UPA Plans $150-200M Capital Raise to Build Vertically Integrated Pickleball Platform
The pickleball world is witnessing a transformative moment. The United Pickleball Association, the parent organization behind the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball, is planning to raise between $150 million and $200 million in new capital. This isn’t just another investment round for a sports league. According to sports business analyst Joe Pompliano, the UPA is positioning itself to create pickleball’s first truly vertically integrated platform, one that would touch every aspect of the sport from professional competition to recreational play, from equipment sales to facility construction.
The timing is no coincidence. This ambitious fundraising effort comes on the heels of unprecedented viewership numbers that have silenced many skeptics who doubted pickleball’s mainstream appeal. Last month, the Carvana PPA Masters Championship drew an average of 791,000 viewers on CBS, making it the most-watched pickleball broadcast in history. To put that in perspective, this pickleball event outperformed an NBA game on Amazon Prime that drew 528,000 viewers, Big 12 Women’s basketball on FOX with 677,000 viewers, and Premier League soccer on USA Network with 451,000 viewers during the same time slot. These aren’t just impressive numbers for pickleball. These are impressive numbers for any sport trying to capture attention in today’s fragmented media landscape.
Understanding the Vision: What Vertical Integration Means for Pickleball
For those unfamiliar with business terminology, vertical integration might sound like corporate jargon, but the concept is actually straightforward and its implications for pickleball are significant. When a company is vertically integrated, it controls multiple stages of production and distribution rather than focusing on just one aspect of the business. Think of how Apple doesn’t just design iPhones but also runs the App Store, operates retail stores, and creates its own operating system. This control across the entire ecosystem allows for better coordination, improved customer experience, and the ability to capture more value at each step of the process.
In pickleball’s case, the proposed UPA platform would bring together professional leagues, equipment retail, tournament software, court construction, facility operations, and player rating systems all under one roof. Currently, these functions are handled by separate companies with different owners, different priorities, and sometimes conflicting interests. A player might watch a PPA match on television, then buy their paddle from an unaffiliated retailer, register for a tournament through a different platform, and play at a facility that has no connection to the professional tour they just watched. The UPA’s vision is to create seamless connectivity across all these touchpoints.
Rather than simply raising capital to expand the existing professional leagues, sources indicate that UPA plans to merge with Pickleball Inc. and other related assets owned by billionaire Tom Dundon. This would create a single holding company with tentacles reaching throughout the entire pickleball ecosystem. The combined entity would encompass the professional competition level with the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball, the ecommerce side through Pickleball Central, the technology infrastructure via Pickleball Play Solutions for tournament registration and facility management, the physical infrastructure through Just Courts Construction, facility operations through a minority stake in Picklr, and player development and ratings through a minority stake in DUPR.
The Financial Foundation: Numbers That Tell a Growth Story
The financial metrics underlying this ambitious expansion paint a picture of a sport in rapid ascent. UPA’s revenue trajectory shows consistent and substantial growth that would catch the attention of any serious investor. In 2024, the organization generated $47 million in revenue. By 2025, that figure jumped to $64 million, representing a 36% year-over-year increase. Looking ahead, projections for 2026 estimate revenue reaching $81 million. These aren’t the numbers of a niche recreational activity. These are the financial markers of a sport establishing itself as a legitimate entertainment and participation product.
The revenue sources demonstrate diversification that adds stability to the business model. Sponsorships bring in approximately $30 million annually, including multi-year deals with major brands like DoorDash. Ticket sales generated over $10 million in 2025, driven by more than 300,000 attendees across PPA and MLP events. Media rights continue to grow as broadcast partnerships expand and viewership numbers climb. Amateur tournaments add another revenue stream, with more than 27,000 amateur participants contributing to the financial ecosystem. Single events like the UPA World Championships have generated $4 million in revenue, demonstrating the potential for tentpole moments that can drive significant economic activity.
When the UPA’s assets are combined with Tom Dundon’s other pickleball holdings, the merged platform would generate approximately $140 million in annual revenue spanning sponsorships, media rights, ticketing, tournament registrations, ecommerce, real estate, and software. Current valuation estimates place UPA alone at $570 million to $650 million based on standard revenue multiples of 7-8 times annual revenue. The combined entity is expected to seek the $150-200 million capital injection at an enterprise value approaching or exceeding $800 million, a figure that would represent one of the largest valuations in pickleball’s still-young commercial history.
The Dundon Factor: Building a Pickleball Empire
Behind this ambitious consolidation sits Tom Dundon, a billionaire perhaps best known in sports circles as the owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and soon-to-be owner of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers. But in pickleball circles, Dundon has quietly been assembling what now appears to be the pieces of a comprehensive strategy to dominate the sport’s business landscape. His private equity firm, Dundon Capital Partners, is UPA’s largest shareholder, giving him both the influence and the motivation to orchestrate complex mergers between his various pickleball interests.
Dundon’s pickleball journey began in 2021 when he acquired a majority stake in Pickleball Central and PickleballTournaments.com. At the time, these acquisitions might have seemed like simple investments in a growing sport. In 2022, he acquired the PPA Tour, signaling more serious intentions about building a position in professional pickleball. The real inflection point came in 2024 when the PPA merged with Major League Pickleball to form the UPA, backed by a $75 million investment. That merger consolidated the two most prominent professional pickleball circuits in the United States under one organizational umbrella.
Because Dundon holds the largest ownership stake in both UPA and is the owner of Pickleball Inc., he occupies a unique position to facilitate the proposed merger of these separate entities. In many business scenarios, merging companies with different ownership structures can be extraordinarily complicated, with conflicting interests and competing visions creating barriers to integration. When the same individual or entity controls both sides of a potential merger, many of those complications disappear. Dundon’s consolidated ownership position means he can orchestrate moves that might be impossible or impractical in a more fragmented ownership environment.
What This Means for Players at Every Level
The proposed vertical integration has implications that extend far beyond boardrooms and investor presentations. For recreational players, the kind of people who play pickleball a few times a week at their local courts, a vertically integrated platform promises a more seamless experience across their entire pickleball journey. Imagine watching a professional match that inspires you to upgrade your equipment. In the integrated ecosystem, you could purchase that equipment from the same organization, register for a tournament using their software platform, and potentially play that tournament at a facility within their network. The data from your tournament performance could feed into your rating on their ratings platform, which could then help match you with appropriate competition levels at future events.
This kind of integration could eliminate many of the friction points that currently exist in the pickleball experience. Different platforms with different user interfaces, different registration processes, inconsistent tournament formats, and varying facility standards could give way to more standardized, higher-quality experiences. Of course, this also raises questions about market concentration and whether having so much of the pickleball ecosystem controlled by a single entity is healthy for the sport’s long-term development. Competition often drives innovation and keeps prices in check, and some industry observers will undoubtedly express concerns about what happens when alternatives become limited.
For the professional level of the sport, vertical integration could mean more consistent production values, better-coordinated calendars, enhanced prize pools funded by profits from other parts of the business, and potentially more career stability for professional players. The ability to cross-subsidize the professional tours with profits from equipment sales, facility operations, and software services could allow the competitive side of pickleball to grow faster than it could on its own. Professional sports leagues, particularly in their early years, often struggle to achieve profitability. Having other revenue streams to support the professional competition could accelerate pickleball’s journey to establishing itself as a major spectator sport.
The Investor Proposition: A Different Kind of Bet
From an investment perspective, the vertically integrated platform represents a fundamentally different proposition than backing a standalone professional sports league. Professional sports leagues can be notoriously difficult businesses to operate profitably, especially in their growth phases. They require massive upfront investments in production, venue costs, player compensation, and marketing, with revenue often taking years to catch up to expenses. Many professional sports properties don’t generate positive cash flow for extended periods, requiring patient capital and deep-pocketed investors willing to sustain losses while building audience and brand value.
The UPA’s integrated platform offers investors exposure to multiple revenue streams, some of which generate immediate returns rather than requiring years of audience building. Equipment sales through Pickleball Central can be profitable today. Software services for tournament management generate recurring revenue with relatively low marginal costs. Court construction and facility operations tap into the infrastructure build-out happening across the country as communities rush to add pickleball courts to meet demand. These businesses don’t require superstar athletes or broadcast deals to generate revenue. They serve the fundamental needs of millions of recreational players.
According to the fundraising materials referenced in reporting, the pitch to investors includes using the raised capital to pay down existing UPA debt, adding fresh capital for growth initiatives, achieving breakeven status by 2027, and potentially reaching $100 million in EBITDA by 2030. EBITDA, which stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization, is a measure of operating profitability that investors use to evaluate a company’s financial performance. Reaching $100 million in EBITDA by 2030 would represent a significant financial milestone, transforming the UPA platform from a growth-stage investment requiring capital infusions into a mature, profitable enterprise generating substantial returns.
The Broader Context: Pickleball’s Explosive Growth
None of this would be possible without the underlying growth of pickleball participation. According to recent industry reports, pickleball now counts approximately 19.8 million players in the United States, and the sport maintains its status as America’s fastest-growing sport for the fourth consecutive year. These participation numbers aren’t just impressive in isolation. They position pickleball to surpass several traditional American sports in total participation.
At current growth trajectories, pickleball is on track to become the country’s fourth most popular sport by year-end, potentially surpassing baseball with its 17.3 million participants and challenging soccer’s 20.4 million participants. While pickleball still trails tennis with 25.7 million participants, basketball with 31.9 million, and golf with 42.7 million, the gap is closing faster than many observers expected. What makes pickleball’s growth particularly notable is its broad demographic appeal. Unlike some sports that struggle to attract participants outside narrow age ranges or demographic groups, pickleball has found success with young players, retirees, former athletes from other sports, and people who never considered themselves particularly athletic.
This growth has created business opportunities across multiple sectors. Equipment manufacturers have proliferated, with new paddle companies seemingly launching every month. Facility operators are racing to build dedicated pickleball complexes. Tournament organizers are scheduling events almost every weekend across the country. Coaching and instruction have become viable careers for skilled players. Media companies are experimenting with pickleball content. Apparel brands are creating pickleball-specific clothing lines. The entire ecosystem is expanding rapidly, and the question facing investors and entrepreneurs is how to position themselves to capture value from this growth.
Reactions and Skepticism
Not everyone is celebrating pickleball’s rise. Sports media personality Bill Simmons has been notably critical of pickleball, prompting responses from figures within the pickleball community. The sport’s rapid expansion has sometimes come at the expense of tennis courts being converted to pickleball courts, creating genuine friction between tennis and pickleball communities. Country clubs, recreational facilities, and municipal parks have faced difficult decisions about how to allocate limited space between sports with competing constituencies.
Some of the skepticism directed at pickleball stems from legitimate questions about the sport’s long-term trajectory. Is pickleball a sustainable growth story or a temporary fad that will plateau and potentially decline? Can professional pickleball maintain viewer interest beyond the initial novelty period? Will younger generations embrace pickleball or view it as something their parents and grandparents play? These questions don’t have definitive answers yet, and reasonable people can disagree about pickleball’s ultimate ceiling.
What seems increasingly difficult to dispute is that pickleball has moved beyond fringe status. When a pickleball broadcast draws nearly 800,000 viewers on a major network and outperforms NBA and Premier League soccer in the same time slot, dismissing the sport as irrelevant becomes harder to justify. Whether that viewer interest translates into sustained audience growth and meaningful long-term value remains to be seen, but the early indicators suggest pickleball has achieved a level of mainstream penetration that seemed unlikely just a few years ago.
The Road Ahead
The capital raise remains in early stages, with terms and structure continuing to evolve. The final configuration of the combined entity, the timing of the transaction, and the ultimate valuation will depend on investor appetite and market conditions. Private equity and venture capital markets can shift quickly, and what seems achievable in one environment can become much more challenging if economic conditions deteriorate or if investor enthusiasm for sports and recreation investments cools.
For the UPA and professional pickleball more broadly, the success or failure of this fundraising effort could determine the sport’s development trajectory for years to come. A successful raise at favorable terms would provide resources to accelerate growth, improve production quality, expand to new markets, increase prize money, and generally professionalize operations across the board. It would also validate the thesis that pickleball represents a genuine investment opportunity rather than a speculative bet on a trending activity.
Conversely, if the fundraising falls short of targets or requires accepting unfavorable terms, it could signal that investor confidence in pickleball’s business potential has limits. The sport would continue to grow at the grassroots level regardless of what happens in these boardroom negotiations, but the professional tier and the broader commercial ecosystem might develop more slowly and through more fragmented competition between separate entities serving different parts of the value chain.
The vertically integrated model that UPA is pursuing has precedents in other sports and industries, with varying degrees of success. When executed well, vertical integration can create competitive advantages, improved customer experiences, and strong financial performance. When executed poorly, it can lead to organizational complexity, conflicting priorities between different business units, and the loss of focus that comes from trying to do too many things simultaneously. The management team’s ability to coordinate across professional leagues, retail operations, software development, construction, and facility management will be tested in ways that pure sports league operators never face.
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