Скачать или смотреть Connor Pardoe: The Drama of Building The Biggest Pickleball Tour In The World

Today on Pickleballers, we sit down with the most powerful man in pickleball, Connor Pardoe. He is the CEO of the UPA (the combined PPA Tour + MLP). Connor shares his origin story, how he fell in love with the game, and the napkin-math that became the PPA. He walks us through exclusivity with players, the pivotal partnership with Tom Dundon, the wild Kansas City “Tour Wars” weekend, and why unifying pro pickleball under UPA changed everything.

We dig into the new three-year extensions, the shift toward prize-money-driven earnings, how MLP and PPA now run in distinct seasons, and the bigger vision: turning millions of doers into viewers with bigger moments, bigger purses, and a more premium product for fans and players alike.

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0:00 Intro – Connor Pardoe, CEO of PPA & MLP
2:00 Early Life
6:40 Marriage young, Mormon culture, and family values
9:57 First time playing pickleball with his dad
12:28 Family life with two sets of twins
14:39 Early career in real estate development
15:55 First tournaments and falling in love with pickleball
18:39 Atlanta event and first exposure to pro pickleball
20:22 Founding the PPA Tour – napkin math and early vision
23:39 Launching Mesa with $50,000 prize money
27:35 Leaving real estate to go all-in on pickleball
31:12 Signing Ben Johns and legitimizing the PPA
35:18 Partnering with Tom Dundon – equity, not cash
41:20 Scaling up operations and rapid growth
46:21 Meeting Tom Dundon at 26 and early PPA expansion
47:19 Enter Steve Kuhn and the birth of MLP
50:05 Early meetings, team pickleball tension, and exclusivity battles
52:13 VIBE league launch and celebrity owners lined up
55:57 Kansas City chaos – player contracts and the tour wars explode
1:01:22 Locking in Anna Leigh Waters and Ben Johns saves the PPA
1:07:56 Why unification ultimately helped the sport
1:12:56 New contracts – guarantees plus prize money
1:17:39 Turning doers into viewers – growing the fan base
1:20:00 The future of pro pickleball and closing thoughts


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