My Journey to Becoming President of the UPA Pro Player Committee

The Election

My fellow pickleball Americans, you may have heard that I was elected President of the UPA Pro Player Committee. It’s certainly a great honor to be elected to represent the 167 pro players, but how did we get here?

The Contract Changes

The UPA is currently in the process of renegotiating contracts with players and transitioning away from the guaranteed salaries that players were given in 2023 and towards more of a prize money model. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this video where I explain it because you need to understand that first. I’m excited to announce that I’ve signed an extension with the UPA, so they’re going to be stuck with me through at least the end of 2028!

Formation of the WPPA

In response to this round of negotiations, several players including Tina Pisnik, Jessie Irvine, Dekel Bar, Collin Johns, Gabel Tardio, and Jay Devilliers formed the World Pickleball Players Association - The WPPA. From the player side, it seems like Collin Johns and Tina Pisnik are the main spokespeople as Collin was interviewed by ESPN on the topic and Tina was interviewed by the Sports Business Journal.

Previous Associations and UPA's Internal Organization

Now, this isn’t the first time an external association has been attempted. In fact, every single time player negotiations have occurred, somebody has tried to create a players association. There have been several attempts, most recently in late 2023 into early 2024 was the Player Collective which was spearheaded by Jill Braverman and which I was a part of. The track record for external associations hasn’t been great, however this attempt seems way more legit than any previous attempt. The WPPA is working with Sports Solidarity. Sports Solidarity is an organization founded by Harry Marino, and the organization was essential in unionizing Minor League Baseball players in 2022. Based on this track record, I think it’s reasonable to believe that the WPPA has eventual unionization in mind.

Around the same time, the UPA announced a re-commitment to their own internal organization, the UPA Pro Player Committee which consists of Roscoe Bellamy, Matt Wright, Eric Oncins, Federico Staksrud, Brooke Buckner, Catherine Parenteau, Anna Leigh Waters, Jorja Johnson, Allyce Jones, and yours truly. Elections were held last week, and I was voted to serve as President. I definitely didn’t campaign for this, and I really didn’t want to be President. In fact, I actually voted for Allyce as President, but I’m going to do the best I possibly can to make some actionable improvements for the players. This is going to sound cliché, but it really is a great honor and a great responsibility. I think that the players appreciate that I’m not somebody that can be walked over. I’m somebody that’s not afraid to say what I think and criticize the league when I think it needs to be criticized. But at the same time, any criticism I have is always paired with what I believe to be an actionable solution.

The Path Forward

I think we need to realize that we’re still very much a startup. Players need the organization to succeed in order for them to succeed and for them to get paid. We’re not the NBA, we’re not the NFL, and we’re not MLB. I think we need to work collaboratively and focus on changes that don’t affect the P/L of the league, and we were already able to secure some pretty solid wins. As mentioned earlier, we’re in the middle of contract renegotiations, so most of the changes we’ve been able to make so far relate to the player contracts. We’ve been able to reduce the number of required events from 25 to 22, eliminate clinic exclusivity which opens up tons of additional revenue for players, increase prize money to include the round of 32 while simultaneously capping draw sizes at 64, and we’re finally going to have an actual six week offseason for the first time in professional pickleball history.

Addressing Player Concerns

A few more initiatives that we have are establishing a player disciplinary committee to govern fines and punishments. I think it’s fair and reasonable for player representatives to have an equal seat at the table when punishments are being doled out by the league such as Andrei Daescu’s $50,000 fine for sticky stuff on his paddle or Quang Duong’s $50,000 fine for violating the exclusivity part of his contract. RIP Quang Duong’s contract. Historically, players have had no recourse or nobody advocating on their behalf, and the league could theoretically act with impunity, if they so choose. Next, we just want increased transparency surrounding points calculations, draw creation and scheduling.