The pickleball craze is coming to the Big Apple’s most famous outdoor space.

New York City-based CityPickle will transform Central Park’s Wollman Rink into a 14-court pickleball venue that will be open to the public from April 7 to Oct. 9. The company will begin taking reservations this coming Friday.

The courts will allow for 196 hours of available playing time each day.

Players can book a court for $80 per hour at off-peak times and $120 per hour at peak times. CityPickle will also offer paddle rentals for $6 each, but players are welcome to bring their own.

“Right now, the way many people play is they bring their own nets to scraps of pavement around the city,” CityPickle co-founder Erica Desai told the New York Times. “They can’t schedule ahead. They’re playing on surfaces that are cracked. In Wollman, not only will we be able to accommodate a lot of people, they’ll be playing on a professional surface.”

Major League Pickleball — a 24-team pro league — also plans to hold exhibition matches at the Central Park location this summer, per Bloomberg.

Wollman Rink was operated by the Trump Organization from the 1980s until 2021, when then-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio moved to end the city’s contract with the company.

Wollman — which operates as an ice skating rink in the winter and warm-weather recreation space in the summer — is now run as a joint venture between Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the Equinox Group, and Related Companies.

Adidas appears to be backing off its strategy of aligning its brand with entertainers.

The German sneaker giant and Beyoncé have mutually agreed to end their global business partnership for the singer’s Ivy Park lifestyle brand, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The decision will end a collaboration between the Grammy-winning singer and German sneaker giant that began in 2019. It comes only weeks after The Wall Street Journal reported that revenue from Ivy Park plummeted 50% last year.

The brand’s sales tumbled to $40 million last year — well below a projected $250 million. Adidas pays Beyoncé about $20 million annually, according to the WSJ.

“There has apparently been major creative differences between Ivy Park and Adidas, and Beyoncé is excitedly looking to reclaim her brand, chart her own path, and maintain creative freedom,” according to The Hollywood Reporter exclusive.

When she signed the deal nearly four years ago, Beyoncé called it the “partnership of a lifetime.”

Meanwhile, Adidas is also stuck with $1.3 billion worth of Yeezy products after cutting ties with rapper Kanye West in 2022. 

Adidas pulled West’s line from retail shelves after the rapper made antisemitic comments. The entertainer, who goes by the name Ye, originally signed with Adidas in 2013, then released his first signature sneaker in 2014. 

Before falling apart over West’s antisemitic outbursts, the Yeezy deal was a big success, generating $1.7 billion — roughly 8% of Adidas sales in 2021.

The focus of this year’s NFL owners’ meetings in Phoenix will be on something off the official agenda.

Some have theorized that Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder could announce a winning bidder for the franchise at the meetings. But Snyder — at least for now — is on his own timetable selecting a bidder for what is expected to be at least a controlling stake in the team. 

The three known frontrunners have remained the same for weeks: Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils owner Josh Harris, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta. 

One reason topics related to Snyder and the Commanders aren’t on the agenda is that Mary Jo White, the former head of the SEC, hasn’t released the results of her investigation. 

Minus the final report of the outside NFL probe that has spanned more than a year, league officials are reluctant to hold any official discussions about Snyder and the team’s future. 

What’s On The Agenda

On Tuesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract extension will be presented to all the NFL owners for a vote. ESPN reported that the deal is expected to run for three more years. 

Owners will also be asked to approve flex scheduling for Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football,” according to Sports Business Journal. If approved, all three weekly prime-time games will have some form of flex scheduling to bump up Sunday afternoon games later in the season.