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The professional pickleball push is continuing full steam ahead — and now it has attracted one of the sports world’s most famous investors.
The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) announced it is launching VIBE Pickleball — a team-based league — with Mark Cuban as the league’s first team owner.
VIBE will begin play in 2023 and will initially feature six rosters. Several of the sport’s top players — including the PPA Tour’s top five male and female athletes — will be part of the player pool.
- Teams will be selected at a live draft in Las Vegas in December.
- Cuban and the other five team ownership groups — which will be announced in the leadup to the draft — will select their teams.
- The owners will have the ability to add, drop, and trade players throughout the season with league consent.
“Just like millions of other Americans, I’ve been following pickleball over the past few years, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to invest in the fastest-growing game in the country,” said Cuban.
VIBE says it will televise matches throughout the inaugural season as part of the PPA Tour’s existing relationships with ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and Tennis Channel.
All-Star Teams
While pickleball as a whole has been a hot investment, pro team leagues have been particularly popular with celebrity investors.
A group led by LeBron James purchased a Major League Pickleball team in September, with the Tom Brady-Kim Clijsters group and Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures buying MLP teams in October.
