Cider + Pickleball = success

Drinking cider is not the first option that comes to mind when playing pickleball. It must be funnier than Gatorade, sure, but I haven’t had the pleasure to win a match while being drunk. That’d give me some serious bragging rights though.

Still, Minneapolis Cider Company uses pickleball as the vehicle for its success. Within its 30,000-square-foot headquarters lies the best of both worlds: a cidery and a private venue with indoor pickleball courts.

While the facility tried other options including an ax-throwing warehouse, pickleball was the one that stuck. And they plan to expand their courts, so, we’ll see more drunk players in their headquarters as years pass by.

The MLP has a new format!

Sit on your comfiest sofa, prepare some nachos, and invite your friends over, because the Major League Pickleball (MLP) just announced its new calendar and its MASSIVE.

The format is a bit different to what we’ve seen before. For starters, we’ll have two seasons in a single year: during the first one, 12 teams will compete in the MLP Premier Level, which includes the top 48 drafted players. The other set of 12 teams will compete in the MLP Challenger Level, which includes the next 24 drafted players. Then, for the second season, the teams will switch levels, and a new draft will take place.

Confused about the rules? Don’t worry, so is everybody else, but hey, at least we’ll have the entire year to understand the format.

Pickleball in the Olympics??!

Humanity is full of existential questions like “what is the meaning of life”, “is Avril Lavigne alive or what we see is actually a lookalike?”, or “will pickleball ever reach the Olympics?”.

Though we don’t have the answers for the first two questions, we do have a vague idea of what the third one would be; for a sport to be considered “Olympic”, people must practice it in at least 75 countries. Right now, pickleball is mainly an American sport with a small presence in other countries. It’s not Mr. Worldwide as we’d like to imagine.

Nevertheless, our hopes are up! At least for the Los Angeles 2028 edition as, according to the president of the International Federation of Pickleball, Steve Sidwell, there are tons of people, angels and Ai chatbots working hard to reach the minimum of 75 countries.

Let’s pray so that ChatGPT somehow makes it official.