Store Snobbery & Powerball Dreams | Greg Mather w/ Arizona Pickleball Players

We’re coming in hot with:

 🔹 Unhinged store loyalty debates (CVS carpet? Absolutely not.)
 🔹 The things people say immediately after buying a new pickleball paddle
 🔹 Why bringing a grocery bag to the court is a cry for help

Plus, Greg Mather from the Arizona Pickleball Players League joins us to talk about building team-based pickleball from six dudes in 2012 to nearly 6,000 players and a full-blown national movement. Captains. Rosters. State championships. Volunteer armies. This isn’t rec play—this is pickleball with standings and bragging rights.

🎧 Listen now before you blame your duper rating on your old paddle again.

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Transcript

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speaker-0 (00:00.462)
yes, I am going to frost my tips now and become blonde. This is Big Dink Energy, the pickleball podcast that's half insight, half nonsense and all entertainment. If you love pickleball, don't take yourself too seriously and think a little trash talk makes the game better. Welcome home. This is the place where life and pickleball intersect. We celebrate the chaos, call out the nonsense and put the fun back in dysfunction.

You're either in or you're out. And if you're still listening, you're in. So let's go. Big Dink Energy starts now. My baloney has a first name and it's O-S-C-A-R. And your podcast has a first name. It's B-D-E. That's Big Dink Energy podcast, the official podcast of Pickleball. That's just for my co-hosts. If you're nasty.

speaker-2 (00:51.278)
Balogna

speaker-1 (00:54.904)
gonna be stuck in my head now.

speaker-0 (00:56.364)
Listen, listen, listen, here's our sponsor. There's a million apps for tracking your score. Zero, none, zilch for tracking the memories. Dink and Dash is changing that. is. Badges, journals, photos, Pickle Pals. Your whole pickleball story in one place, in your hand, in your pocket, in your bag, everywhere you go. It's coming soon. Follow at Dink underscore and underscore Dash now. That's at Dink underscore and underscore Dash now.

speaker-2 (01:24.264)
Okay, so something that came up this week that I wanted to talk about in Kitchen Talk.

speaker-0 (01:28.742)
I love this one. I know what you're gonna say. know what you're gonna say.

speaker-2 (01:31.862)
was weird store rules that we have for no reason. So, okay, I feel like we all have this. at least I do. Okay. So, like, I will go to Dollar Tree and Dollar General, but I just will not go to Family Dollar. Really? Yeah, yeah, But I don't know why. So this is the conversation. It's like, why is that? Why do we have certain things about stores?

speaker-0 (01:51.169)
It's lesser.

speaker-1 (01:59.022)
I don't know because Family Dollar and Dollar Tree are owned by the same comp-

speaker-2 (02:01.646)
Exactly. why? No, but why?

speaker-0 (02:03.694)
general. He's spent enough time in the military, he's a general.

speaker-2 (02:08.716)
And I was just thinking like, I won't buy meat from certain places. have a meat store in town and everybody talks about it. Even tapatillas or something, right? And everybody talks about it. And I just look at it I'm like, can't

speaker-0 (02:12.652)
General.

speaker-0 (02:19.086)
I bought meat from there.

speaker-0 (02:25.326)
When you put that meat in your mouth from there, you loved it.

speaker-2 (02:29.166)
I just feel like, don't know why though. Everybody raves about this place, but I just look at it and I just can't. And then there's some where I'm like, I don't even like your carts. So I'm not going to you. Like, do you guys have other ones? Like there are certain things that just make me not want to go to you. I do.

speaker-0 (02:42.509)
Yeah, yeah,

speaker-0 (02:49.024)
I have one, I have one right to mind. It is the difference between Walgreens and CVS. No CVS, no, no. And I don't know if it's across the nation, but every CVS I've been in has carpet.

speaker-1 (02:50.136)
Okay, what is yours?

speaker-2 (02:55.586)
Yeah, I'm a Walgreens.

speaker-2 (03:02.552)
That is so weird. That's like people with carpet in the bathroom.

speaker-0 (03:05.368)
What are you a dentist office? I'm not shopping for my sundries. No, because I know that some body fluids have leaked on that. You're not getting that out. A carpet is dirty sock you never walk.

speaker-2 (03:09.23)
Okay.

speaker-2 (03:18.298)
Yeah, so I'm a Walgreens person. Yeah, if I go that's last like that's a last-minute thing I'm not shopping at Walgreens, but I'm not like a Walmart or Target person like I like Walmart

speaker-0 (03:29.388)
archer farms you know in archer farms unless you go to target

speaker-2 (03:32.007)
That is true and they do have that black and white trail mix.

speaker-0 (03:35.084)
Yeah, and it makes you, I don't know, are you a little bit more bougie because you went into the Target and not the Walmart? Plus pajama pants and crocs at the...

speaker-2 (03:40.366)
The is, is I'm like no target.

speaker-1 (03:44.43)
I gonna say yeah.

speaker-2 (03:45.218)
That is true, but the same exact stuff is just cheaper at Walmart. It is. I don't know. I might go to Target more if it was in my hometown. Like Walmart is in our hometown, so it's just closer. But I don't know, like I'll buy store brand at one place, but then like not store brand at another. Yeah. Like I ain't buying no Hill Country. I don't

speaker-0 (04:06.114)
It's C-

speaker-1 (04:07.274)
I the Hill Country, but I'll buy the ATV brand.

speaker-2 (04:09.718)
Right, that's what I'm saying. So why is that they're both made by H?

speaker-0 (04:14.143)
Listen, I've got another big one that's personal and I and a bunch of guys are gonna resonate with this. Okay Home Depot versus Lowe's

speaker-2 (04:22.125)
No.

speaker-1 (04:22.998)
I don't care. My husband has a preference.

speaker-0 (04:25.294)
Listen, when I go to Home Depot, I feel more like a contractor. feel more like a man. Really? Yeah, yeah. the other men in there, this is where you go when you know your project. You know the tools you need, you know your project. I don't need your help. I'm not going to ask anybody. I'm like Ron Swanson when I'm there. I know more than you. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're not coming over to help me with nothing.

speaker-2 (04:30.303)
And we-

speaker-2 (04:47.278)
It's funny, I never looked at it

speaker-0 (04:49.878)
Lowe's is like the dad who wears the shorts and the New Balance and he's like, I've researched a project, I'm not quite sure, can you help me?

speaker-2 (04:57.958)
But Home Depot's like, you're legit. You're coming in here and you're buying two by fours and you know what to do with

speaker-0 (05:03.106)
Yeah, those are where people go that don't actually sign their name. They put an X instead of signing their

speaker-2 (05:07.116)
That's probably why I don't go to Home Depot and I go to Lowe's because I never know what I'm doing. I'm like, send me a screenshot of what you need. Even better, buy it online and I'll go pick it up.

speaker-0 (05:17.14)
Yeah, any other ones?

speaker-1 (05:18.766)
would say the only thing for me would be I will avoid Starbucks at any cost. I will go to try to find any other coffee shop and I will only go to Starbucks if someone has given me a gift card for there because I'm not gonna let them get free money. Yeah, most people know me by now and won't give me a Starbucks gift card.

speaker-2 (05:27.096)
Well, that's just a given.

speaker-2 (05:39.017)
I totally prefer Dutch Bros.

speaker-2 (05:45.08)
I just don't like it. I just don't like it. How about Aldi's? I love them.

speaker-0 (05:46.21)
Get up on our sponsorship, Dutch bro.

speaker-0 (05:51.474)
Okay, so that's a that is a weird one because I think at the Aldi's you have to pay for your shopping cart too And you have to bring your own bags, right? think I think I remember

speaker-1 (06:00.669)
It's like a quarter to get it, but then like when you return it you get it back.

speaker-0 (06:03.896)
There's weird food there.

speaker-2 (06:04.942)
Because the kids and I went and we spent a good 30 minutes laughing at the cereal, generic cereal. Because it was literally named Bird with Loops. I was like, we spent a good 30 minutes. I was like, okay, what is this trying to pretend it is? And there was so many funny ones. It was like Cat Stripe, whatever. And it was like, is that supposed to be Tony the Tiger? What does he have?

What is- Frosted plagues. I mean, their thing is literally lined with generic.

speaker-0 (06:42.198)
lieutenant much yelling white making it all the way

speaker-2 (06:44.59)
Like not that I care I don't really care but they were just so funny, you know, it's same with the like game Hello. my gosh. It was like what like connect for was like four in a row and then one Yes, and guess who is like find the person yeah

speaker-1 (06:51.31)
The games at like five and below.

speaker-1 (06:58.424)
Sorry was

speaker-1 (07:05.158)
I mean, I love it. But I, going back to Aldi, I love Aldi. Aldi is very like nostalgic for me.

speaker-2 (07:11.598)
Why? I thought it was new.

speaker-0 (07:13.396)
No. No, it's been around for a while. No.

speaker-1 (07:15.176)
Really? And like especially around Christmas time, they have a lot of good German like cookies and crackers and just like nostalgic things that I grew up eating. And I just love going to Aldi, except I don't like going to the Aldi here because of the town that it's in. And I hate going to that town.

speaker-2 (07:34.795)
How about like TJ Maxx, Ross, or Marshalls? Do you have a preference? Mine's the same.

speaker-1 (07:40.526)
Absolutely. Maxx. I would say my top is gonna be Marshall's. Next would be TJ Maxx and last would be Ross. Same. But I also like Bell's, because Bell's has now turned into a store like TJ Maxx and Marshall's and Ross. So I like to go to Bell's too. I Home Goods. Home Goods is a good one. What is the other one? Tuesday Morning.

speaker-2 (08:06.382)
They got rid of that. As far as I know, the stores that I know of have

speaker-1 (08:11.192)
I used to love going to Tuesday morning because they had the best notebook.

speaker-2 (08:15.03)
Notebooks I was just gonna Only reason I went there

speaker-3 (08:16.386)
Yeah

speaker-1 (08:18.83)
No books, no hats, and-

and get like the portfolios that had like the notepad and the clipboard on this side and I would be in meetings like, look at my portfolio they have, like it's so cute.

speaker-2 (08:34.871)
Yes.

speaker-0 (08:36.291)
Yeah, the difference for me between TJ Maxx and Ross is the underwear section. TJ Maxx is going to get a good three pack. Ross, someone may have already tried them on and put them back on the shelf.

speaker-2 (08:46.615)
Maybe you guys have some, I don't know, some weird store phobias. I don't know what it's called.

speaker-1 (08:51.734)
And let us know if you prefer TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or Ross.

speaker-0 (08:56.098)
Get all up our comments. Let us know what you think, BDEPodcast.com.

speaker-0 (09:05.986)
We love fan mail, yes we do. We love fan mail, how about you? So Rachel Chatour over on YouTube said, fun. Guy is the best. These ladies love to broadcast with him.

speaker-2 (09:14.199)
No

speaker-0 (09:17.642)
And then she said, love this, y'all do an amazing job. If you're not familiar with Rachel, she writes books and does pickleball artwork. Go follow her at Rachel Tautour. That's R-A-C-H-A-E-L-C-H-A-T-O-O-R on Instagram. Go to bdepodcast.com to leave us a text, review, feedback, anything you want. Send us pictures even. I'll describe them on air for people. We love visuals for the air. And just send us some love over there.

speaker-3 (09:43.544)
Just

speaker-2 (09:44.334)
you

speaker-0 (09:45.07)
Quick pickleball wisdom in and out before you know it. Listen up, listen now. Bring a bag to the court. Stop using your Target or Walmart bag to bring out your junk. Bring an actual bag to the court. Paddle, balls, water, chapstick. Don't try to stick it all in your pockets either. If it doesn't fit in your pocket, it belongs in the bat. Look like you've been there before. Bring a bag.

speaker-2 (10:07.31)
you

speaker-3 (10:07.724)
Just

speaker-0 (10:13.299)
It's time for Pickle Pals!

speaker-0 (10:19.106)
All right, dinker and dinkettes, today our guest is a team player in the truest sense of the word.

While everyone else was playing doubles tournaments, Greg Mathur was building something completely different. Team-based leagues that turned pickleball into a season-long commitment with captains, rosters, standings, and all the playoff drama you can think of. He started with the East Valley Interclub League. If you're playing along at home, you know that spells evil in 2012. And when other regions wanted in, he created then the Arizona Pickleball Players League, the APPL, run entirely by volunteers. We gotta ask him about that. Serves five regions across Arizona and has over 4,700 players playing

more than 30,000 games a year. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to introduce to you what I would say is the godfather of Team Pickleball himself, Greg Mathur from Chandler, Arizona. Greg, thanks so much for being on the Big Dink Energy podcast. Man, this is awesome. I love this whole story. So let's go back to the beginning. Let's get in the way back machine and go back to 2012. You said to yourself, I'm going to build a league. Tell me how that came about.

speaker-3 (11:07.598)
Appreciate you having me here.

speaker-3 (11:20.502)
Way back in 2008, a good friend of mine who played team-based league tennis with me, we went to nationals and had a lot of success with that. He introduced me to pickleball, called me up real quick and said, hey, Greg, you got to come over to the West Valley. I'm in a tournament and I'm playing pickleball. I didn't know what that was. Went over there, watched him, and I said, this is fantastic. I could play this.

came back long story short, we got bored. We've kind of introduced it in the East Valley in terms of bringing it to our recently formed pickleball club. But then we got tired and we said, Hey, we knew a couple guys, six guys up in the Fountain Hills area. We called them up and said, Hey, why don't we drive up to you guys and play? And we did that. And on the way home, I said, you know, tournaments is great, but there's no team-based league pickleball. So I'm going to form it.

And sure enough, the East Valley Interclub League, AKA EVIL League, was formed. And it just organically grew. And eventually after proving that was pretty popular because first we just had a men's group and then the women wanted to play, then they wanted to play mixed and all of that. I said, all right, this is successful. Now it's time to really try to offer kind of what USDA tennis had been doing for years, team-based league tennis.

I said, let's get some team-based league pickleball going on throughout the state. And if it succeeds, then let's start an initiative to take it nationally. And formed Apple, PPL, Apple in 2019, and then grew rapidly again through word of mouth to actually, I can correct your numbers now. We just had our open registration, just closed registration for our 2026 season.

and we'll be at around 550 teams and close to 6,000 players when we get done.

speaker-0 (13:18.35)
Holy moly, holy moly, I love that. I love that it's growing. And I love that you're calling it Apple because I think there's a small cell phone company out there, the technology company, so I'm sure you're in direct competition with them.

speaker-3 (13:31.214)
Well, there has been a mistake. Some people think we're Apple, but Apple's acronym is AAPL. So we're not stepping on anybody's toes, because their legal department's larger than ours. But we're APPL, so we're safe with that one.

speaker-0 (13:48.408)
Yeah, I think so. think so. So, man, listen, I got to tell you right off the bat, I love that you called it evil at first. East Valley Interclub League. I mean, that just resonates with me. So two-parter here, maybe. Number one, did you have a secret lair? And then at the time, did you know you were building something that would eventually span these five regions like this?

speaker-3 (14:07.852)
One of our participants said, hey, who was a designer? He designed our logo and that was just enough. It was a pickleball. And if you look closely, you could see this sinister looking eyes and smile inside the pickleball and it was took off from there. So I love that. Nothing, seemed to work and it seemed to catch on because we run around different parks and people were playing and they say, hey, are you going to have an evil team today? Or this year?

And that was great. Then you knew it was going to be successful.

speaker-0 (14:38.754)
That's awesome. you have, like you already said, you have a USTA tennis background. How much of an Apple structure now comes from that team tennis model? And did you have to change much to make it fit pickleball?

speaker-3 (14:51.544)
We had to change a lot, but what I loved was the concept of team-based league tennis. Like I said, we actually gone to nationals several times and won at once, but just being on a team with a bunch of players, some better, some worse than others, but we're all a certain skill level, that was a lot of fun. or lose. A lot of times you just, know, get after your match during the regular season and you had a beer with your friends and your opponents and that.

just a good feeling. And in general, people like to be on teams. It kind of lessens the intimidation. If you and I go to a tournament and we're new in that environment, we don't know anybody or it's a little bit, you know, it's just us. with a team, you've got to pretty good support structure during for you. I'll tell you a little bit more about the scoring system, which makes it unique as compared to tennis. But so I just like the concept. And then for pickleball tournaments,

If you're good, you're spending eight hours at a tournament. You get there at seven register and sometimes seven in the evening, you're getting done. If you're not that good, I've had the opportunity to experience both, then you're two and done and you go home, spend a lot of money and that's it. Yeah, yeah, right. But in this concept with team-based league pickleball, you know you're going to play two hours of good competitive pickleball.

speaker-0 (16:07.243)
and maybe got some good food.

speaker-3 (16:19.106)
You're going to be at your skill level, your age bracket, you're going to play about, you're going to play six games and that'll take you close to two hours once you're taking a little break. And then you can do something for the rest of the day and you've gotten a good several games of competitive pickleball in and fun and then move on. So that became very popular.

speaker-0 (16:40.522)
So, I mean, it's not just the cool team jerseys and the trash talking amongst the friends, right? There's a lot more that goes into that. And I like your scoring system too, because everybody just, I mean, this whole thing, we try to revolve around Duper. I mean, I'm a solid 1.5 if they ever want to open that category. so...

My understanding, you can earn a point even if you lose, as long as you get to six points. So that means like a 3-0 player feels just as valuable as a 5-0 out there, right? So true. And so how often do matches come down to the last game because of that scoring?

speaker-3 (17:12.238)
It's really quite interesting. Often a typical match in the regular season, let's say, 27-22 or 26-24 or within five or six points. If you and I are the lowest skilled players on our 3.5 team, let's say, and we're playing our last game of the last round, basically you play three rounds of pickleball, you're going to play it.

two games to 11 against a pair on the other team, then you're gonna rotate, play another two games to 11, rotate, play another two games to 11. So you've played all six of their people, they've played us. But it can come down to that last game and we're losing nine to five and the rest of the team saying, know, come on, guy, come on, Greg, just get that sixth point and we get the sixth point, we win the match. And that's rewarding. And if we won,

If we lost all our six games, but we scored six points or more, we contributed six points to the team score. And that often makes the difference.

speaker-0 (18:19.342)
It makes everybody feel valued on the team. Yeah, I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna apologize a lot to the people I'm playing with, but at least if I can get us to six or we can get the six together combined, I know we're gonna get a point on that. I absolutely love that. Now you've got, man, six skill levels, right? Three age divisions, men's, women's mixed. That's a ton of divisions, a ton of brackets. So I'm gonna guess no matter where you are in your pickleball journey, you're gonna find something there at Apple, right?

speaker-3 (18:47.83)
Absolutely. We've got, you started at 2.5 and that has been growing and it just makes sense because, you know, we bring players in and they're beginners that get to light the format. They're not intimidated and they're going to get better and better and it'll be a treadmill. They'll start advancing as they gain experience and they'll become 3.0s, 3.5s. Some of them will accelerate more rapidly and then we'll keep feeding the system. We also want to bring in

Those who are already, may haven't, might not have heard of our league or team-based league pickleball, and you may be playing some tournaments and might be a duper rated 4.0 player or 4.5 player. Well, we've got something for you if you want to enjoy the aspects of team pickleball. So it, covers a good span. Yeah. And at the age group level, we've done a

great job this year of securing what we call Apple managed venues. We've done it for several years because it really started out as an older group of folks, active adults, because they had pickleball courts that they're HOAs and they could use those courts. When we expanded it and basically called it Apple, then it was open to all 18 plus. Well, if you're 35 years old, you probably aren't in an active adult community.

and you're playing at a park or you're playing at some other venue. And we have great relationships with parks. And more recently, with the opening of a lot of indoor venues, we've got great partnerships with some of those venues so that the 30 pluses, the age group that's still in the workforce can say, hey, on Tuesday night, I've got a match and it's going to be indoors and it's at one of the indoor venues. And that's really driving more growth in what we call open age division.

speaker-0 (20:39.886)
Yeah, I mean, for you guys, where you are in Arizona, it's vitally important for large portions of the year that indoor court, right? So we don't have tumbleweeds and coyotes stealing our pickleballs and all that kind of stuff. So in 2019, back in the day, you started like 95 teams, right?

And now you just said over 6,000 players coming up in 2026. Obviously insane growth. Fantastic on that. so for what what for you broke first though? Was it the volunteer capacity? Was it court availability or maybe even your sanity broke along the way?

speaker-3 (21:11.214)
Everything seemed to continue on an even scale because we started out literally with the pilot league with three volunteers. And then as it grew, the volunteers came forward when we had several people from Casa Grande call us and said, hey, we want to form an evil league. And I said, congratulations, you're the Casa Grande region of the Apple league. And they had no idea what that was. So then that grew and they...

had volunteers and they joined forces. We formed an organization, like I said, then people from the West Valley said, hey, we heard that East Valley's got this going on. What's going on? What is Apple? And well, we want to form a league. And sure enough, volunteers stepped forward. And so the volunteer base, we're up to close to 40 volunteers now. the Southern region, same thing happened there. not two.

speaker-0 (22:03.436)
Is that all out of jealousy? Like, they got that. We want that too.

speaker-3 (22:06.51)
Well, it was, especially the Southern region, was word of mouth. Cause a lot of folks spend the time up in the White Mountains during the summers. They, some Tucson folks were up there and they knew a lot of East Valley folks up here in the Phoenix East Valley. And they said, oh, but you know, we're having a lot of fun playing this thing called Apple. It's team-based. they go, the Tucson folks wanted to know more about it. And then sure enough, I got a phone call and we said, all right, great.

You know, we need some volunteers and we'll help open it up down there. And the southern region has since then has grown really rapidly.

speaker-0 (22:44.166)
awesome. Yeah, I want to make sure, and you wanted us to make sure, you know, when we were talking early on about this before the interview, to give a shout out to those volunteers. I mean, they're doing a ton of heavy lifting out there. You're up to almost 40. They're running regions, maiden leagues, and getting zero pay. So, I mean, obviously this is a model that I think churches could copy, because they use a lot of volunteers too. So maybe you should package that up for churches. I...

I bet you there's a lot of self-motivation in there for them, but you've got to be at the top, you've got to be motivating them too as well, right?

speaker-3 (23:14.424)
Well, I tried to. mean, they would get tired of me saying, this is what tennis does. But they knew that I was quite familiar with the structure and how to execute it. And now I'm way more able to kind of step back and let it run and enjoy doing some of these kind of things. But league coordinators who are interfacing with the captains and the teams and the players, we have maybe 50 % of our volunteers are league coordinators.

But there's so much going on inside to run schedules, to get team registrations booked up and all of that. As we've grown, we've had to figure out how to manage the organization effectively and we're doing a great job. And yeah, I might have led the way, but now we're getting so there's everyone is so knowledgeable that we're getting smarter, more efficient and doing a lot of cool new things that have come from there.

speaker-0 (24:12.854)
You guys are, still a nonprofit, right? Yep. And so how does that, I mean, do you find that to be difficult still at the scale that it's now, or, you know, it's obviously supporting itself. Do you find that difficult or, you know, that's just the way to be?

speaker-3 (24:26.574)
If we had gone as a for-profit, it probably would have been a messier solution. You can be non-profit and actually pay people, obviously, but there are other good examples of volunteer organizations, especially at the regional level. As we talk national level, some of that changes. Like USTA, there's a lot of paid employees executing team-based tennis. But for us, it was, we're going to start this thing like a regional.

Arizona league and we're a bunch of volunteers going to make it happen. And then we liked it. We started a state championship model and back four or five years ago. And even that became more popular. People on my staff said, no, nobody's going to really want to go do that. And two years later, they said, I had no idea this would be such a big deal for so many teams. There's still a lot of teams that don't care and they just have a great time playing. But then to have that path.

to a great event where the regions come together and the regional team winners and play in a state championship is a lot of fun for people as well.

speaker-0 (25:34.53)
I know other states are probably reaching out and trying to recreate the model of Apple. there, do you see them, is that going to be successful? Are there mistakes they're going to make along the way or have you already seen mistakes other states trying to do this?

speaker-3 (25:47.914)
Well, we've seen other states do some things differently with a team approach. And if it works for them, that's great. Several of them, when we've reached out to them and explained the model that we have, the platform that we have also run by, supported by pickleball scores, it didn't take long to have them take advantage of that. You know, the scoring was a good example. And the plays, like some people were doing two out of three.

You can't control two out of three. If you and I win 11-0, 11-0, and some other pair on our team lost 11-9, won 12-10, and they're now 16-15, that doesn't work. so some of the organizations said, yeah, that sounds like you've got a good platform and then adapted it. Others contacted us and said, hey, look, we want to start a league. Our Florida partners are a good example. And they didn't want to reinvent the wheel. We gave them.

score sheets, rules, a bunch of administrative stuff so that they could what we call quick start. And within five months, their league was, what did they have? They had over a hundred teams. Wow. Their first season. And they're, you know, they couldn't have started that quickly without not reinventing the wheel. Yeah. So they.

speaker-0 (27:01.486)
Dang, that's awesome.

speaker-0 (27:09.442)
Yeah, you already have a proven model. mean, that's fantastic. So now you mentioned regional and national championships. Let's look five years in the future. Is this kind of like USTA Nationals where teams compete state by state? Is that your kind of vision?

speaker-3 (27:22.926)
Well, state by state or at least region in some ways by region. But the answer is yes. We got started, we helped several smaller organizations get started with our format last year and together we held a national event and that was a great start. We changed directions and as a result, we restarted our initiative with Florida, with Oregon, with California.

Several. And called it ATPL, the American Team Pickleball League. And we just completed our first inaugural national championships literally last weekend, or actually four days ending last weekend. And it was a great success. We're starting with states and then ultimately like Arizona, there might be a state championship within each of these states. And then as we grow, couldn't, if we're at...

48 states, 40 states, you can't really have a national championship with 40 states going on. So we might follow a USDA type lead and form sections and then have an intermediate competition there. But yes, that's the vision. I like that. we're actively promoting that through social media and another atpelnation.org website with our Quick Start, much like what Apple did with

some of its other leagues throughout the other states that either came to us or we reached out to them. But the Quick Start will help these new leagues form in other states and then start to participate.

speaker-0 (28:55.362)
Fantastic. What's all the social media taglines that people need so they can get in touch with you, get in touch with the league, figure out how they maybe if they want to start their own or just get involved with you guys.

speaker-3 (29:06.39)
It's still Arizona Pickleball Players League and that's the handle and that's on Instagram as well as ATPL, American Teen Pickleball League or ATPL Nation. But if you were to Google it or you could find it pretty quickly on Facebook or Instagram.

speaker-0 (29:10.914)
that's over on instagram right

speaker-0 (29:24.398)
Yeah, and you can find it on the Big Dink Energy podcast, social media as well. We promote the heck out

speaker-3 (29:28.91)
If I could have one more thing. Yeah, go ahead. Some players go, well, I don't know anybody and I want to be on a team. We have probably the best run, most effective system. We call them free agents, but for players who are seeking a team, you can go to either website and put your name in and we help expose you to other captains and other teams. And it's really important for players to

haven't networked yet. But thank you for that, allowing me to interject that.

speaker-0 (29:59.532)
For sure. Greg, thanks so much. The godfather of Team Pickleball. I love it. Thank you for being on the Big Dink Energy podcast. Everybody go, like and follow. And if you want something in your state, in your area, reach out to them. Thanks again, Greg, for being on the podcast with us. Appreciate it.

speaker-3 (30:14.414)
See you then.

speaker-0 (30:16.702)
It's power!

speaker-0 (30:21.934)
Yeah, yeah, Pick 6 is where we take one question each, bring two answers, and immediately agree to this segment. On the Pick 6 for us tonight, Things People Say Right After Buying a New Paddle. This is where you at home can play along. Things People Say Right After Buying a New Paddle.

speaker-2 (30:38.508)
Basically the same one the pros use.

speaker-1 (30:42.262)
That's a good one. My duper sore is definitely going up.

speaker-0 (30:46.774)
Yeah, yeah. It's thicker than my last one.

speaker-2 (30:50.616)
can already feel the control.

speaker-1 (30:52.802)
Mine is similar. This grip feels amazing.

speaker-0 (30:56.642)
Yeah, I'm still learning what it likes. Get all up in our DMs, bdepodcast.com, tell us what you think for the Pick Six tonight, which was things people say right after buying a new paddle. What did you say? Let us know.

speaker-2 (31:13.518)
News you can use.

speaker-0 (31:17.91)
Attention, attention. News you can use happening right now.

speaker-2 (31:22.318)
So the Professional Pickleball Association, the PPA Tour, is thrilled to announce Powerball as the official title sponsor for the Pickleball State Championship Series, which is a nationwide tournament series. It culminates at the Pickleball World Championships. So their marquee event in the sport of pickleball. The series will now officially be known as the Powerball Pickleball State Championship Series across all states.

speaker-0 (31:49.038)
I feel like that's already taken. I've lost it. I lost it a bunch, the Powerball.

speaker-2 (31:53.538)
speaker-1 (31:53.772)
Yeah, that's immediately what went through my head was the lottery.

speaker-0 (31:57.23)
okay now, now, okay now.

speaker-2 (31:58.008)
That's who's sponsoring it.

Powerball is the official sponsor.

speaker-0 (32:05.618)
thought No, I didn't think that either. I thought PPA was like, hmm, here's a unique name.

speaker-1 (32:07.159)
I thought it was

speaker-2 (32:11.904)
No. So the Powerball Pickleball State Championship Series.

speaker-1 (32:16.942)
No.

speaker-0 (32:17.548)
I going

speaker-2 (32:23.534)
So it's gonna feature more than 55 tournaments across all 50 states with some states hosting multiple events. The series gives amateur players of all ages and skill levels the opportunity to compete with their respective divisions in each state's amateur championship. Gold medalists in each state who earn the title of state champion will receive automatic qualification into the state championship brackets of the Pickleball World Championships, which is held in November.

speaker-0 (32:52.974)
lottery almost.

speaker-2 (32:54.018)
I like a lottery.

speaker-1 (32:54.85)
So then if Powerball is sponsoring it, does it make the Powerball lottery pot go down?

speaker-0 (33:03.274)
are they spending some of the pot money on these? Like how does- I don't know. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot of inbred people from Alabama. They're still putting their money in.

speaker-1 (33:06.35)
How does that work?

speaker-1 (33:12.906)
Miss like a couple million dollars when I win it because they decided to sponsor

speaker-2 (33:16.61)
I think that it's really cool because I mean Powerball is huge.

speaker-0 (33:21.434)
I mean, so it is bringing the notoriety to it for sure. Everybody, it's ubiquitous. Everybody knows Powerball.

speaker-2 (33:26.926)
Apparently. But I love the play on words as well. Yeah. So I think it's just Powerball Pickleball State Championship.

speaker-0 (33:35.838)
Now, now what would be cool is if they could figure out a way on the court to have an air circulator circulating the pickle balls and then one pops out randomly and then you've got to play with

speaker-2 (33:46.818)
Yeah,

speaker-1 (33:49.016)
Yeah

speaker-0 (33:49.998)
Or okay now listen hear me out PPA PPA get up in the DMs. know, this is a up people Attention attention unless no you you're gonna the the powerball numbers are gonna be drawn by the Powerball numbers are drawn by the players by the balls that they play and so when they score a point with that ball That's the number that's drawn for that. So

speaker-1 (33:56.27)
Good idea.

speaker-2 (33:58.786)
This has not been vetted. I know.

speaker-1 (34:00.504)
Yeah.

This is Guy's Break.

speaker-1 (34:09.608)
Like what is

speaker-2 (34:10.264)
goodness.

speaker-2 (34:18.542)
You know how hard that would be not to like rig? Oh my We're gonna forget you said that. You were like listen up, listen up and it wasn't even good.

speaker-1 (34:26.377)
Best idea ever.

speaker-0 (34:27.956)
PPA get with me

speaker-2 (34:29.064)
No, don't. Yeah, you should be at Lowe's for that one.

speaker-1 (34:30.594)
gonna back to Lowe's, try again.

speaker-0 (34:34.928)
PPA, you know what I'm talking about. You know it's something.

That's it for this episode, unless you've got something to say. Think we got it wrong? Have a better take? We want to hear it. Find us at bdepodcast.com or at bdepodcast on the socials. Drop us a message. We might just feature you in the next episode. If you had a good time, well, same z's. If not, maybe try again. We grow on people. So you know the deal. Follow the show, tell a friend, and leave us a review. Or just pretend this never happened. Until next time, keep the dink soft and the energy big.

you