Pickleball Boom: What Retailers Must Know with Steven Greenstein of PB5Star

Pickleball isn't just a sport anymore—it's a retail movement.

In this episode, Pete Mohr sits down with Steven Greenstein, VP at PB5Star, to discuss how their biomechanics-first approach to footwear is turning heads—and turning inventory.

You’ll hear how PB5Star grew from concept to sellout, what makes their court shoe different from rebranded tennis models, and why their success is tied to deep retailer support and community activation.

Whether you run a comfort store, a running shop, or a sporting goods location, this episode breaks down:
 → Why the pickleball customer is different—and rapidly growing
 → The mechanics of the game that impact footwear design
 → How PB5Star supports retailers with the Five Star Success Plan
 → Creative ways to attract and engage your local pickleball community
 → Why independent retailers are perfectly positioned to own this space

From apparel to paddles to recovery sandals, PB5Star offers more than just shoes—they offer opportunity.

Connect with Steven:
Website: https://pb5star.com
Contact Steven Greenstein: sgreenstein@pb5star.com
Become a retailer: Wholesale inquiry form at pb5star.com

Connect with Pete Mohr:
Website: simplifyingentrepreneurship.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/petemohr
Podcast: thefootwearretailer.com

Running your business shouldn’t mean running yourself into the ground.

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Grab your free copy now at simplifyingentrepreneurship.com/laws.
The shift starts here.

PLUS: Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you move from the Operator’s seat to the Owner’s seat in your business:

1. Take the Value Builder Assessment to better understand the areas of your business that add the most value to your business - Click Here

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3. Listen my other podcast Business Owner Breakthrough podcast as well for quick tools and tips - Click Here

Transcript

0:00

Stephen, it's great to have you here on the footwear retailer. So excited to have our conversation today. Thank you, Pete. Really happy to be here with you. Yeah. And you know what, we're going to talk about a relatively new brand, a lot of excitement around the pickleball industry and PB5 star. And tell us a little bit before we sort of get into the details, how did you get to the whole PB5 star thing? What's your journey in here? Because I know you're relatively new and the business is relatively new. Give us a little sort of two minute synopsis on how you came in and where the, where the brand started off. Sure. Well, I'm new to PB5 star, like you mentioned. I'm by no means new to the footwear industry. I started my career in footwear 25 ish years ago with a small brand called Adidas. I stayed there for about 16 years and really learned soup to nuts, everything there was to know about footwear, apparel, accessories in the athletic space. From there I went on to manage a few other types of brands in the comfort shoe space to the insole space. And then that led me back to PB5 star, which the brand actually started a little over a year ago. It was started by the former co founder of Vionic Shoes, which you've heard of, probably heard of Vionik. It's one of the top 20 footwear companies in the world based around biomechanics and alignment and comfort. So. So Chris Gallagher founded, co founded Vioniq and then went on to sell that company years later to Caleris, a really large shoe conglomerate. After that, he could have chosen to retire and sail off into the sunset. But you know, being based here in South Florida, he saw this bubbling market of a sport called pickleball. And as he saw people out there playing the sport, he realized they're not wearing the right shoes to play the sport. You're seeing a lot of running shoes from HOKA and on and various other running brands and realized that, you know, this, it's just going to lead to injury if you're not wearing the right products. And he saw this need and mission to accomplish something in the space that not a lot of people had been focusing on, which is creating a shoe that was developed for the needs of the pickleball player, specifically to ensure that they can play better, play longer, have more fun and look good at the same time while they're on the court. So about a year ago in March, that's when he launched PB5 Star as a company existed direct to consumer for exactly probably nine months and started with an apparel collection while the shoe was finished its development. The shoe was launched in December of last year and sold out within three weeks from hitting the marketplace. So really great reception to the product, the fit, the comfort and the function of the product. So that's when they knew that they had something really great on their hands. I joined the company in January to launch the wholesale efforts for the company and now we're just off to the races, enjoying, talking about and playing pickleball. I love it. And we met each other at the NSRA Leaders forum about a month ago and I said, oh, you got to come on the podcast. So excited to share this news for anybody that's listening that isn't familiar with the brand yet. And one of the things, you know, I'm 54, Stephen, and I used to play squash and used to do some racket sports and I have played pickleball. But, but one of my biggest frustrations with where we live right now is that the pickleball courts are always so full. It's almost like you, it's almost like you're lining up to get a ticket at a Taylor Swift concert. I mean, it's like ridiculous to get your time. People are like waiting there at 11am when the courts go live to like click their buttons and get on the court. And I don't have the time, you know, to do that or to be there at those specific times. So one of the issues, because it's so crazy busy for me to play, is that I just don't have the patience to kind of go through that stuff. But that also shows how important it is to be in the know that this is a sport that is in high demand, that many, many people are playing and that we need to be as footwear retailers, we need to be knowledgeable about, we need to understand. Tell us a little bit about the growth and the demographics of pickleball. Well, you nailed it. Pickleball is a craze. It's a phenomenon. It's unlike anything we've seen in the sports industry in, in recent or distant memory in terms of participation levels. But pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America and growing quickly across the world, globally as well. There's estimated right now. It just came out the app, the association of Pickleball Players, in a recent report just said that over 50 million people are playing and enjoying the sport of pickleball right now in the United States, which you can imagine that's a good percentage of the population now. So it is hard to find a person that has not played pickleball or doesn't know someone intimately that's playing pickleball for sure. But it has just exploded in growth and it's showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. And to your point, if you live in an area that is, let's call it, underdeveloped in terms of number of courts to number of players, you're going to see some frustration in trying to find some court time and take your turn on the court. The good news is with the sport is a very friendly sport. And. And when you are at a court that has too many people at the time, there's a. There's a unknown or kind of known courtesy among the players to where you play a match, and then you get off the court and you give the court to the next person. It's not like the game of tennis where you. You've got the court all day and you can just stay there. So there is a rotation that takes place in the sport, which is nice. It's a very friendly sport, very social sport, which is one of the reasons why people love to play it. But the reason it has grown so fast is because it's such a low barrier of entry to play pickleball. And there's really not another sport that's like, we're seeing participation from ages 8 to 88, and there's no other sport you can think of that almost everyone can play the first time they get out there. It doesn't have a huge learning curve. They say it's easy to learn but difficult to master. So it keeps you wanting more because you get out there and you feel like you're really good at it. And then you realize, well, he's a little better than me, so I'm going to play a little more. And then before you know it, everyone uses the word addicted. You just get addicted to playing the sport. And it's. It's just unheard of. And when we talk to retailers now, it's like, you have to understand that most of the people coming into your store right now, I don't care how old they are, are most likely playing the sport or have tried it or are thinking about trying it. And a lot of them just don't know that there is pickleball shoes specifically built for the sport or what type of shoes they should be wearing. And there's just a lot of opportunity for education around the sport right now because it is in the early stages in terms of a product category, and even though the sport has been growing and bubbling and exploding over the past, let's say five to seven years, the median age of the pickleball player you might think is an older retiree from a retirement community. It's actually 33 years old is the median age right now. So the sport is getting younger, it has a lot of participation from Gen Z and the kids are loving it. So the longevity is here to stay. And it's by no means a fad, even though people love to call it that. But to help you out, the explosive growth of pickleball courts is just as quickly as the growth of the sport. So they're seeing probably the amount of growth in courts they're Expecting is another 10,000 courts to be popping up. Amazing. Share a fact with you here. Within the last five years, they've seen 100% increase in courts in America and there's about 130 new facilities a month, population popping up around the country. Amazing. And that's both indoor courts, public courts, you name it. Country clubs, converting tennis courts into pickleball courts, or just building all new pickleball courts. The locations are coming, so just be patient. Yeah, that's great. I'll tell you my first location, my first ever game of pickleball. We had a cottage and my next door neighbor was a retiree, did spend his winters in Florida, and he had a paved sort of laneway in his cottage, and he set up a pickleball court right there and set up the net and, you know, put, put the. Painted his laneway at the cottage. And he said, you know, this is probably seven or eight years ago. And he said, this is what everybody's doing in Florida these days. And so my kids, like I said, we were a racket sport family, so we were out there playing pickleball at my neighbor's cottage in his own little pickleball court. So it's something that you can set up pretty much anywhere if you have a small, you know, get the pickleball net and set up the sort of the, the tape and what have you. And, and that is kind of a low barrier to entry when we look at the sport as itself. And I mean, that's how it was my first. I had never played on an actual pickleball court to get things rolling or even heard of it until he came back and he said, this is what we did all winter and I brought home the paddles and let's go. So it was, it was pretty cool, you know. Yeah, Another great reason why it's such a popular sport is it's free. You can play it at any public municipality court. There, of course, are clubs now being developed and built, and there's indoor facilities being built where you could go pay to play. But unlike golf, you don't have to have a big budget and spend a lot of money to go play it. It's basically free. Let's talk a little bit about sort of the mechanics of the game, because as it relates to shoes and being that it is the footwear retailer podcast. You know what, it's not like you're the first person or first group that's ever developed a pickleball shoe out there. But what's the difference between a pickleball shoe, a tennis shoe, or a running shoe? You had mentioned a couple running shoe brands and why they shouldn't be used on the court. Or there are tennis shoes out there that have been in in line for years and years from various brands. Tell us a little bit about the mechanics of pickleball, how it differentiates, and why your brand sort of aligns with this sport. Sure. Pickleball is really a sport of really quick start, stop, lateral movements. So if you think about tennis, you're on your side of the court, you have a long run up to the net, a long run to the back corner, lots of longer strides laterally and vertically. The difference with pickleball is it's a smaller court. It's generally played as a double sport versus singles. There are singles, but most of the time it is a double sport. So you're really confined to a much smaller space. And the game is played predominantly up close to the net at the line of what's called the kitchen, which is the front area in front of the net. So your job is to really get up to the kitchen line and play a really short game. And. And while doing so, your body is just quickly spinning left to right, left to right, and it's quick short stop, lateral movement. So you want to have good grip on the bottom of your shoe because you need to pivot and stop short often. You definitely want to have good lateral stability and you want to have a low center of gravity. So if you think about a running shoe, it has a very high pitch because it's meant to propel you forward. It's a very forward moving angle. A court shoe is really meant to keep you seated and stable laterally. And then specifically for pickleball, you want to make sure that you have extra support so that you're not Rolling your foot over laterally because of those quick stop movements. Tennis shoes, of course, are great for the court. And of course, you can play tennis. You can play pickleball in a tennis shoe. Where we've taken it a step further is, you know, a lot of the brands that initially came out with a pickleball shoe were repurposing tennis shoes. They would just take a tennis shoe from their collection. They write the word pickleball on the side and ship it out as a pickleball shoe. What it was lacking was that additional lateral support and stability. So when Chris and the PB5 star team was developing our shoe, they really took into account working with pros and understanding the biomechanics of the foot and making sure that the heel was very supported in the shoe. With a deep heel seat and a tight heel counter. They think of it as like a formula one race car. Our formula one car is very low to the ground and very grippy with the tires and. And it gives the driver a really tight bucket seat so that as the car is moving, he's not bouncing back and forth. And that's essentially your foot when playing pickleball. So our shoe is built specifically to hug your heel, keep you seated and held into the shoe, as well as some additional, like, outriggers on the side of the shoe to ensure that you're not going to roll over laterally. A wishbone suspension built into the midsole to make sure you have movement and flexibility, but not too much. And really, those are the specific dynamics of the sport. Tell us a little bit right now. Is it mainly one shoe, Steven, for those that are unfamiliar with the brand, or do you have a few different options or what sort of. What's current now because it's a relatively new brand and what's in development. So we launched with our first shoe, and I'll preface this by saying it is called the Court two. And by the way, PB in PB five Star stands for personal best. A lot of people think it stands for pickleball, but PB5 star is really. Our mission is to become the favorite brand for court sports in the world. So we're not really going to only stay in the pickleball lane. That's the first focus of our first shoe, for sure. The shoe also plays really well as a tennis shoe because of all the stability and support and technology built into the shoe. So it is called the Court 2, built specifically for the needs of the pickleball player. And that's the first and only Shoe that we have in the line currently, we launched with the best shoe that we could possibly make for the sport to show everyone, you know, kind of what we can do based on 30 years of experience of biomechanics and understanding proper alignment and foot support. We have other shoes now coming down the line, which we'll be offering in probably the fall season. There'll be the first launch of those new products and you're going to see some different types of performance shoes. We'll see varying price points from what we have now. You'll see us move into more of a lifestyle vibe. So one thing that we really pride ourselves on is a tennis shoe or a court shoe typically does not get worn when you're off the court. They tend to be very stiff and uncomfortable. And when you're not playing, it's usually the first thing to come off. Our shoe really wears like a cross training shoe. It's very comfortable, it's very lightweight, it has a breathable upper. You can wear it to the gym. I wear it on lifting days. It's a really supportive gym shoe and it feels great walking. So we have a lot of our independent retailers that get a big walking customer in their in their stores, and now they're selling this as kind of the one shoe. You can wear it walking, you can bring it on vacation and wear it during pickleball. It's really a universal shoe that is very technically built for the sport that you can wear for other purposes as well. We also make a recovery sandal. So we have a slide for men and women and then a thong sandal for women. And the recovery sandal is built with the same shape in the footbed as the inside of our shoe. I also failed to mention our footbed inside. The shoe has an arch support, a metatarsal dome, toe bars to keep you from sliding forward. So where a lot of athletic brands forget the actual insole, it's usually just a floppy piece of foam. This is a really nice molded, supportive and alignment assist for your body when playing. And our recovery sandal follows that exact same shape. So when you do slip our shoes off, you can put on the recovery sandal and feel totally comfortable and supported off the court as well. I love it. What's the price point for those that haven't aren't familiar yet? Yeah, the men's shoe is 159 retail and the women's is 149 and then the sandals are 65 retail. So, you know, we look at it as if you're buying a Nice running shoe. You're spending 200 and up on a really technologically advanced running shoe in the court space. Again, if you're looking for a one of the best shoes you can buy for the sport, you in that same range. So we definitely came out with what we saw was a good price for a lot of technology and something that even the serious or less advanced player could really feel and play comfortably knowing that they're wearing the right shoe for the sport. I love it. And I'm in Canada and I know a lot of our listeners are. Most of our listeners are in the States, but for those of us in Canada, how is distribution aligning for Canada? So we are eventually, we do have plans to distribute in Canada. Right now we're just distributed in the US but we are in talks already for expanding into Canada. Awesome. That's great. For now, just drive a little bit south. No, I get it. But it's one of the questions, right? And, and as Canadian retailers, we're always kind of like, okay, is this coming or how is it going to be distributed? And all this kind of stuff. It's just one of the things for anybody who's, who's not focused where whether the brand starts in Germany and it's coming to, to the US or to Canada, we're always thinking, all right, when can I get a hold of this thing for my stores? Right. Yep. No, I love it. That's great. And you know, not only flip flops and recovery sandals and, and, and court shoes, but you guys do clothing too? We do, yeah. So we have a full line of apparel as well as accessories and even paddles. So we do offer retailers a almost one stop shop in terms of creating a brand environment or a pickleball space in their store. The apparel collection is beautiful. It's made with premium materials. They have four way stretch, they have moisture wicking, they're built to move with you when you're playing the sport and of course look good. There's a lot of pickleball apparel out there that tends to be a little bit more kitschy with, you know, pickleballs on it and paddles on it and just more graphic. And we really went a streamlined route for looking good on the court and playing your best wearing just beautiful materials and fabrics. So our first collection is out now. We'll have a new collection as well for fall. And we also just launched a bunch of new colors of our footwear this past month as well, which are doing really well. So to my earlier point, you know, our products look Good with a pair of jeans or worn out with a casual outfit to brunch, just like they do when wearing on the court. And we do get a lot of people saying, like I get asked all the time, what, what shoes am I wearing? Because they just have a really good look to them that's unexpected for a court shoe. I love it. What's the website, Stephen, so that they can. Our website is pb5star.com and that's the letter P, the letter B, the number five and the word star. PB5star.com. And like I said, PB stands for personal best. And five star is like celebrating those five star moments in life. So we're really here to help encourage you to feel your best, look your best and play your best and have five star moments throughout your life. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I think it's just a great thing. One of the things as we're chatting this out here, Stephen, a lot of the listeners here are running store specific and I think this is probably a really interesting line because the people that have running stores, they're athletic people. They're people, you know, all of this sort of stuff. Are you looking to add into a lot of the independent run shops and stuff too, as far as another athletic line to. To not only the independent footwear, the brown shoe guys that offer athletic, but also getting into all the run shops and things like that too? Yeah. What's been a blast for me personally and for all of us is the sheer number of different opportunities there are to capture that pickleball customer. And because they're everywhere, we are talking to running specialty stores because there is a big crossover between runners and pickleball players. We're talking to a lot of independent shoe retailers, as I mentioned before. Even though the customer might be coming in for a more comfort oriented walking shoe or supportive shoe, just opening up the conversation with that customer and asking them if they play pickleball when they're in your store not only gives you a deeper point of connection with your customer to learn more about them, but. But when you mention the word pickleball to somebody, you can just see their eyes light up like they want to talk about their pickleball game. And then suddenly you have them in there for a different point of sale. You have them there for a pickleball sale in addition to the walking or supportive casual shoe they might have been purchasing on top of that. And then we have a lot of business with country clubs. You know, all these country clubs are, like I mentioned, building Pickleball courts or already have them existing, they're doing big member guest programs with pickleball players and holding leagues and tournaments. And they're all about the pickleball products in their pro shops now too. So, you know, from running shops to independent shoe, to country clubs, pro shops, to now these indoor pickleball facilities, you know, we can talk to so many different types of retailers, department stores, sporting goods stores, you name it. Really everyone can get a piece of the pickleball action that's, that's brewing out there. One of the things that, when Chris Gallagher, you had mentioned he was one of the co founders of Vyonix, one of the things that they really focused on early on, as I recall, anyway, was a lot around training, a lot around sort of all of this stuff, getting the teams involved, all of that kind of thing, and building the brand within the independent channel. I'm assuming that you guys are sort of running on that same sort of platform as far as getting rolling, because that seemed to be a big DNA for that brand. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about how PB5 star is getting the word into the. Once you know, the owner says, okay, let's bring this in, then what? And how does the team get to know it? How do they get trained? How do they learn about it? And what systems have you got in place? Yeah, so just like you mentioned with VIONIK, they were 100% focused on the success of their retail partners. And we are absolutely no different at PB5 star. We have a five star success plan that we work with each of our retailers. And we're here not just to sell you a shoe and walk out. In fact, when we do discuss pickleball shoes with some retailers, sometimes we'll hear them say, I've tried a pickleball shoe in the past and it really didn't sell. It was from X brand or Y brand. And my first question to them is, what did you do to market that shoe to your guests? Or what did that brand do to market the shoe to your guests in your environment? And usually the answer is nothing. And if you just put a shoe on the wall, it doesn't say the word pickleball across it, it doesn't scream pickleball. So without talking about it or educating you, you're not going to have a pickleball presence in your store. So we're here to really help the store owners learn how to spread the word that they have pickleball in their store, how to make a form a relationship with the community Surrounding their store so that businesses coming into the store because they are now known as a destination for pickleball products. And that's what we're doing with our five star success plan. So from the time that I sell you the shoes, we're going to discuss the best assortment to carry in your stores and we're going to discuss how we want to display that in the store. I don't want it to just sit on a shelf on the wall next to all of the other shoes and get lost. So we have pop materials we can offer you for your store. Whether it's, you know, a pickleball riser. I don't know if you can see it behind me here, you know, something that says pickleball to the holding the shoe, to our own branded risers and branded fixtures and graphics and things like that. Uh, we're also giving the store associates a lanyard which they can wear and it says, do you play pickleball on the front of it? So they can wear that in front of their customers and just immediately start the conversation about whether the customer plays pickleball or not. We're also partnering with local pros in the area, so we will find ambassadors that are near your store and we will give them a free pair of shoes and ask them for referral business between them and your store so that they can drive their students, that their athletes they're training into your store to go buy their pickleball proper shoes to wear in the sport. Some of our retailers have also done pickleball launch events where we've taken the parking lot and created, as you mentioned, a portable pickleball court, taping off the parking lot, bringing a portable net, have local food vendors donate food, local beer vendors donate beer, and have a day party on a Saturday to launch pickleball at your store. We had local pros from the area come in and do clinics throughout the day on the temporary court in the parking lot so guests could come in, buy a pair of shoes, get some free instruction from the pros. The pros donated some raffle prizes, like an hour long lesson for each of the pros. And so they were raffling off prizes all day. And really those who make a connection with the community will be successful in the sport of pickleball. And we're here to help guide you along the way to make sure that you know how to make those connections in the community. There's so many tournaments, events, local things going on around pickleball that you can help sponsor and have a pop up Table at or put a banner on just to, to make your store known as a pickleball destination. And really it's a fun, fun sport and a fun game and a fun community. So it's a great place to tie your store to, to be known for that. I love it. I love it. This has been an education on pickleball, Steven. Not not only on PB5 star, but on where the industry is going on, on the excitement it's generating. And I think as an independent retailer, we want to, we want to make sure that we can fulfill the excitement for sure. If people are talking about it, people are wanting to do it. We want to make sure that we have what they need in order to make that a better experience for them. And then it'll be a better experience for us as independent retailers too. And we can be, like you said, bringing them in for even pickleball introduce you, introduces them to a whole wealth of other things that you have in your store or if they're in your store already because they're already an existing client, introducing them to pickleball after they've been hearing about it from everybody and not actually knowing what it's all about. I think it works both ways and I really thank you for spending some time with us here. Give everybody the website again one more time. Stephen. Sure. The website is pb the number5star.com pb5star.com and I will just leave it with you that, you know, now is the time to claim your piece of this fastest growing consumer category of pickleball. Those that partner with the right brands to achieve success will be successful. And like I mentioned, the community involvement aspect is a huge part of it. We're not asking to be the only pickleball brand that you carry. You of course, want to have an assortment of pickleball brands to be a legitimate destination for pickleball. But, you know, we were happy to lead the way and do the training. We have resources to train your employees. We have an employee learning platform that they can log into. We have, you know, sell through monitoring. We're flexible with ensuring that products are selling or we'll take them back and change them out for other products. So we're really here to partner with you and to teach you how to run a successful pickleball business in your store and really add another revenue stream for your store outside of the business you've already been doing. I love it. And if anybody wants to get you direct, get a hold of you directly, how do they reach you? Stephen? My email is s.greensteinb5star.com you can also, if you'd like to be a wholesale retailer of ours, you can go on our website. There's a wholesale inquiry button on there and you can just fill out the form and we'll contact you immediately to open you up as a customer. And yeah, please just reach out anytime. We're excited about the growth and we would love for you to be a part of it. Thanks so much, Stephen. It's been great. Make it a great day. Thanks, Pete. You as well.