Jorja Johnson of the Hard Eights holds her Franklin paddle throughout the Major League Pickleball finals match towards BLQK at Pickle & Chill on October 16, 2022 in Columbus, Ohio.
Emilee Chinn | Getty Images
Major League Pickleball is getting new management because it appears to capitalize on the rise of America’s fastest-growing sport on the skilled degree.
The team-based professional pickleball league introduced Wednesday it has named finance and media govt Julio DePietro as its chief govt officer and former NFL govt Bruce Popko as chief working officer.
“The additions of Julio and Bruce signify one other landmark step ahead within the evolution of Major League Pickleball,” mentioned MLP founder Steve Kuhn.
DePietro and Popko can be tasked with steering the league at a time when the game of pickleball has seen explosive growth on the beginner degree.
“We’re fairly assured that we’ve got each the platform and the product. We’re at just the start of this hockey-stick progress,” DePietro informed CNBC.
DePietro was previously a companion at Citadel the place he labored alongside Kuhn for a few years. In 2022, he bought a stake within the Florida Smash MLP workforce, calling the funding a “no-brainer.” As a part of his new function, he’ll quickly divest his stake within the Smash.
In the year-plus that he is served as an proprietor within the league, DePietro mentioned, workforce valuations have seen 100-times progress. Teams as we speak, he mentioned, are going for as a lot as $10 million. Previously, groups had been being scooped up for as little as $100,000.
With greater than 36 million people playing pickleball final 12 months, DiPietro and Popko say their greatest problem is changing all the new informal pickleball followers into MLP followers.
The quickly rising sports activities league has attracted dozens of high-profile athlete house owners and traders together with NBA superstars LeBron James and Kevin Durant in addition to Tom Brady and Drew Brees of NFL fame. In November, beer maker Anheuser-Busch purchased a workforce.
Season One Super Finals on the Life Time Rancho San Clemente in San Clemente, California. The Seattle Pioneers play the Los Angeles Mad Drops within the Premier League combined doubles competitors.
Source: Major League Pickleball
Popko’s background consists of greater than 30 years working within the sports activities business, with earlier COO roles on the Buffalo Bills and Pegula Sports & Entertainment.
“One of the issues that I’ve discovered over time in sports activities is that probably the most avid followers are these followers that take part within the sport straight, and that is why I like this sport a lot, as a result of we’ve got such an important operating begin,” Popko informed CNBC.
Popko mentioned he’ll focus on three pillars as soon as he steps into his function: rising sponsorships, constructing the media rights enterprise, and licensing and merchandising technique.
As they proceed to construct the fanbase, DePietro says MLP is simply scratching the floor by way of the chance and monetization.
“We have barely turned on any of the promoting knobs, a lot much less the subscription knobs, we expect there is a huge alternative to leverage quite a lot of the put in base, the joy behind it, the avidity of the followers, of the gamers, and there’s tons of sponsorship and advertising and marketing alternatives for the league,” DePietro mentioned.
Another problem the MLP faces is advertising and marketing and positioning extra of its gamers as family names. Part of that effort means discovering a constant media companion. Currently, MLP tournaments will be considered anyplace from YouTube and ESPN to the Tennis Channel or MSG Networks, which will be complicated to followers.
“The excellent news is we’re in superior conversations with an A-plus-type broadcast companion who’s keen on carrying our season stay and all of our content material for 2024,” DePietro mentioned.
Media viewership has constantly been rising for the game. MLP’s Premier Level Super Final on June 19 reached over 975,000 viewers on ESPN2, in accordance to the league.
MLP mentioned its YouTube livestream channel has seen a viewership improve of 500% over final 12 months.
DePietro additionally mentioned MLP is in superior conversations with one other family title manufacturing firm to create a sequence in regards to the gamers themselves. He declined to title the manufacturing firm or the broadcaster that MLP is in talks with.
“They’re wonderful athletes, a few of them have unbelievable tales. Bringing the human aspect into it, I believe goes to be an enormous half in driving viewers for us,” he mentioned.