Riley in Austin and you know, he at least lightly touched on the Donna porch plant pissing saga, uh, was hilarious just to see his reaction to that. Um, we had the morning brew with KOTC where we were in the morning brew studio during the MLP here in New York.

[01:09:20] And Jimmy was just making all of us nervous. And every time he opened his mouth, I was like cringing. I was like, please don't say anything. Absolutely ridiculous. Um, there was, uh, not podcast related, but Zane falling asleep at his own bachelor party in the front row of a comedy show. That was fun. Uh, that was awesome. Um, and then awesome for us, not awesome for the comedians on stage.

[01:09:48] Um, there was the episode where we randomly called people and you know, we called like part Oh, we called Chris Olson and we called Greg Dow and like, that was just a, a good time. It was, I think it was just like personally fun for us. Um, and then there was, there was one more like that, which was, which one was it? Oh, it was when we had Dave Fleming on and we gave him a bunch of scripts to read in his announcer voice. And some of them were so stupid.

[01:10:18] And then by the end of it, we had him read the entire, um, you know, gladiator quote from Russell Crowe, where he like reveals that he's Desmus Maximus Aurelius or whatever it is. Right. Um, and even Dave just, even Dave in that moment was like, really? All right, fine. Like I'll, I'll play along. And then he like read the full quote in his announcer voice. And, uh, that was, uh, that was a gold moment. That might be my all time favorite moment. Dude.

[01:10:46] I liked, I liked the ones where something controversial would happen and people are, were open to like, you know, giving their side of the story. Like, I remember one that sticks out was we had Tom Webb somewhat recently with all of the APP developments. Like, you know, I don't feel like we got too many, you know, super straightforward answers on that one.

[01:11:11] But like, I liked the fact that amidst some controversy, he was willing to come on and talk, you know, something else was like Pran Koli. Like we had him on and just grilled the crap out of him when they canceled a bunch of those events and nobody's heard him, heard from him since. And then like the other one grilling Pardo right after the, uh, or right before, right after I forgot what it was tour wars. He came in, in studio. Like I do.

[01:11:40] Those are my favorite ones where we don't have to beat around the bush. Like we, we ask real hard questions that they're probably, you know, prepared to answer, but that feels like you're really kind of getting to the bottom of some of the, you know, the, the controversial stuff in pickleball. Those are, I think those are some of my favorites. Yeah. Well, there was also, um, when our COO Dan hit me up and was like, yeah, I was on a flight and I saw a pickleball documentary.

[01:12:08] So I put it on and he says that we're in it. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, I've never heard of this documentary. Right. And he's like, well, about halfway through there's some pickle pod stuff. These people never reached out to us. They just ripped the footage. They also ripped a bunch of our like Instagram, like highlights. Like, so this documentary on HBO or prime, I think maybe I'm like looking at it. Like, I'm pretty sure I like filmed that and there's just no credit given.

[01:12:32] But then there are two segments from a pickle pod clips from us in studio in Austin and Zane's up on the screen and it's, it's pickle pod footage. And his byline is, you know, Zane Navratil, founder of the dink. Yeah. I remember seeing that. I remember that now. Yeah. And then it cuts to me and like, I'm literally, it's just me solo on this documentary. I've never heard of this documentary before. Nobody ever reached out to me.

[01:13:01] They put me in it and they didn't give me a byline. So I'm just some random guy. And then Zane's the founder of the dink. So that was, uh, that was a fun one. Was that the, I forgot which one that was. I remember, I think they ripped some of, some of my stuff too. Like maybe some of my recap videos or, or whatever. I never talked to any of those guys either. Which one was that? Do you remember? I don't know. I'd, I'd have to look up the name of it. I don't think it did particularly well or was that interesting.

[01:13:31] It was like a month before partners came out. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But people make that mistake a lot. I think I literally, when I was typing up show notes and I was like, all right, let's try and find some research for what happened in the last 200 episodes. The first thing that pops up is like, just want to make a clarification. This Claude, right? I want to make a clarification. Uh, Zane Navratil is not the founder of the dink. I'm like, I never said he was the founder of the dink. But Claude decided to tell me just in case I didn't know who the founder of the dink was when Thomas came on.

[01:14:01] So I wanted to make sure that I knew for sure that the guest that was coming on, my boss, Zane's boss, is actually the founder of the dink. So if anybody was wondering, I don't know what Zane's been saying. It's definitely not him. I wonder if it's maybe like I wrote something in a, like a newsletter or in an article, sort of like funny recapping what I just told you. And so Claude picked up on that and thought there's some discrepancy where people confused that, wanted to clarify. But I can't remember if I published anything on that.

[01:14:30] I feel like I was writing something and then I was like, I got other shit to do. Thomas, we're going to have you on for one last segment. We're going to do Guess My Duper presented by 11624, the greatest name in Pickleball. I want to make sure that is clear. People said, Nico, you hate 11624. All you did is bash their name. They are a sponsor of the pod. I love their name. I love their paddles. That's serious. Ultre, Power 2, Jelly Bean. Let's get it. Guess My Duper.

[01:15:02] Not a pretty good serve. Okay. First off, I'm like, is this Thomas? It looks like Thomas. I think it's Thomas. It looks like Thomas. Is this Thomas? I think that's Thomas. Oh, okay. No, he reset the ball. It can't be Thomas. That looks like a guy that can't play Paddle. Oh, there he goes. That's a good drop. Oh, that is Thomas. Oh, stop. Was that a lefty? Was that a lefty ATP?

[01:15:31] Did you just hit the ball against the wall? He has been playing Paddle. He's been trying to hit it off the wall. I've never seen anybody miss a shot that badly ever. Good drive. Do not trust the partner. We love guys who don't trust their partner on Guess My Duper. That's Caitlin Kerr. Is that Caitlin Kerr? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Caitlin Miller and Ryan Weinbach. Or Caitlin Miller. Ryan Weinbach.

[01:16:00] Oh, stop, Thomas. Stop. The, well, I don't even know how that was possible. Was that AJ Kohler and Hannah Blatt? Oh, my God. Is this guy pro? Is this guy pro? Look at that. Sorry, AJ. Oh, my goodness. Five, five, five, probably. I, you know what? I think that person, whoever that was, not sure. And not sure if they're the ones that pay me to do the podcast or not.

[01:16:29] But I think they're like, you know, probably pro level. Definitely. I think lower level pro, maybe pro qualifiers, but like winning pro qualifiers consistently. I'm going to go five, four. It has to be. I feel like, Thomas, I feel like you just haven't played. I bet you your duper reliability score is quite low for whatever reason. I don't know. I'm going to go. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Go guess.

[01:16:59] 5.24. Nico, official guess. I need your official guess. Okay. I'm going to go 4.72. This is going to be really unfortunate because my reliability is 100. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Thomas, you can play a lot of pickleball. Yeah. That's the lowest duper rated player to ever win a pro match on a PPA tour.

[01:17:29] You win a pro match? Two? No big deal. He beat Daddy Lang. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Eric Lang and Joy, Joy, like with an L, I think. She's not, she hasn't played any pro in quite a while. But yeah, there was a day. There was a day before pickleball was anything close to what it is now. All right.

[01:17:59] Well, let's guess my duper presented by Nico's favorite 11.624. That's right. Well, with 200 guests down, who are, from your perspective, Thomas, who are a couple guests that you would love for us to attempt to get in 2027? And obviously, you know, there's the Benz and the Annalise. Maybe some slightly more obscure, maybe not obscure, but like different names in that.

[01:18:28] Like, who do you think you would love to see on the pickle pod in 2027 or end of 2026? And guys, if you are listening at this point too, let us know. We can try and get some of these people on as well. I want the latest from Quam. I want to know what he's up to. And then, you know, similarly, like some of these guys that go to the APP, it's almost like you don't hear from them again, like Jack Monroe, right?

[01:18:57] I mean, he's obviously doing his own content and stuff. You know, he just doesn't end up in the stories like he used to because he is on APP. But yeah, those would probably be my two outside of the obvious, right? Like Ben hasn't been on in two years. I texted him, want to come on for the 200th episode? Nothing. So maybe you can send that text. I think he's sick of, I mean, last time I asked him, he just said like, dude, I'm sick of doing podcasts. I don't want to do anybody's podcast. Yeah.

[01:19:27] Yeah. But Colin's overdue too. I mean, like every time he comes on, you ask him the right questions and you just let him ramble like he's a wealth of information and he's always good to get on. 100%. Well, 200 episodes down. Here's to another 200. Thomas, appreciate you starting this whole thing. Good to catch up with you too. And we'll have to bring you on for more segments like the, uh, like the, the facility closing one.

[01:19:56] Cause I do think that you're, you know, wealth of knowledge on the business side of things of, of pickleball as well. So appreciate you coming on and, and taking a victory lap with us. Yeah. Give me a call when you hit 300. Oh, we will. Thomas, Thomas, last thing I'm just going to say before, before you jump off. Are there any other female pros that you plan on challenging to pickleball matches? Anna Bright, you already took her out. We have between 200 and 300. You need to at least humble another female pickleball pro.

[01:20:27] Yeah. The thing about Anna is she did have that tweet that she was going to like humbling men as her favorite pastime, which a dark corner of the internet picked up on, which made all that really viral. Uh, I don't, that that's like lightning in a bottle. I don't know if we can replicate that. If you look at the YouTube comments, I think I should take a hiatus from trying to beat women in, in sports. Good call. Good call. Yeah. Lots of pickleball stuff coming up.

[01:20:57] Make sure to like, subscribe and tune in next week. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Follow up. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. What are we doing here? Pickle pod. That is definitely the pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. Yeah, pickle pod. Fuck it. Pickle pod. Pickle pod. I'm sick of it. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.