Major League Pickleball has landed a new wave of big-name athlete investors.
The Texas Ranchers have announced NFL players Myles Garrett, Micah Parsons, Bijan Robinson, and C.J. Stroud, as well as World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler and ninth-ranked tennis player Taylor Fritz, as new owners. Beside the California native Fritz, all of the athletes have connections to Texas.
MLP teams are now individually seeing valuations of $10 million and over 36 million people played the sport recreationally last year.
Garrett and co. join the high-profile list of pro athlete pickleball investors that includes Tom Brady, Kim Clijsters, LeBron James, Draymond Green, Kevin Love, Naomi Osaka, Patrick Mahomes, Devin Booker, Larry Fitzgerald, and Chris Evert.
Garrett, the Cleveland Browns DE and Arlington native, tells Front Office Sports that he plays pickleball in his home state and in Ohio, and that he believes in the sport’s ability to capitalize on its recreational success.
“You can be playing with your friends, then go home and now you’re chilling watching [the pros] play,” says Garrett. “You’re taking their moves and you’re starting to understand the game. Those things, that’s how every sport promotes itself and grows by just being accessible to a lot of people and to the youth.
“I want to be part of that group that gets better from being able to watch.”
It’s not just athletes getting in on the pickleball craze: The Ranchers brought on a variety of over 30 new part-owners in this latest round, including country star Zach Bryan, fashion designer Kendra Scott, and Teqball CEO Ajay Nwosu.
“We’ll probably have over 115 million in reach across all social channels with our ownership group,” Ranchers president and part-owner Evan Floersch tells FOS. “That’s a huge benefit to us as we’re looking to globalize the brand and the sport of pickleball, but you also have to consider that you don’t start big, you start at the local level.
“So giving people relevance and names to follow behind and root for at the ownership level that are local leaders is definitely useful for us.”
