Surprises in the PICKLEBALL Phenomenon

In this episode of Stubbornly Young we’re going to focus on the surprises inside the phenomenon of pickleball.  Of course, you know pickleball is EVERYWHERE, and my guess is that at least HALF of you (LIKE ME) play pickleball either casually – or like an addiction.  Let’s learn more about what’s going on in this world of reportedly more than 14 MILLION players!  I’m fascinated with the growth of the sport, wondering whether it's a FAD or here to stay – and curious about the uniquely cross-generational opportunities pickleball presents.  Some of the answers to my questions were surprising!

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Thanks and looking forward to hearing how you’re remaining stubbornly young!

Transcript

[INTRO]

[00:00:00] Dave Tabor: Is it one of these things where pickleball is continuing to grow so fast that if you build it, they will come? Is the demand still there?

[00:00:14] Max Ireland: The more braces, the more they look like they're not gonna beat you, the more their precision's gonna be there. That's a pro tip there. Yeah. don't, pick the, the one with the elbow brace. They're the one that's gonna get you.

[00:00:27] Adam Kahn: An interesting statistic for you is, now the largest demographic, the largest age demographic of people playing pickleball now is 24 to 35.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:39] Dave Tabor: Welcome to the Stubbornly Young Podcast for people in their fifties, sixties, and beyond who have a mindset that drives them to stay engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives. I'm Dave Tabor. In this episode, I've decided to drop shot into pickleball. Of course, pickleball is everywhere and my guess is that at least half of you like me play pickleball either casually or like an addiction, more like me somewhere in between.

So let's learn more about what's going on in this world. Where they said that there are more than 14 million players. I'm fascinated with the growth of the sport, wondering whether it's a fad or here to stay and curious about the uniquely cross generational opportunities pickleball presents. I'll be exploring all that with Adam Kahn and Max Ireland, co-founders of 3rd Shot Pickleball, a growing group of pickleball facilities. Hey, I'm in my studio now. But the interview with Max and Adam was recorded at one of their locations, and you'll hear that in the background. hey, if you love pickleball, it will make you wish you were out there with us.

[00:01:43] Max Ireland: Thanks, Dave. We appreciate you coming out here. 

[00:01:45] Dave Tabor: I'm glad to be here. I do. I love pickleball and I got so many questions. This, just from an overview, this is a sport that has grown like 233% over three years. millions of people play it. So how'd you guys get into it? 

[00:02:02] Max Ireland: so I was first invited to play pickleball by my older sister who, lives in California, who's never beaten me at a racket sport in her life. And so I thought before I go out there and visit, I'd better learn how to play this sport and tried it once and I was hooked. It's just so much fun to play. 

[00:02:20] Dave Tabor: for, those who, pretty much everybody knows, but to me I described it as a cross between ping pong and tennis. It's tennis is so freaking hard and ping pong is just it's small. Max am I somewhere in on the right track with this? 

[00:02:37] Max Ireland: Yeah, I would agree with you. Adam generally likes to call it, it's like ping pong, but you're standing on the table. I've heard him use that one before. definitely is, and I would also describe ping pong as small and, yeah. 

Pickleball though. It's what, a third the size of a tennis court, roughly? About three of them in there, so. 

[00:02:53] Dave Tabor: Is it, all So now how did you get into this? 

[00:02:54] Max Ireland: Sure. I actually first played it in Iowa in high school, back in the early two thousands. 

[00:02:59] Dave Tabor: It didn't exist then, did it? 

[00:03:00] Max Ireland: It did. The 1960s, in Washington, Bainbridge Island, Washington is when it first, came to, came to be.We didn't believe it was a rural sport, though, in early 2000s. We thought the gym teacher had made it up. He threw us a whiffle ball, some plastic paddles. We put the badminton net on the ground. And, yeah, he pointed to some of the sets of the lines on the gym floor and said, these are the pickleball lines. Yeah, we made the most of it. But I reacquainted myself with it post Covid like a lot of folks did in 2021. And, yeah. 

[00:03:29] Dave Tabor: I always think this would've grown faster. And I saw this story of how it got started in this guy's driveway and the whole thing, you just invented it, but, couldn't they have come up with a better name? They could drive, like how can you take it seriously with that name? 

[00:03:43] Max Ireland: I agree. I think maybe pickleball is the least favorite part about pickleball. The name of it. hits for a lot of people. But, even that, people can't agree on where the name came from, so. 

[00:03:54] Dave Tabor: Yeah. 

[00:03:54] Max Ireland: I'm okay renaming it if you want to propose that.

[00:03:56] Dave Tabor: Yeah, let's I, we'll, yes, 

I would like to. I'm gonna come up with one, but in the meantime, speaking of names, 3rd Shot Pickleball, for those who play pickleball, there is this thing about the third shot, but is that where the name comes from, of course? 

[00:04:08] Adam Kahn: It, it does. The third shot's, the most important shot in a pickleball point. Because it, it determines the outcome, the point about 80% of the time. 

[00:04:15] Dave Tabor: Really, 80%. 

[00:04:16] Adam Kahn: Yeah. So it's really important to learn how to do that and how, we came up with that name. Max and I each had a different name that we were considering. I was, out of town, up at my ski condo. My girlfriend, who was a beginning pickleball player, was watching videos, instructional videos on YouTube on how to hit an effective third shot. And she kept sending me these videos. So I went to sleep after watching five instructional videos on the third shot. And, I'm an older person, so I wake up in the middle of the night maybe needing to use the restroom and I was like, third shot pickleball. I wonder if that domain's available. So at 2:30 in the morning I, from my cell phone bought third shot pickleball. 

[00:04:56] Dave Tabor: Wow. 

[00:04:56] Adam Kahn: And called Max the next day. And he agreed it was a great idea. 

[00:04:59] Dave Tabor: That's super cool. Alright, I'm sitting here with you guys in this and, I've noticed some of your other locations. You're gonna open one not too far from my house in Littleton. This is basically a big open box of a building. It used to be. What did it used to be here? 

[00:05:16] Adam Kahn: This was a former grocery store. A Lucky's Market grocery store. 

[00:05:19] Dave Tabor: Got it. Oh, that's right. but they, so they had walls or they had something, but basically to create one of these, you have to basically empty it out. And then put in these courts. It doesn't look that complicated to install it, but is it? 

[00:05:33] Adam Kahn: There's a little more to a build out than one might imagine and there's a lot of important criteria in finding the right building. So not every building is suited for it. You need the right ceiling heights. You need the right column spacing. The right zoning, ample parking. Those are all. 

[00:05:49] Dave Tabor: I didn't think about the column spacing. Look at these. But yeah, these columns do lend themselves to having pickleball courts in between them. There's, you don't have any padding on them, so I don't think your people are, right, I mean there's space. 

[00:06:01] Adam Kahn: We have padding on some of them. 

[00:06:02] Dave Tabor: Oh, do okay. Oh yeah. Oh, I guess you would. Yeah. It's light. Yeah. Alright. 

[00:06:06] Adam Kahn: But, yeah. Max, I'll let Max answer. How many buildings do you think we looked at before we found the right one? 

[00:06:12] Max Ireland: Yeah, I would say probably a dozen or so. At least a dozen.

Wow. So even more so just digitally looking at them online and being like, Nope, 14 foot ceilings, that's not gonna do it. 

[00:06:21] Dave Tabor: Oh, and I noticed these pads hanging from the ceiling. Are they sound dampers? 

[00:06:24] Max Ireland: Yep. There are 640 sound baffles up there. 

[00:06:27] Dave Tabor: Yeah. So where does the money come from to build one of these? Because, I don't know, you're probably not gonna give, can you gimme the real number, how much this cost to build out? 

[00:06:36] Max Ireland: I could tell you it's in seven figures to build out a pickleball club. 

[00:06:38] Dave Tabor: I would, yes. That it's over a million dollars to, to turn this into what it is. Yeah. And how long does it take? Basically, you're gutting it and then, you gotta put down these nice floors, but is there much more and hang the baffling, but is there much more to it? 

[00:06:52] Max Ireland: Sure. There's variable things. 

[00:06:54] Dave Tabor: Beer kegs, beer taps. 

[00:06:55] Max Ireland: Yeah. Depending on what we got going on, we have to add bathrooms in some of them, lighting needs to be changed. Certain buildings may not have appropriate fire sprinklers. What would be appropriate for a warehouse full of boxes may not be appropriate for several hundred people. Just, the rules change a little bit with that kind of thing, so. 

[00:07:15] Dave Tabor: That makes sense. Now, was it harder or easier than you thought to turn your very first one into an actual business?

[00:07:22] Max Ireland: Can I say both? Certain things went really smoothly. Certain things were frustratingly difficult at times. 

[00:07:30] Dave Tabor: Like what? What's an example of something that was super frustrating? 

[00:07:34] Max Ireland: Yeah, I would say construction delays. You just, there's a, it's a learning curve. 

[00:07:38] Dave Tabor: Is that typical though? Or is that Yeah. So talk about the learning curve. 'cause you'd never built one the first time. 

[00:07:43] Max Ireland: Sure, absolutely. And, each building again is different. You know what we determined to be an appropriate level or amount of HVAC for a certain building. This building has skylights, for example, so that's gonna be a different HVAC load versus one that doesn't have as many or one that faces, the same direction as the sun coming up or sun setting. We have, fortunately, no, no windows on the west side of the building, so we don't take any of that solar gain there. 

[00:08:05] Dave Tabor: Oh, that's right. That would be a factor too, wouldn't it? 

[00:08:07] Max Ireland: Yep, absolutely. Even down to, headlights coming in through the front windows at night, and having to, minimize those or tint those windows, those things about nature, so. 

[00:08:14] Dave Tabor: I never thought about that. Yeah. Alright, so I wanna talk some about, 'cause pickleball is no secret. It's becoming, it's just boom, boom, boom. It's exploding. And so when you think about location, you're starting to see them all over, in this case, Denver, but all over the country. Starting to see these spring up.

At some point, like, I would think people will only drive so far. Is there like a five mile window, sort of areas, what, how do you figure that out? 

[00:08:42] Adam Kahn: Sure. In the fitness industry there's typically more of that five mile or even shorter radius. People wanna go to a gym close to, home or close to work. Coming from a tennis background, so I owned, Meadow Creek Tennis Club for 20 years, and in the tennis industry, which I view as more similar to pickleball industry, people will drive up to 45 minutes to go play. We have people that, before we opened our Longmont Club, were coming down from Fort Collins to play in Wheat Ridge.

[00:09:13] Dave Tabor: No way. 

[00:09:14] Adam Kahn: Oh yeah, absolutely. 

[00:09:15] Dave Tabor: Are you talking about two, are you talking about like a lot of people will really drive far? 

[00:09:18] Adam Kahn: Absolutely. We, currently have people from Summit County that come down here, at least once a week, sometimes more than, to play pickleball in the winter. 

[00:09:26] Dave Tabor: Wow, okay. But if there was, if there were a pickleball facility between there and here. Would they join that one because it's closer? 

[00:09:34] Adam Kahn: I would say maybe it would, yeah, it would depend on how well that facility was built, the kind of customer service that they got, the quality of the courts, the quality of programming and play. There's, a lot of factors that go into that. 

[00:09:47] Dave Tabor: Because I, this is a different answer than I expected. Because I really thought if there are three pickle ball courts between A and B, that I would choose basically the one that's closest. You're saying not really. 

[00:09:58] Adam Kahn: Yeah, we have customers here and just recently I've had conversations with a, couple of different couples that live very close, like two to two to five minutes from a competitor's facility.

But they choose to come to our club because of the community, because of the program, because of the way they're treated here. and which is music to my ears. Love, love to hear that. 

[00:10:18] Dave Tabor: So this isn't really just courts for rent. It's something more. 

[00:10:22] Adam Kahn: Correct. There's a lot more. 

[00:10:22] Dave Tabor: So describe the, a lot more part.

[00:10:24] Max Ireland: Really fast. 

[00:10:26] Dave Tabor: Just passing the mic. 

[00:10:27] Max Ireland: Sure. we do have a bar. I can't say that's the a lot more. But for many people, that's a great starting point, right? 

[00:10:33] Dave Tabor: Is that, because one of your partners is Dale from. 

[00:10:36] Max Ireland: It certainly is. We planned to have the Dale, we planned to have the beer before we had the Dale.

[00:10:40] Dave Tabor: Oh, you did? All right. 

[00:10:41] Max Ireland: That's certainly a factor, but, building on his success there, there's, a certain community that's around alcohol consumption. People go to bars for that anyway. but, you know, athletics. 

[00:10:50] Dave Tabor: And this is Dale from Oscar Blues, yeah, from, yeah. And he's now your partner up north? 

[00:10:55] Max Ireland: Yep. The Dale from Dale's Pale Ale, if you're familiar with that beer. That's that Dale. As we like to say, it's that Dale. But, you know, sports are the same way where there's a lot of community and we're checking a few different boxes here in terms of, having a bar for some of that social element.

People can come here and have parties. They can celebrate. They can do things where they would normally just go to a bar and drink. They can actually come here now and enjoy some pickleball as well. A lot of people find their way back to pickleball from other sports. They either got injured out or aged out depending on what sport they were playing.

Certain sports, if you're not, I hate to say if you're not pro, but even still, some of the jumping that volleyball requires or basketball or something, many people don't play those as late. People will play tennis later. swimming goes later. But, pickleball is something they can play till 90 or until they can't walk anymore.

[00:11:39] Dave Tabor: Yeah. I used to play squash. And it's like nah. You did too. Yeah. Yeah. So Adam, yeah. But the, but I, and I even saw, I saw a sign now, who was that poster, of a pro tennis pro now getting into pickleball. There's, like it's happening. Like all these pro athletes have now become really engaged in pickleball, right?

[00:12:01] Max Ireland: Absolutely. No, and it's, pro athletes like Golden Tate, from the Seahawks. He's got a pro paddle now. Let's see here. Jack Sok obviously came over from tennis. Yeah. Andre Agassi, now. He's got a pro paddle. 

[00:12:13] Dave Tabor: That's the one saw out on your sign out there. Yeah. Yep. 

[00:12:15] Max Ireland: Agassi Pro, which is a great paddle, from Yola there.

[00:12:18] Dave Tabor: How hard is it to make a paddle? Really? You put your name on it, I get it, but come on. 

[00:12:24] Max Ireland: And that's, that's the way many people thought, right? And you see something like that and they think, oh, it's just, they slapped his name on there. That paddle plays pretty well. My teaching pros will tell you there's, actually some, magic behind that particular construction.

[00:12:36] Dave Tabor: Nice. Alright. Yeah. Go. 

[00:12:39] Adam Kahn: Yeah, I, just want to add a couple differentiators because I think that was part of your question. 

[00:12:43] Dave Tabor: Yes, it is. 

[00:12:44] Adam Kahn: And we have a lot of programming that we do, so it's not just courts for rent, which was your question. 

[00:12:49] Dave Tabor: It was. 

[00:12:50] Max Ireland: Yeah. We, have several instructors on staff.

They do clinics, drill classes, drill and play with the pro, private lessons. We have free introductory lessons to pickleball several times a week to help people learn the sport in a fun and professional way. 

[00:13:07] Dave Tabor: And it helps them become acclimated to your facility and become. 

[00:13:11] Adam Kahn: Absolutely. We offer a lot of leagues at all different levels for men, women, and mixed doubles. So I, I think rather than just having courts available for rent, and we do open play as well, It's all of those different programs that make a difference, too. 

[00:13:25] Dave Tabor: Open play, meaning what, you pay and you're just part of the rotation? 

[00:13:28] Adam Kahn: You bet you can come in and play. And we segregate that by levels, most of the time. But we also have all level ones, but you come in and you stack your paddle and you rotate in and you get to meet lots of people and become part of the community. 

[00:13:40] Dave Tabor: Alright. That's kind of a question because I play at a public court with a buddy and we show up and we just wanna play. We don't wanna rotate. We don't wanna be social. We wanna play for an hour, we wanna leave.

And it seems like there's almost kind of two, like, people who are still working have a different approach to this game than people who are retired and want to spend the day here, right? So how do you manage that? 

[00:14:03] Adam Kahn: Yeah. I think that's one of the benefits of our indoor clubs is that people can reserve a private court if they want to.

If you want to be part of that public community and, meet new people and play, you can. But if you wanna reserve a court just with your buddies and play for an hour or two, it gives you that opportunity. 

[00:14:20] Dave Tabor: Yeah. So as you split your revenue, how do you, I know there's some hospitality, food, and beverage and all that.

But when you think about, when you think about how, per hour or per league or per, how does your revenue split? Are you looking that up? Ha ha. Go ahead. 

[00:14:42] Max Ireland: Sure. the majority of our revenue does come from actual pickleball, court reservations, doubles and singles, reservations, that type of thing.

We do a lot of private lessons. We do a lot of leagues. Percentages wise, I would say the bar's less than a quarter of what the business does depending on the particular season. People tend to drink more in the, the winter than they do in the summer. 

It seems like they're more active. The courts are a lot more in demand in the winter than they are in the summer. 

[00:15:13] Dave Tabor: Okay. Gotta ask this question because it seem pickleball is a sport that maybe started out mostly for, older people who lost a step. And you referred to, we talked about, not playing squash anymore, Adam.

[00:15:28] Dave Tabor: But they want, we want something recreational, something even competitive, right? That's softer on our bodies, maybe easier to do, but like it's drawing lots of young people. Like bocce ball, like never did that. So what's with pickleball that makes it interesting to young people as well as people that are older?

[00:15:48] Max Ireland: I'm happy to jump in that one first and just say. 

[00:15:50] Dave Tabor: Seeing as you're under 50. 

[00:15:51] Max Ireland: There we go. Under 50 for now. yeah. And so, jokingly, I can tell you exactly how my wife and I got back into it. Our neighbors that live behind us kept encouraging us to play. And I said, look,

Shelby, we're gonna play pickleball when we retire. We know that. That's what retirees do. 

[00:16:06] Dave Tabor: Yes, yes, yes. That's my point. Yeah. 

[00:16:09] Max Ireland: So let's not wait till we're 65 to learn to play. Let's be the best people going in. So we're like, we're gonna play once a year for the next 30 years. We'll be good at pickleball by the time we retire.

That's turned into playing five or six times a week to turn into open a pickleball club and, simply, it's fun, it's athletic and it's communal. The close proximity to others, there's so much laughter. Hopefully you can dial all that back down in the background.

But that's, it, it's just a lot of fun. And I think a lot of people, they played sports when they were little because it was fun. Then they got into the grind of high school and varsity and can you go pro and all this? And then the life got in the way, and finding things that are fun and, athletic, competitive and social are just, it's just magnetic. 

[00:16:52] Dave Tabor: You know that, what you've just described, I, think you did that really well because it's so hard to find and until pickleball, maybe it didn't exist. Something that was fun and athletic and you could get better at it, but you don't have to. Like, you can, other games that are, you're not good at are frustrating. Pickleball,

you can still have fun, even if I think you did a really good job explaining what makes it magnetic. Yeah. Did you wanna add on that? 

[00:17:21] Adam Kahn: Yeah. You see people that come to our free introductory classes and they've never picked up a paddle before, maybe never picked up any sort of racket sport, and in 15 to 20 minutes they're able to play and have fun and they're laughing and yeah.

[00:17:34] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Which is so interesting. 'cause I know tennis had a moment, in the seventies and everybody was playing tennis, but it was frustrating. And you have to be good at it. I think you have to be good at it to have fun. And it, the process of getting good is miserable, I think. 

[00:17:51] Adam Kahn: Agreed. 

[00:17:52] Dave Tabor: Yeah.

[00:17:53] Adam Kahn: Yeah. I came from that background. An interesting statistic for you is now the largest demographic, the largest age demographic of people playing pickleball now is 24 to 35. 

[00:18:05] Dave Tabor: That is astonishing. 

[00:18:06] Adam Kahn: Yeah, it's like 40%. It's remarkable. 

[00:18:09] Dave Tabor: I wonder if that's also because the learning curve is short and so you don't have to invest a ton of time and so even though people are working, they can take an hour, meet friends, have a beer, and it's a social activity. Right? I don't know. 

[00:18:27] Adam Kahn: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. 

[00:18:29] Dave Tabor: Wow. 

Wow. Alright, so let's talk more about the business and about the sort of this expansion model. 'cause you guys have gone from one. Did you anticipate opening several when you started this? 

[00:18:40] Max Ireland: We, did. We were not getting into this planning on opening several locations, but we were having so much fun and it was going so well that we decided it made sense.

I actually read an article in the Longmont Times Call paper about the high demand for pickleball and not enough courts. And that is what prompted me to, look in that market and we found a perfect building and a perfect partner, in Dale. And, that, that was our next location. And then it just kept going from there.

It's been, our expansion has been a lot about people, and having the right people and those people have really reached out to us and, and then having a market that we feel like is an underserved market, has been secondary to the right people. 

[00:19:25] Dave Tabor: So, do you know, is it one of these things where pickleball is continuing to grow so fast that if you build it, they will come? Is there, is the demand still there? 

[00:19:34] Max Ireland: The demand is still growing rapidly. Although we're, we are more cautious about wanting to open a location anywhere close to a competitor. We wanna make sure that we create enough space so that everyone that wants to get into this business succeeds. 

[00:19:48] Dave Tabor: That, that makes sense. We've seen it in other industries where everybody just jumps in and, I just listened, this is completely unrelated listeners, but just listening to a story in the Wall Street Journal about Pueblo, Colorado, where they, add, like, 200 pot shops and they all are going broke, like there's no fun in that. If you create an environment where everybody can't succeed, what's the fun for you? 

[00:20:13] Adam Kahn: Yeah, It's just not, it's not worth all the headache. 

[00:20:15] Dave Tabor: Although, I can imagine others may not share that view and they see, an empty block across the street and they'll take it, but. you hope that you hope not.

[00:20:24] Max Ireland: Yeah. There, there are some other companies out there that we feel like maybe are, are not, don't have that same philosophy. 

[00:20:31] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Yeah. So at some point though, you're gonna hit saturation. Two things could happen. One is saturation, and another is, you know, the trend wears off. You know, and then everybody, then what do you do? Do you see that happening? Is this, can this be, can pickleball be more sustainable than tennis was, for example? 

[00:20:54] Max Ireland: Sure. Those are great questions. And when you look at industries in Colorado that have gone through major growth phases like craft brewing, which Dale knows well, and I've seen, certainly, taper off.

Same with cannabis, huge explosion. And then, tapered off. There's, there's a lot of folks who will follow trends, whether they have the passion for it or not. And I think once saturation point hits that passion for whatever it is, for the cannabis, for the craft brewing, for the pickleball, is what will differentiate, those that do succeed and those that don't.

[00:21:28] Dave Tabor: I, just wonder if there's, yeah, maybe this is all the rage now, but it's still, for all the reasons you said earlier, it's still active, it's fun, it's not, you can get as good or not as good as you want and still enjoy it. So maybe, the recipe for continuing this trend is maybe that mix is just better than other things in the past.

[00:21:49] Max Ireland: It could just be the ultimate dish. Sometimes people bring up the C word, which is CrossFit. CrossFit was super, super big deal. And then it fell off. But, I don't know about you, my grandmother never did CrossFit. She was never into it. And people also talk about Padell and some of these other racket sports, which are a blast.

But, the infrastructure for a Padell court is much higher than what it takes to do a pickleball court. You can't do 'em outside as well. And, just the intensity of some of these things. The joyful fun of pickleball, without the intensity that's gonna make grandma lose her teeth or your young cousin fall and break their ankle. You can play it multi-generational and everyone still has fun. 

[00:22:26] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Yeah. Although I do like to compete, I like the intensity. 

[00:22:30] Max Ireland: Absolutely. 

[00:22:30] Dave Tabor: But you give the opportunity for that too. So how would you mix? Because you see now, like I've seen on Prime, there's you can watch pickleball tournaments and all this.

As you think about how the industry sort of shapes and evolved and all that, now it's getting into tournaments and so is there gonna be a temptation to either be good or not engage? I mean at some point, just like youth soccer and all that. It used to be like when I was growing up, everything was recreational and that was okay and then it started to scale into this competitive machine.

And I just wonder is that as more people, like pros become big and is there gonna be a temptation? I'm not good enough to do that anymore. Do you have to manage that in the business? 

[00:23:16] Max Ireland: As a non-pro, I'll take a quick stab at that and then I'll hand it off to an actual pickleball pro here. 

[00:23:21] Dave Tabor: Oh, he's cracking his neck. He's ready to go. 

[00:23:23] Max Ireland: Adam's gonna be ready for this one. I think there's definitely a percentage, even perhaps, of folks that play in our club who may be in the back of their mind, one or 2% thinks, I might still go pro in this. And there are certainly folks who, have the athletic gifts.

They played division one college tennis and have picked up the sport really well and maybe are poised to, to make some kind of a, an amateur or semi-professional kind of a run. But I think a lot of people, again, they left those sports the first time for that reason, hopefully aren't coming back in their mid forties, fifties, whatever, in their mid thirties even, and thinking, hey. 

[00:23:56] Dave Tabor: The fantasy lives. 

[00:23:56] Max Ireland: This is gonna be my second round.

I think looking at the Olympics, what curling is generally the only sport you see out there where folks are jumping into it in their fifties and sixties, not to discourage anyone out there, I think you could potentially still make it happen, but I think most people are here for the fun in the community and just seeing how far you can take it and if you win enough tournaments, just maybe you decide you need to go step in some, into some bigger farms. 

[00:24:22] Dave Tabor: Yeah. My question is, really, does the evolution of tournaments begin to differentiate players, like, who think I'm not that good, or those people are so good, I mean, does it become discouraging as the sport evolves? 

[00:24:41] Adam Kahn: I think there's room for both and there's interest in both, right? There's, I would say the bulk of the players are recreational, but as they become competitive, tournaments offer play at all different levels. So, you could play in a tournament at a beginner level or you can play in a tournament at a professional level and everything in between.

[00:25:02] Dave Tabor: Yeah. 

[00:25:03] Adam Kahn: Yeah. So it's just a matter of if you want to get out there and test your skills against if you're an intermediate player against other intermediate players. A tournament's a fun venue to do that. 

[00:25:12] Dave Tabor: Nice. Alright. What about, I know you've, you mentioned to me during an earlier conversation something about sponsorship opportunities, and is that part of the mix now at a place like this where, what are they, are they paddle manufacturers or other kinds of sports drinks or what, who's, who are your sponsors? 

[00:25:31] Max Ireland: Sure, it is. We have not really delved into that deeply yet, but Sketchers is one of our, one of our sponsors. And a fantastic and multiple, of our locations, of our clubs, providing footwear for our pros and then of course we carry their footwear in our pro shop. But we have a couple of realtors, (inaudible) and Gig Blitz, who are also a sponsor. And then Prestige Imports, the Audi and Porsche dealer here. 

[00:26:02] Dave Tabor: Ah, so local companies will wanna have some visibility here. And that, that raised a question, which is, is this an audience that's somewhat affluent? Like where does this fit in the demo, in the demographics of income and such? 

[00:26:16] Max Ireland: Sure. so I would say yes in the fact that obviously we have an Audi dealership who's willing to sponsor the sport. We're seeing some of that. Obviously, some of their customers are also pickleball players. They've heard enough about it to think it's worth being here.

The parking lot generally looks fairly nice out there. I'm not gonna fault, anyone out there for what they're driving. but that being said, the sport does exist at the complete other end of the spectrum too. For free, in parks, people come into our free classes here.

[00:26:45] Dave Tabor: Equipment's cheap, too. Super cheap. You can get started for 25 bucks. 

[00:26:49] Adam Kahn: Yeah, absolutely. No, you can, Amazon has made pickleball paddles and gear extremely accessible at a very low cost. 

[00:26:54] Dave Tabor: That was my first one. Yeah. 

[00:26:55] Max Ireland: Yep. Yep. I think a lot of people, that's even what we encourage. We can't compete with Amazon in the $20 paddle market. 

[00:27:00] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Yeah. So, what's the deal with indoor versus outdoor? We live in Colorado. It's one of the sunniest places in the world. And why indoor courts? I know there's wind and stuff like that, but, talk about the need for indoor versus outdoor. 

[00:27:19] Max Ireland: Absolutely. It's, it comes down to quality of experience. Ultimately, people want our competitive games and when games are determined by which team is facing the sun, or which team brought bug spray, or who has water, who went to the bathroom before and has been trying to hold it for two hours, so they wanna go in the porta potty. All of those things just kinda start to detract from the experience overall.

And, there are, you walk by many parks, and you can see monkey bars out there. You can see little like really limited workout stations. People could go work out outside, but you'll notice, most gyms are indoors. Again, Huntington Beach maybe would be the one hot spot area.

[00:27:55] Dave Tabor: That's a good point. 

[00:27:55] Max Ireland: There are just certain things that, that you can do outside, but the experience is oftentimes better inside. Lightning, weather, those are factors, and the neighbors are actually the biggest factor. 

[00:28:07] Dave Tabor: Yes. That's been such a big deal with the noise. 

[00:28:09] Max Ireland: I saw this morning that Florida has banned pickleball courts in all their state parks.

[00:28:13] Dave Tabor: Wow. 

[00:28:14] Max Ireland: It's partly 'cause of the, just the, property, the, noise, whatever. But it's, partly 'cause of, they feel like has the impact on the wildlife there. Just the noise of the pickleball itself, they think is that. People have asked us, hey, are you gonna put pickleball courts on your roof? We have apartments all around us. We're just too close to the neighbors. They would not. They would not be pleased with that. 

[00:28:32] Dave Tabor: Very interesting idea. 

[00:28:33] Max Ireland: So our model has been predominantly, I think we have one outdoor court in the parking lot in Evansville, Indiana location. And that was a secret surprise to all of the rest of us. It does back up to a cornfield. 

[00:28:46] Dave Tabor: Oh, that's funny. Yep, that makes sense. What haven't we talked about pickleball and 3rd Shot Pickleball that we need to cover, that you'd like to talk about that we haven't yet? Are you making money? Gotta talk about that. 

[00:29:04] Max Ireland: I would say the fact that we're willing to continue opening clubs should certainly confirm that the clubs are doing well, thus far.

And again, I think that we do put forth a good product. The Wheat Ridge Club here did just win the Denver Westward, Best of Denver Award for the second year in the row for best places to play pickleball. It's not just as simple as, hey, throw some courts and some nets in and people will come on and you'll be a millionaire.

You have to go out there and treat people well and assemble the right team and put the right offerings in place. 

[00:29:32] Dave Tabor: Yeah. What, is it still, is the sky still the limit on this thing? 

[00:29:40] Adam Kahn: We believe so. The sport is still in its infancy.

[00:29:44] Dave Tabor: No, there's no way. There's no way that if, what was the number? 22 million? How many million? I had a stat here. 14 million people play. There's no way. You're still in your infancy. 

[00:29:54] Adam Kahn: It's, the sport is still in its infancy. It's remarkable. 

[00:29:58] Dave Tabor: Oh, that's right. It's coming. 

[00:30:00] Adam Kahn: And the pro tour. 

[00:30:01] Dave Tabor: It's coming to the Olympics. Yeah. 

[00:30:02] Adam Kahn: I was just reading, this past week, the PPA, which is the Pickleball Pro Tour, the growth of viewership, both televised matches as well as in-person ticket sales and people going and watching the events live, just continue to grow exponentially. And so that's bringing more and more larger dollar sponsors into the sport. And it's, yeah, and it's, and the more it gets that type of exposure, the more new people learn about it and want to try it. 

[00:30:34] Dave Tabor: Come on. Okay. What were you saying? 

[00:30:36] Max Ireland: I was saying the Olympics are looking at it right now. The NCAA is looking at it now to officially sanction it.

[00:30:41] Dave Tabor: Of course. 

[00:30:41] Adam Kahn: There is a college world championship that duper hosts and puts on, but it's not NCAA yet. So you're seeing some schools. 

[00:30:48] Dave Tabor: So there's room for all of that. 

[00:30:50] Max Ireland: Add a little bit of, yeah, you're starting to see the scholarship show up for that, luring some of those tennis folks away.

[00:30:55] Dave Tabor: Yeah, I, it's fun to watch and I've watched them on tv. I'm like, wow. And then you, of course, on YouTube you can see these miracle points that people make these shots and it's pretty fun. So yeah, Stubbornly Young is for people in their fifties, sixties, and beyond who wanna stay engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives.

And so many of my audience, I'm sure is playing pickleball, but what's your take on pickleball relative to those people that mission? and yes, we're gonna ask the older of the two. So yeah. Fire away, Adam. 

[00:31:26] Adam Kahn: Thank you. I appreciate old and you adding the -er on there. 

[00:31:29] Dave Tabor: Yeah, that's right. 

[00:31:32] Adam Kahn: Yeah. My sweetheart and I, refer to ourselves as old-er.

[00:31:35] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:31:36] Adam Kahn: So, as a 61-year-old, And, I was a competitive tennis player all of my youth, and then a competitive racquetball player, and a squash player as we briefly talked about. Pickleball has given me the opportunity to do something that I can engage in. That's not quite as hard on my body, but I can be highly competitive in, and it's so much more social than any of those other racket sports that I've played. And I think as we get into our fifties and sixties, that social component, is, really, really important to lifestyle and creating health and happiness. 

[00:32:14] Dave Tabor: What's interesting, too, is what Max said earlier around the average age, I think what you said it Max, I don't know the average age of pickleball players and the way young people are, is this a cross-generational recreational sport that doesn't otherwise exist? 

[00:32:31] Adam Kahn: So we were here yesterday, on Easter Sunday. We were opening, we were packed, which is awesome, and was amazing. And my girlfriend is playing with her son and grandson. And so, yes, it's very multi-generational.

[00:32:46] Dave Tabor: Wow. That's super cool. Okay, what's the young guy say?

[00:32:52] Max Ireland: I, would say the same thing having played now, pickleball, we used to try different sports. We'd go to putt putt, we'd do go-kart racing. We'd tried volleyball as a family. And now it is all pickleball, pretty much, no matter where we go, everyone knows to bring their paddle, we'll oftentimes bring extra paddles.

It's, it's definitely something you can play with multiple ages. You've even seen at a professional level. The mixed age tournament is one of the more fun tournaments. 

[00:33:18] Dave Tabor: Really. I've saw a mother-daughter one. Yeah. 

[00:33:20] Max Ireland: Yeah. There are definitely several siblings who play out there, but there was a mother-daughter. The only other father-son that I can think of is, I know LeBron James wanted to play basketball with his son, but so often people can't make that happen, And I don't know how much influence he had to throw around to make that happen. But, again, the idea that a mother-daughter could, the number one player and her mom could play.

Or again, then in tournaments where, you know, a senior pro player, will partner up with, a junior pro, I guess, not junior pro, but just regular pro. And, again, that's, just. It's fun to see, 'cause the, way the game was played, it goes from more powerful and more quick to a lot more precision.

The joke about never judging a pickleball player by, how they look is, extremely true. You know, the more braces, the more they look like they're not gonna beat you, the more their precision's gonna be there. Again, if you don't think they can beat you outright athletically, then you better be wary, you better just be careful. 

[00:34:18] Dave Tabor: That's a great, thanks guys for that insight. 

[00:34:20] Max Ireland: That's a pro tip there. Yeah. don't, pick the one with the elbow brace. They're the one who's gonna get you. 

[00:34:26] Adam Kahn: And, I, I just want to throw in a, another, a plug for, if you will, the National Pickleball League, which the NPL is a new tour that started in 2023, their inaugural year that is dedicated to senior pro players, 50 and over. And, they started with six teams and they expanded to 12 teams. 

[00:34:48] Dave Tabor: Oh, six to 12. Got it. 

[00:34:50] Adam Kahn: And then they added an additional six expansion teams in 2024. They did not add any additional teams in 2025, but word is they are going to expand in 2026. And there's a rumor out there that Andre Agassi might be one of those team owners, that'll be an expansion team in 2026, and he's become quite a good pickleball player. 

[00:35:10] Dave Tabor: How fun is that? Well, cool. Thanks for shedding some light for the Stubbornly Young listeners about where pickleball is going and where, you know, I could see, wouldn't it be fun to have a grand, grandparent-grandchild tournament. Now that, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that. Especially maybe country clubs or something like that, but yeah.

Alright. Okay, that's it for episode 20 of the Stubbornly Young Podcast for people in their fifties, sixties, and beyond who want to remain engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives. It was great to explore the world of pickleball on Stubbornly Young with Adam Kahn and Max Ireland of 3rd Shot Pickleball.

I'm Dave Tabor. If you've got friends and family who are stubbornly young, please recommend that they give this a listen. And if you've got ideas for episodes and content, hey, let me know at dave@stubbornlyyoung.com.

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