Apollo Sports Capital has led a landmark $225 million investment in Pickleball Inc., the new parent company of the Carvana PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball (MLP presented by DoorDash), marking a significant milestone in the rapid growth of the sport. This investment will support the integration of professional and amateur pickleball with leading technology, retail, and infrastructure platforms, creating the largest singularly-operated pickleball ecosystem in existence.
Pickleball Inc.'s Business Verticals
Pickleball Inc.'s newly-merged business verticals include:
- Professional Play: The Carvana PPA Tour and MLP presented by DoorDash, featuring over 150 signed pro players and a combined year-round event calendar, with a collection of top pros from around the world competing in markets across the U.S.
- Retail: Pickleball Central, the market-leader in pickleball retail, offering equipment, accessories, and apparel, with over 100 pro shops across the United States and shipping over 1 million orders since its founding in 2006.
- Software: Pickleball Play Solutions, the software that powers PPA and MLP events, as well as thousands of amateur tournaments and league seasons, with a 90% market share for events and organized play, and averaging approximately 5 million visits per month on its website properties.
- Court Construction: Just Courts, the "Official Court Installer" for many prestigious organizations across the pickleball market, including MLP and PPA events, schools, facilities, and community centers.
- Media: Pickleball.com and Pickleball TV, offering live scores, news, video highlights, merchandise, tournaments, leagues, clubs, ratings, and clinics, as well as a 24/7 digital network dedicated to America's fastest-growing sport, available on YouTube TV and as a FAST channel on a collection of streaming services.
The investment will allow Pickleball Inc. to expand its focus into new and scalable opportunities like content, media, and the development of infrastructure to support its fast-growing events. The company's business momentum, combined with the explosion of the sport at the amateur level, with 24 million players in 2025 and being named the fastest-growing sport in America for the last five years, shows the strength of, and opportunities for, the newly combined entity.
The five-person board of Pickleball Inc. includes Al Tylis, Connor Pardoe, Jason Stein, Zubin Mehta, and Brian Levine. Tom Dundon and the Pardoe family will remain majority shareholders in the business, rolling in several additional pickleball assets across facilities, courts, ecommerce, and technology. The investment is expected to support the continued growth of the sport, which has already proven itself as the most successful emerging sports league of the past decade, with PPA and MLP athletes earning a total of more than $33 million in prize money and payouts, and the top 60 women in the sport averaging over $260,000 in annual salary.
