Welcome to the ifil r podcast today I am solo hosting but with a very special guest the utr sports CEO and chairman Mark Lesley who has recently entered the sport of pickle ball and has claimed a couple very key Partnerships and we are going to sit down and talk about all of it let’s get right into it because you know why why cuz it feels right it feels.

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Game with the net trusted by by the pros cel’s got you covered if you’re interested in getting a net of your own go to sr.com collection net and we’ll link to that in the show notes you can also find this link in the description of the show but let’s jump into this week’s episode of it feels right with Robin Stone all.

Right this is a little bit of a I would say out of pocket It Feels Right podcast we don’t typically have guests come on like this but with there with a bunch of big news happening in the world of pickle ball it’s uh yeah it’s a pleasure to have have you on the podcast Mark welcome oh thank you it’s great to be here Rob it’s good to catch up so I I.

Want to dig a little bit into utr sports kind of the kind of the origin story of it what made you jump into it how it came about and just kind of the a little bit of the life cycle of you know where you started and where you’re at now yeah yeah so you know my background was sort of in sports I played professional tennis I I went into.

The sort of Silicon Valley tech industry spent a bunch of years working with startups and then I was always fascinated by sort of this infusion of technology and media into sports and uh and so about eight nine years ago I started investing into all kinds of sports related things um and and then frankly I came across this little piece.

Of technology called utr it was being used sort of fledging in a tennis setting with college coach is to help create a rating for players uh globally so coaches could better understand talent and uh I sort of saw a vision for to creating a language and a standard for that Sport and uh fast forward a bunch of years um we built a fun.

Business um in tennis really bringing that industry together bringing it into the 21st century uh with technology connecting people uh creating a currency and language uh and even going as far as creating a professional tour there uh and then a couple years ago you know we’ve migrated elsewhere and hence the conversation today as we look to.

Continue to migrate into other sports yeah and it’s interesting because I come from a college tennis background as well as a player as well as a coach um coached alongside Chase Hodes who is now a VP with you guys at utr sports uh but it’s interesting because when I remember even back when I mean this was 2008 that kind of time frame even when I was in.

School we would look at like there wasn’t that rating wasn’t established yet so if we’re looking at international players to recruit you know the French have their own rating system the Germans have their own rating system and they were all very very different and kind of tough to understand so is that was that kind of the impetus of it’s exactly what.

It was so there was a couple academics originally back in the in the late 2000s who sort of said well what if we ingest results we basically put everybody on the same platform we we looked at an objective measure that can connect everybody together uh and uh and let’s use that as a basis for understanding how everybody is on.

The same uh schedule uh and for college coaches you know this has really transformed college town I mean 75 plus percent of all D1 and D3 players now are international players because coaches can go elsewhere they know exactly how good a player is playing in ithuania or whether it’s Australia Etc and so suddenly it’s a massive leveling of the.

Playing field um and it’s been a huge huge elevation in college tennis uh as you know Rob and uh so creating that currency and that language but then of course this was much more than just college tennis this was also going into clubs and high schools the pro level the junior level and saying well if we can create level based tennis we open up the.

Opportunities for everybody the fact that we can play across age and gender and create level based play on a on a court because when you’re playing each other level based play is a key to fun and excitement it’s no fun beating somebody badly or losing badly but you’re on the court with somebody sort of at your same level whether you’re.

Competing or just doing it recreationally makes the game a lot more fun any sport with rackets absolutely and you know kind of the reason for our conversation here is you know a big partnership was announced with USA pickle ball kind of the organizing body in the US for pickle ball as well as the AP tour which is doing a ton of stuff.

Not just the pro tour but running a ton of amateur events they have the nextg series they’re getting into junior development type stuff um and I know this announcement is coming now but at the same time I know there’s been a lot in the works with you guys and you guys have been watching pickle ball for a while now um what was kind of that.

Initial moment where for UT sports as a company that you were like there’s something here it’s growing like crazy maybe we really have to look at it what was like the origin of seeing that yeah well you know so I sort of got involved in utr when it was sort of five people back in the in the early 2018 you know and and and as we sort of got into that.

You know we had so much to work and focus on within tennis initially you know we brought in all kinds of wonderful Partners Amazon Larry Ellison the BMP tennis Australia Novak and Roger feder and the like so there was there was just tremendous amount of stuff to be done we always we saw what was happening pickleball and we saw those.

Are investors in utr to be clear those are partners and investors and yeah and really helping to build out that ten ecosystem and and then you know we saw what was happening pick a ball we were being approached a lot by folks uh and then frankly about four plus years ago I was approached actually by people in pickle ball and saying look we’ve seen.

What you’ve been doing in tennis would you be interested in pickleball and at the time you know when you’re a small company and you’re sort of growing and you’re building it’s stuff to figure out how to not to overwhelm a firm um so at the time we did not dive in um but it was certainly on our radar as was paddle and a bunch of other sports um that was.

Right about the same time that a couple folks from our firm actually left our firm and and got involved in duper and sort of said Hey listen you know we want to go pursue this and led support um but fast forward you know about two years ago is when we started to really lay the foundation started to work up really started to look at what it took to build.

Up a rating and ranking system also how to really build the software to engage a community this is so much more than the rating system this is about figuring out how to connect people support organizers and players and coaches um so been a journey now of about two plus years and I think what you’re seeing some of these announcements is is actually not the.

Prospect of doing something but the the reality that we’re here yeah exactly and I think you you brought up an interesting point of you know it’s so much more than a rating obviously you have a rating and you’re the gold standard starting it with tennis and um it sounds like you’re confident that it’s going to be the gold.

Standard in pickle ball but I think what is is probably not realized is the tournament management software and the ability to um host events and leagues and all of that stuff so how big of what would you say in terms of your focus in pickle ball what is the main priority you know entering the sport yeah so so as we enter the sport you know kind of.

Like tennis you know so you mentioned tennis before it had 2,000 rating systems and ranking systems around the world you know there are a number of rating systems in pickall of course right so whether it’s USA pick ball system as you know pick a ball brackets and behind their’s been a system and of course duper I think what we saw was was.

A large sort of dissatisfaction with sort of hey look how do I assess My Level and my rank ranking systems are fairly easy when you take a small group of people you add a bunch of points to set a tournaments and depending how far you get into tournaments hey here’s your pool and you can rank them you can do that with a the.

Pro like you played AP Etc right and hey here’s our ranking of our Pro players where gets much harder is when you expand that into a much larger pool and you really need a way to to create a relational database and relational ranking system not just an absolute system that that’s based on points and that’s where you know we’ve sort of.

Entered here and built frankly a an extraordinary uh framework now and we can talk more about that in a minute but that’s only the beginning right so once you sort of understand hey how do I assess somebody’s level how do I now put them into Fun experiences from a player perspective and then also how do I help organizers you know we have thousands.

And thousands of venues in this country and for that matter now emerging around the world that are trying to help facilitate organization um and and that could be a Rec Center it could be a club it could be whatever and and and at at the Forefront of that are coaches and Pros uh and GMS who want to create a better experience and the best way to do.

That is to give them the tools the tools to say look I can run a tournament I can run a league I can run a match play I can do a camp uh and it’s so much more than just a tournament what the focus in pickleball today right now has been more recreational and tournaments leagues are just starting to emerge and you know when you look at other sports leagues is.

Actually a much broader thing that’s much more fun that could be a flex League where you do individual stuff or it could be a group thing so the notion of using technology connecting people right um is really the basis of what we do we’re a technology company and so we’re trying to provide the tools to those players and coaches to help.

Facilitate get a better experience let’s say I’m a let’s say I’m a facility manager owner operator that has call it 12 pickle ball courts and I’m just opening up and I hear about you know obviously there’s a bunch of different softwares there’s there’s court reservation software there’s uh rating software there’s all of these different.

Tools what would you say and I and I’m like I I don’t know any of it I’m just getting into the sport I’m opening this facility I’m seeing how it’s booming what like what would I be able to do with utr out of the gate like could I run everything with utr yeah so I yeah so so out of the gate what you can do is we can set you up on what’s.

Called our digital clubs and what we do with that is we basically create a digital environment for you and all of your members so that could be physical members or digital members and it basically allows you to have this community and the way we build that Community is that they basically click in for free they can join for free free.

They can download our app they can become a natural member and now here comes this this basis from which you now can communicate organize set up whatever you want we got messaging back and forth you can do a tournament do a clinic you can post scores uh we’ll talk about the rating in a second right we built basic an objective standard so that you can.

Have a rating based on tournament and match play only and then there’s also one that’s more self- posting and allows you recreationally if you’re not that interested in that competitive thing so that’s very important as you know part of the challenges we have in pickle ball now is is the quality of data and some of these rating systems isn’t great.

Right so um so basically as an organizer we can set you up for free to do that and and then if you want to start using this as a tools to make money and you wan to charge registration fees and other things we have the payment systems and the like we’ll charge a small fee for that to sort of help facilitate and that’s really less about us making money.

And more about if we’re g to get that deep with somebody we want them a little bit committed right like we a lot of time money and effort with customer service and supporting people and then we have technologies that allows those organizers and players to interact so we have mobile app technology now we have group creation capabilities you know.

There’s some good group capabilities that have been built out there with pickleheads and pickle play um you know playtime scheduler is another one that you know sort of come up because there’s a massive need for people to try to connect with the community and so what we built is both these Technologies for the organizers what we call businesses.

To business right as well as Technologies for the consumer and the player in the app and so for us um you can also connect other things in so if you have a particular court Reserve or whatever you may be using for reservation you can connect that into our system as well so we’re really trying to create just a digital Hub that.

Allows organizers players parents coaches to live in the same ecosystem and and to be able to communicate easily which isn’t there today yeah right that’s very much not there today yep what do you see as what do you see as the biggest challenge coming into pickle ball because obviously you have a you have a steady business on the tennis.

Side you’ve got a bunch of providers um you’ve got a pro tour that we haven’t really talked about um that’s been a big piece of what you guys have done what do you see as the biggest challenge coming into pickle ball well so so like any sport when you enter as a new entrance you know just trying to educate people about what you built.

Making it as easy and as seamless uh you know we we have invested tens of millions of dollars you know we have a firm of 150 people like technology and making this as seamless and as easy and Connecting People is what we just spent an extraordinary amount of money but now educating people about hey what do we do and why us and what’s this rating system.

And why is it better than duper and why should we use your platform or so CH in education um and I think it’s less about the technology now because frankly we built it um and so now it’s more about giving people the opportunity to participate in building momentum and Buzz around it our approach to the market is a little bit different than a.

Lot of other folks we sort of say look we should we should not have exclusivity we should not force you into a place you don’t want to be you know there’s a little bit of that going on in this industry and others as well right which’re just kind of like hey you know once you’re sort of in we hook you um and our view is look our job is to build.

The best possible thing and when we do you’re going to want to use it not because because you have to but because you want to um and so this is still an industry that’s very very early right even though there’s so many people that play it from a business and a technological perspective you know 90 plus percent maybe 98% of the players.

Out there really aren’t digitally connected they’re not part of something they just enjoy to get on a court and hit some balls right um so there’s so much more that we can do to help support people in the ecosystem and that’s going to be a long journey and we’re committ to that Journey um this is not a flyby by us you know we’ve had great success.

In tennis we we are super committed to pick a ball um we went through this process with ap and usap and they selected us you know they vetted us carefully U they had the opportunity to work with others uh and um you know they’ve selected us as our long-term partners and um so we’re super excited but it’s going to be a journey and it’s.

A build and you know there’s going to be bumps along the road there always is uh but boy it’s super exciting to support this industry yeah do you feel like the partnership with USA pickle ball and AP AP is obviously doing a lot on the international front they are you know they’re hosting tournaments and uh England and they they’ve powered.

Tournaments in India is that a big piece of why you wanted to work with them is the international piece because I do feel like that’s a little bit of um open ocean if you’ll say in terms of being you know the US is very saturated there’s a lot of people playing there’s a lot of competition here in terms of ratings and tournament software.

Providers um yeah I guess what’s the Outlook internationally yeah no so it’s interesting you know originally when we were looking to enter pickup ball and get involved you know AP uh got in touch with us and and AP was actually very aggressive about wanting to pull us in and work with us I think they were.

Significantly dissatisfying with the solutions that were available to them as a firm that was committed to building long-term Innovation and growth you know Ken Herman and what he sort of his evangelism and support for the industry is fantastic you know you got Mike Pinsky over there Melissa having joined now McCurley you know so they have a.

They have a really solid team and they really understand the sport well and they said look we can do better than what exists today so even though people say hey this is a very mature Market from my vantage point not at all right this is an industry that’s gotten a lot of numbers in terms of people playing this sport but we really haven’t.

Supported them and we really haven’t developed it um and then of course internationally we are still very much in the early days right I think there’s still these International Global pickleball federations there are other people here vying for this there’s small federations that are getting set up around the world um and I think for the.

Most part you know vast majority of people playing the sport are not connected they’re not connected in any meaningful way with technology and communities uh and AP rightfully so is thinking about this not just domestically but internationally and saying look how do we build an industry um what always happens in these things.

Is that you know there end up being different sides of the equation and there’s a little bit of competition a little bit of feuding um you know there’s there’s a lot of drama in pickle ball more so than I think in other sports yeah you know as an outsider coming in and now having spent several years in it um but you know that sort of.

Goes with the territory our our view is that look execute block and Tackle keep getting better and better at the tools the software and the technology we can provide create good experiences for people and they’ll come back um and uh and that’s domestically and internationally so we are committed to that and then of course usap as you saw.

You know with ap we spent the last year and a half really perfecting our technology working very closely with them as a partner so even though we haven’t talked much about it we’ve been working on a daily basis with them and now here here’s usap where you know they are the governing body um you know they should be the governing body there.

Should be a nonprofit in here that sort of ultimately becoming a rules and regulator and creates a national championship Mike Neely having come in you know in the last year or so I think he’s doing a terrific job uh you know I think he’s a professional he’s balanced he’s thoughtful um and I think ultimately um usap I think has a bright.

Future they’ve also recognized what they’re good at and what they’re not good at yeah and uh technology and Technology investment and development you know is something that is uh really shouldn’t be done by federations and governing bodies yeah and so they’ve brought us in as their partner and we’re gonna help them so looking at the kind.

Of the I’ve been in this world since 2019 and I’ve seen a lot of changes I’ve seen you know things come and go really quickly three months feels like three years in this world as I’m sure you felt um but looking at the landscape now we’ve got kind of an alliance with utr sports USA pickle ball the AP and then we have.

Everything that now United pickle ball is doing uh UPA I suppose it’s called which is the pp which is PPA MLP duper now um they have pickle ball brackets uh pickle ball Central on the retail side online retail side how do you see how do you see everything coexisting or do you see things coexisting like what is what is.

Your forecast for how all of this moves forward yeah so look there’s a lot of drama now about us versus them and you know that’s sort of the natural thing right I I I think that you know when you look at PPA and MLP and Tom Dundon and Connor and you know um and Tito and the guys at duper and those other stuff you know my view on this stuff is really a.

Lot more calm a lot more relaxed right which is look what’s happening now is that people are making significant in investments into the sport people are really supporting this ecosystem and that’s great for players and organizers right and so people should use whatever thing is available to them that’s the best possible thing um my view is.

Instead of fighting over 5% market share and you know pickle W Brack said well we’re the dominant market share yeah listen you’ve been running most of the tournaments but there’s so few tournaments right and by the way we haven’t even begun to proliferate into leagues and other things right so like let’s stop worrying about you know this.

Little small pie and let’s figure out how to expand the pie and yeah and in expanding that pie there’s so much more opportunity for everybody right and we would love to work with those guys as well you know I spent lots of time talking to all of them right and and we’d be happy to collaborate with them um so it it doesn’t have to be the.

Starch wall of of boy US versus them what we should be doing is we should figure out how to bake the experience better and better for players better and better for for organizers and and really grow the sport um you know and not get ahead of ourselves um and so in a perfect world you have one standard one language one rating one ranking you know.

In some cases that works there’s many sports where that doesn’t most sports where that doesn’t exist right ranging from football you know when back in the days right and to to tennis now where we have seven governing bodies right so yeah I think we can coexist for sure uh but players can take Advantage both you can have a duper rating depending on.

What you’re doing right and you can have a UTP rating and you know you can play in a pick a ball brackets tournament and a utr tournament and an AP tournament so from a player perspective this is all good this is all good it’s more opportunity it’s more things that you can cherry pick from uh and then from our perspective from a business.

Perspective our responsibil is build the best possible product and if we do that then our business will do fine and if we don’t do that we won’t and then shame on us you know um and I think that’s sort of a very simplistic view which is say look this is capitalism sufficient markets you know may the best product and the best Solutions win fair yep so.

The focus is on creating great experience making the best products and letting the chips fall where they fall yeah as they should I mean that that that’s ultimately what what’s Market efficiencies are about and and you know when you go today and you jump on social media platforms that use you know premium products right you’re using the.

Ones that work the best for you and you lean into them you know whether you’re on Instagram or Facebook or X or whatever it may be right like you’re using it because it works for you not because you have to or you’re forced to use it and I think that’s sort of the way it should be right and I think today people are so accustomed to just having.

Everything at their fingertips on a phone right and they’re very quick to switch to other things yeah uh and so when you build something that’s better because of the ability to migrate people quickly so this notion of entrenched establishment in this sport no you know we we came into tennis it was incredibly mature very established seven governing.

Bodies and we built an extraordinary business why because we’ve opened up the door for more Choice more personalization a better product a better experience and guess what once you do that people will migrate to you so that’s our responsibility to do that in pick as well and we’ve come a long way to doing that now you know rating.

And ranking system is is already better than ranking systems for AP Pro players as you probably know right you know and I think the way we built our infrastructure um and the way we’ve set up this rating system and ranking system as well as the TMS EMS pick a ball is a funny thing there’s so many divisions and nuances with draws and this and that.

You know we were sort of chuckling a couple years ago like boy who started this right like it wouldn’t be if you had to start something tomorrow this probably wouldn’t be like wait 75 divisions and everything age and this and these round robins and backd draws and triple elimination and you’re like holy moly you know does it have to be.

This complicated but having said all that we’ve now built the capability for you to run these events at all scale um small to large and to create a good experience yeah yeah it’s a good point when I think about like the all the different divisions age divisions skill divisions it’s like it’s it would be like starting like an Ecom business that.

Has like a million SKS which is just a disaster and it’s just but that’s that’s what it is and um I imagine it was not a yeah coming from tennis in terms of tournament management software pretty straightforward this has you have so many different draw types you have you know sometimes you can come back from the back draw and win gold sometimes you.

Can’t sometimes it’s it there’s just so many different formats and there’s pool play and round Robbins and yeah yeah so I feel I we’ll see what happens over time right I mean I I think you know figuring out how to you know ultimately do this over time and having the tools Avail you know governing bodies should decide that.

Right um but look I I think it’s it’s an interesting time I I tip my hat to what Tom Dundon has done you know his commitment to the sport the investment he’s made the evangelism I tip my hat to Ken Herman and AP you know and you know they get a lot of grief on some of the things they don’t always do great you know but the flip side is boy they’re.

Committed they love the sport they’re supporting it in a huge way you know um and and I think that’s great you every every sport needs evangelism it needs investment uh to grow it but boy we’re still so early we’re still so early and really connecting this community um you you mentioned coming into tennis which was already a very mature Market um one.

I think obviously there’s some similarities but also differences coming into pickle ball uh we mentioned with tennis the rating systems were very country specific and it was very fragmented whereas and pickle ball as you mentioned the drama aspect you had some people leave utr and decide to start to jump on duper and get that.

Going um so you’re coming into pickle ball with already kind of an established call it Universal rating system why do you think and may I’m assuming I mean you’re I’m assuming a competitive person why do you think that the utr uh P rating is going to be better than the dup.

Rating yeah so so we’ve already spent over a year ingesting data working very closely with ap um building the rating system testing the rating system validating rating system and so you there are a couple of things that that we do right so first off U if you’re coming into our system and you haven’t played tournaments and you’re not in the.

Lead thing you can immediately come in answer five or six question and you get what’s called a provisional rating so the notion of being anchored in this ecosystem right so the notion of being able to do that and understand hey where do I kind of fall um we have about an 80% accuracy on that which is actually pretty amazing um you know that you can.

Ask a series of questions and kind of get level based and then once you start to compete in some events or you start posting scores with your friends you then develop a numerical rating and the interesting thing about the numerical rating is that there’ll be one that’s purely objective and what we call the verified rating based on tournaments and.

Match play where it’s set of rules and you know there’s no sandbagging and there’s none of that stuff and then there’s also rating that’s unverified so if you’re never going to play tournaments and you don’t want to be Rob nuner and go whoop everybody’s butt you know you you can you can have a real fund and still understand what level.

You’re at and so that’s sort of our infrastructure we’ve set up and what that does is it allows you compartmentalized highquality data that’s tournament data that’s objective from subjective input uh and we’ve demonstrated now on both fronts that we can build something more accurate than what currently exists and we already.

Have tens of thousands and thousands of players that are in here in our system already and now as we roll out and we proliferate our event and tournament management system as we proliferate our apps as we build groups where people can ingest scores and post it we’re just going to keep building it up and building it up and building it up and.

Then that ends up being a huge blob of data that’s interconnected so across men and women and juniors here’s Juniors coming right here’s domestic and international players um and so we know and we’ve built we’ve been perfecting for years and years the idea of building the most accurate rating systems and ranking systems we’ve done it in tennis.

And multiple layers we’ve done it in pickle ball we have trending we do it with pro tennis Etc so this is what we know how to do right and uh and we’ve already shown it and so now it’s just about adding more to that infrastructure and we’re going to have the objective piece of it and we’ll have the subjective piece of it but it’ll be.

Separated and that of course as you know being that you’re very familiar with duper immediately jumps out and sort of says hey this is a very different approach um and and look not to take anything away from duper I mean look I think what they’ve been doing they they got out ahead they’ve been supporting the industry um we just think that.

Technologically and their approach and some other things that they’ve doing isn’t optimized for Peak accuracy yeah and uh it was optimized for other purposes Simplicity getting more people into the system Etc well um I think we built a better mous trap now um and I think ultimately the proof’s going to be in the pudding uh We’ve demonstrated it.

Now and we want to proliferate broadly for so you said verified versus unverified verified being more of is it sanctioned official like what what deter verified verified is essentially any result that is that is run by an organiz or based on a set of rules so that could be an AP event it could be a usap event it could be a utr it could be you having.

Set up at your digital Community your club and you’re organizing things and you follow a set of rules what we’re avoiding of course is the idea that somebody can self-post right so so the notion that you can in theory manipulate the rating probably the best analogy is golf handicap right like if you play golf right like hey I played a bunch of.

Scores oh wait I need to you know I got a tournament coming up I’m going to post a couple of scores right that the fact that you’re even able to do that just tees up an inherent conflict so having an objective matchback for competitive pickle ball is really really important yeah now the vast majority of people if we do our job.

Are going to have self-posted group posted Etc ratings and those are more for them to optimize their personal experience and be on the level-based play and the like right it’s so interesting I play a lot of pickleball myself now and it’s so interesting how competitive people get at all levels right so you know and.

That’s the one wonderful thing about pickle ball is the fact that you have these national championships and these events at all levels and all ages and both genders you know you can come in and you can really get your juices flowing right yeah um so but that’s really a huge difference with us is the ability to create an objective measure.

As opposed to something that that can be influenced by um self posting or low quality data yeah that’s it’s super interesting because at a facility I help out with in Tennessee they had kind of duper Knights for call it 40 plus and you wouldn’t get like the four FES playing because you know they had the highest rating there’s no really they’re.

Not going to go up right there’s no incentive for them to really play that but I think if there is if if they could use the unverified for that they would play it and the participation would go up and so I do see that as like a detractor um not being able to just have an unverified rating because that’s that’s a perfect use case for it yeah.

Yeah I mean so so you know the notion that you can have one rating that is verified and unverified and here’s the blob right and there’s a reliability and then there’s hey here’s just my match results right um you know golf is that good example where hey if you play in a tournament those scores stay with you for the year.

Right nine index oh I just played at a four index in four tournaments well they should stay right so so I I think what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to create something that’s a tool right like you know it’s a tool for people to use depending on what their needs are and and it should it should be as accurate as possible for the purposes of.

What it’s intended to do right and if you’re in tournament play um then I think what you need to do uh is you need to be able to have a a a a fair and Equitable event occur right and um and people get really frustrated you know when they get slotted into something and you know there’s this sandbagging going on and it’s just you.

Know it’s just not fair to anybody right yeah what in terms of the verified is that going to be collecting so call it for tournaments with if there’s a PPA tournament or an MLP event happening is are those are those results feeding into the UTP rating as well yeah so you know one of the interesting things um that sort of happen in this industry is that.

You know the notion of trying to create exclusivity and force people into certain behaviors something that’s happened uh you know I think the PPA and by virtue of their ownership and Tom D this ownership pick a ball brackets has basically kept data away from others um you know they have said we will not share our data and pickleball brackets.

And tournaments with others uh we will not allow you to use that data to create a rating system yeah I think that’s sad I I think it’s unfortunate um you know that I think those players aren’t afforded that opportunity so as of today we do not have access to that I think we’ve had access to AP data so even though they’ve been on pick ball.

Brackets the deal that they struck with with brackets at the time allowed us to access that data and of course now we have usap data so there is a little bit of this hey there’s a data over here and there’s data here and Bor in a perfect world we could all come together um that’s not where we are today um you know we of course are going to offer now.

A platform where anybody coming onto our system AP usap utr and for that matter any organizer out there that all gets ingested in uh we would ideally love to be in a place where we can ingest that other data as well um and same thing for duper right like duper you know is sitting there today um and they’re going to have access to certain data and not.

Others right so it’s not an idea thing Rob uh and you know I think in a perfect world we could all share more data so there’s going to be a little bit of this growth right and there’s going to little be a little bit of this oh gosh you know do I have different ratings and rankings and how do they compare and what results are and what systems um but I think over.

Time this has a tendency to sort itself out it did for us in tennis you know we ingest all data now in tennis right because ultimately we give a free rating and a free tool back and like your governing body of somebody else like you know you know what what’s the but that’s that’s not really the mindset I think early on people have been try to be very.

Exclusive and yeah you know and it’s early in the sport and people are it’s a land it’s a land grab basically right people are trying to own as much as they can yeah and I I think ultimately you know what what happens in most of these Sports Industries is that look those barriers get broken down and ultimately where we should be as a sport is what we.

Articulate the front end which is look people should should have Choice people should be able to access things and the best products should win and and and and our view is that look that should be our Mantra we should be able to stand by delivering the best possible product we have more people we have more investment we have more capabilities and it’s easy.

For us to say because we’re doing all that right whereas others oh well we don’t quite have the resources we got to create exclusivity it’s not really a priority for us we got to box people in um that doesn’t help the player yeah and and we mentioned or I mentioned the pro series you have Pro Tour you have for tennis yeah uh you are also getting into.

Hosting some events and pickle ball now um I don’t believe it’s on the pro side though right that’s it’s amateur exclusive yeah so what we what we’ve done is we’ve launched a a a a amateur series and uh you know we are a technology company but at the same time what we do do at times is that we will create different events types and we.

Will create that as a way to both fill a need in the market but also for us to just be very active and close to the players and organizers to learn um you know we currently have not created a professional tour uh we created one from scratch doing covid in tennis you know we set up a global tour that runs over about 200 events now globally 26.

Countries we streaming on Amazon uh and we’ve invested over $20 million in prize money to support those players so we built that up in tennis and we do everything from A to Z with technology and rankings and the like um you know at some point would we do that in pickable maybe you know it it’s certainly something that we could do and we could.

Enter if there was the appropriate time and place to do it um but for now what we’re doing is look we really want to get more into the Grassroots the recreational player leagues tournaments events clinics camps connect people support the community um you know we tend to spend a lot I’m talking about the pro part of a sport that gets all.

The media attention and everything else the 1% of it right it’s a 1center right meanwhile you know here’s Mary Sue playing locally at her rec center and like what can I do to help Mary Sue have a better experience connecting in more creating more events for her discovering friends to interact with um and so doing both of those we’ve done in tennis um.

And we may do both of that in in pickle ball but for now we’re focused on connecting people and creating a better experience yep and just to kind of wrap things up here I don’t want to take too much of your time but what do you see looking let’s say let’s say we’re having this conversation five years from now um for you to.

Be call it incredibly happy and pleased with what’s happened within the pickle ball sector of your business over the past five years what would have happened I think we have to build and continue to build great products right like I think ultimately if we build great product and and people are happy and they’re having good experiences uh.

Then I’m going to be happy because I think the other pieces will fall into place um I hope people continue to be collaborative you know I think the notion of uh you know the way we’ve entered pickle ball now is actually with the governing body and with ap we didn’t have any of that in tennis yeah and despite that you know we didn’t partner.

With the USA we didn’t partner with the ITF the international tennis Federation right um and so and we’ve shown what is possible right uh in that Sport and so here for us we want to create great experience we want to support the ecosystem we’d love to partner with everybody we think that we can be a technology provider and supporter uh and.

I think that if we can do that we’ll continue to support the sport and we’ll lay a strong Foundation we’ll build a strong ecosystem um and then I think the sport will Thrive and we’ll have long legs um and I think we want to help support the governing body I think it’s super important to have a governing body.

That’s healthy you know strong and can ultimately provide leadership so it doesn’t get into some of the self-interested stuff and Commercial minded stuff um and you know the governing body today doesn’t have a big thing like the USA or wimon or things like that right so I think you know helping them and and let them Reach more.

People and and provide a set of Frameworks and go rules and then go International you know let’s bring this sport to the world um it’s still early you know and this is a sport that’s great fun and provide a lot of pressure it supports the orthopedic Community as well but you know I think H I think this is a this will be a fun journey and it.

Be a long journey but it’ll be a fun journey and with pickleball as a whole what’s your view on it as a as a sport uh obviously participation skyrocketed especially since Co what’s your view on pickle ball as a whole and honestly compared to compared to tennis as well well look I think it’s fantastic I mean he gets people out there keeps them.

Active you know gives a level of exercise here and people say oh well you know you’re not sweating or running as much as you are in perhaps in soccer or in tennis or whatever but like it’s getting people active that’s a wonderful thing it’s G giving people enjoyment you know it’s making them social so from the Grassroots level all the way up as a Pro.

Sport it’s just so fun to see the level of talent just keeps getting better and better right I think the quality we’re now seeing some fun tennis guys come into this as well you know I saw Donald Young just is is super committed now right you got Jack sock in there you know Ben John’s you know is obviously just a phenomenal player so it’s been.

Fun to watch as the quality goes higher and higher um I I’m G to be super interested to see just how the shot selection and the power and the use of equipment sort of changes over time right like you sort of saw that in other sports you’ve seen it golf you’ve seen it in tennis right like 10 years from now you know what is what does the drive.

Look like what does the dink look like you know how does strategies change and so I think it’s going to be great great to watch I think the fact that this is on the Airways the fact that you know we can see pickle ball TV and we can see it on Amazon and ESPN and CBS supports the media I hope the sponsors keep coming in here which seems to be the case because.

Of the big Community um and so I I think this is a sport that’s here to stay this is not a fad this is something that people really want and they enjoy now we just got to proliferate out the community and make it more robust and then the infrastructure needs to get built out I mean there’s so much infrastructure being built now and.

Committed to now uh and that’s needed in the community um yeah and then you we’ll get past the drama tennis versus pickle ball and you know people make a lot of hype out of this like it doesn’t have to be one or the other you know I can I can have seven different extracurricular interests why does one have to conflict with the other just give me the choice.

And have a good experience with it so no I I think it’s great I think it’s fabulous um yeah I’m a huge huge fan and huge supporter and I’ve played a lot of pickle ball my wife sort of pulled me into it and we’ve had a lot of fun with it so I I’m I’m nowhere near Rob nuny Level that’s for sure it’s uh it’s great fun so most of our most of our audience.

Here on if Phil’s right is it’s pretty active players they follow the pro scene they understand the landscape of pro pickle ball they know duper most of them have duper most of them you know have had the USA pickle ball rating utpr uh which on a quick note on that is that phasing out or what’s the story on that yeah so so we will be phasing it.

Out you know over time I think right now we we’re going to be leaning in and we’re going to be ingesting the results and we’ll develop this and we’ll phase it out I think obviously people have been largely dissatisfied with that system you know for a bunch of different reason yeah uh and so we’re going to phase it out and I think we’re going to.

Continue to grow and proliferate uh what we’re doing um so I think for your audience Hey listen download our app take a look at what we got follow what we’re doing you know it’s free you get a free rating you can connect with players you can find things you’re going to see our ecosystem build more and more um you don’t have to do anything but pay.

Attention and hopefully we can do something good and supportive for what you’re doing and what your interest are um and uh as we continue to proliferate what we’re doing love it thanks so much for for joining today Mark it’s been a pleasure and best of luck on the journey thanks buddy same to you always a pleasure to see you rob likewise.

Is UTPR the future of pickleball ratings? UTR Sports’ Mark Leschly joins Rob Nunnery to talk ratings, the future of professional and recreational pickleball, and how strategies have (and will continue) to evolve over time. Is UTPR a better system than DUPR? Mark tells you why he thinks so and details the partnership with USA Pickleball and the APP Tour that aims to support the growth of pickleball 💯

Timestamps:
0:00 – It Feels Right Episode 58 Introduction 🎬
1:48 – Mark Leschly Introduction 👏
2:10 – UTPR Sports Origin Story 💪
5:38 – How did UTPR get into Pickleball❓
8:42 – What is UTPR’s main priority entering pickleball? 🤔
11:28 – How can UTPR be used 📝
14:04 – What is the biggest challenge coming into pickleball 📋
16:30 – Partnerships with USAP & APP 👀
20:12 – How do you see all partnerships co-existing❔
27:52 – Why do you think the UTPR rating will be better than the DUPR rating?
34:46 – What events/results are going into the UTPR Rating?
37:58 – UTPR hosting an Amateur Series/Events 🫨
42:13 – Mark’s view on pickleball compared to tennis 🎾

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