Pickleball’s run from pandemic-era popularity to investable category has received its biggest validation yet with Apollo Sports Capital.
The investment platform of Apollo has led a $225 million structured investment in Pickleball Inc., now the parent company of the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball and valued at $750 million, CNBC first reported.
Hyperspace Ventures had invested $5.3 million in Pickleball Inc. last year.
The latest deal, which PPA Tour founder and Pickleball Inc. CEO Connor Pardoe called a “seismic day” for the business of pickleball, leaves investor and Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon and the Pardoe family as majority shareholders.
The investment unites all of Pickleball Inc.’s verticals, spanning retail, technology and media that, combined, generated more than $140 million in revenue in 2025.
The portfolio also includes The Picklr, the indoor pickleball franchise Pickleball Inc. backed in 2024 at a $59 million valuation.
“The continued and dynamic year-over-year growth data has proven without a doubt that pickleball is no longer an emerging sport, and is instead quickly becoming the next tier one sport in America,” MLP Commissioner Samin Odhwani said. “This capital raise will allow us to expand our focus into new and scalable opportunities like content, media and the development of infrastructure to support our fast-growing events.”
Fans aren’t just playing the sport, they’re watching it, too. The PPA Tour drew 791,000 average viewers on CBS in January, an all-time linear record, while MLP pulled 499,000 on CBS last August, according to Pickleball Inc.
The deal lands at a moment when pickleball’s pull keeps outpacing skeptics who either wrote it off as a pandemic-era novelty or, at times, glorified ping pong.
As Empower Pickleball founder and CEO Kim Bastien put it last fall, the sport isn’t a fad. “It’s the antidote to loneliness,” Bastien wrote. “And that’s not going out of style anytime soon.”
It sure seems that way. The pickleball category continues to expand across luxury, mid-tier and low-priced formats, with courts popping up in malls and, to the dismay of basketball fans, often replacing courts.
Luxury fitness and wellness operator Life Time has heavily invested in the sport and offers more than 800 permanent courts across its network of 190+ clubs.
Meanwhile, Traene Fitness & Pickleball, a 63,000-square-foot facility opening this fall in Dover, New Hampshire, is building 10 indoor courts as part of its model.
Basketball fans may grumble, but tennis fans can breathe easy. The OG racket sport hit a record 27.3 million U.S. players in 2025, with millennials and women driving the surge.
