The DUPR Pickleball Rating System

Introduction

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and so he said you know you want to come join the the duper team and and build something that’s going to be a billion

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dollar business one day and I was like absolutely that sounds that’s right up my alley hi I’m Crystal Brown your host

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and we get to speak today with Ben van Hout who is the director of operations at duper Dynamic Universal pickleball

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rating he also happens to oversee all of the college pickleball programs as well

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as some of the youth programs so we get to dive into what duper is what’s going on in college pickleball and all sorts

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of other subjects related to pickleball don’t forget to subscribe and also

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there’ll be lots of links in your show notes all right now to the show Welcome to Simply pickleball the podcast where

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we discuss all things pickleball the fastest growing sport in America and around the world we’re interviewing the

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founders industry leaders athletes lovers of the sport that are driving the

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spectacular growth if you love pickleball as much as we do listen in awesome so thank you Ben so much for

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joining today really excited to talk about all things pickleball in particular around Collegiate pickleball

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the company you work for and duper and you know really just get into what you

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guys are working on and and how much you’re working on it’s super exciting so but before we get started I’d love to

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just learn about your history with the sport or Sports in general so um maybe you can tell us if you I know you have a

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background in tennis so maybe you can start there yes yes I I used to be the

Ben Van Hout

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tennis purist that would never touch pickleball but now I have ventured off

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onto the I used to call it the dark side now it’s the good side um and and getting away from from tennis

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a little bit I still love it but yeah pickleball is definitely number one but yeah so I started played tennis my

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entire life played all the junior tournaments and then ended up playing college tennis had fun you know career

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in college tennis um and then I started when covid hit a couple months after I started running

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tournaments again on the universal tennis raiding platform which is a tennis company that basically does a

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similar rating in tennis as duper does in pickleball um and so I started running these

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tournaments just because there was such a demand I loved it I loved running events I loved bringing people together

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you know and it was during covid too so I had to be super careful about all the

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operations of the event which made me even more prepared to do events nowadays

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is like there were things that I had Hoops I had to jump through that I never have to jump through now but it was good

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that I like started out with that difficult time period so that is kind of how I got into this world and then

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um a few of my friends who had worked with at utr they helped start duper and

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so you know we I just got a call one day and he was like hey what what are you up to I’m like I am in Corporate America

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sliding away but and so he said you know you want to come join the the duper team

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and and build something that’s going to be a billion dollar business one day and I was like absolutely that sounds that’s

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right up my alley so that’s kind of how I got into this crazy pickleball world uh that we all we all love and live in

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this so let’s so just so I understand that everyone understands listening um duper

What is DUPR

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stands for dynamic Universal pickleball ratings it has that name but as a company it does several things right so

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it is a rating system but it’s also a technology company right exactly yeah I

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mean we are right right now we’re the most accurate and we’re a global rating right so we’re in so many different

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countries it we’re adding them every day um especially right now I’m sure

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everybody else has seen such an international boom of the sport the last couple weeks um China made some

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announcements we have great relations with in Australia and a bunch of other uh countries but yeah duper’s focused on

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the rating but then we also have a couple other verticals we’re focused on minor league pickleball which is really

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spreading the major league pickleball format right two men two women having

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that fun team atmosphere instead of just playing in your normal gender doubles or

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mixed doubles or singles right so that’s one alley or Avenue and then we’ve got our Collegiate pickleball which I’m sure

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we’ll dive into that’s that’s my baby we have waterfalls which is kind of like the pathway for individuals right

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from playing uh your your normal we we’re doing it open uh the brackets for

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Nationals so that’s basically you start in your regional tournament and then you get a

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golden or I think she’s calling them a platinum ticket two Nationals um for the waterfalls yeah we’re doing a

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bunch of different things and we’re about to actually announce our Junior national championships very soon which

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is amazing I want to dive into all those things actually so so starting with um

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duper basically it’s an app and it’s it’s a rating system right so that has an app I guess the rating system has an

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app you can download it on your phone and can you just explain a little bit about like I mean should everybody have

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this on their phone yes everybody should have the duper app every single time you play a pickleball

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game please get those scores in right we’re a data and analytics company right

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so we need the more data the more accurate these ratings get um and obviously you know we want

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everyone to to have the rating because you know when you go to a clinic and

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it’s Advanced intermediate beginner there’s so many micro levels inside of

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those and we just want to make sure that everybody has a good Baseline and a way

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to get us all into the right groups because we all we all want to play the most competitive games right it’s always

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nice to play somebody much farther below your level to boost your confidence or you know get your butt kicked to get

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something that’s really good but you know it’s nice to have that competitive Baseline so I’m curious because like I

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wasn’t a tennis player um and and there’s probably a lot of pickleball players that that didn’t play Rocket Sports before so this is the

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first time they’ve ever had to think about how do I place myself right and so I love that you are offering this you

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know to anyone and is it at any Tournament level people can go on and enter their scores and and

How is DUPR Calculated

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I read a little bit about it so it both wins and losses as well as how many points you you get in the game matter

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towards this algorithm yeah so right now it’s all about win or lose win or lose

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and then the typer of result so you know a Rec score that let’s say you and I go

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play um a quick game to 11 today um that score will count a little bit

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less than if you are going to play an organized tournament that tournament result will will count a little bit more

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right because we’re maybe more focused in the tournament rather than a wreck play game it’s more for fun it’s more

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loose that’s kind of the way to think about it right now so when and I think I feel like I should have a whole episode

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on the technical part of duper maybe I will but what was the incentive you know what was the initiative because maybe

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there’s there’s other rating systems that exist but um you know your founder decided that to

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create something more fair and quite frankly that’s sort of the way technology works right there were a lot of search engines before Google Google

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felt like they could do a better job of of producing better results which they did actually and so I imagine at some

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point your founder or or whoever decided to create duper thought like there’s a

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better way and what was the problem they were trying to solve it was truly the sandbagging too like you you hit all the

What Problem is DUPR Solving

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right points but he was tired of seeing the sandbagging happen you know the fact

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that anybody could say that they’re a 3-5 in reality they’re probably a four

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or five just because they want to win yeah um the title especially when there’s prize money on the line right

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that’s that’s really important to know where someone is to put them in their appropriate bracket right because we

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want to find out who is the best of those three fives and then they get to move up hopefully right with their

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rating if they’re winning you know we don’t want somebody just continuing to go back and winning that same bracket

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over and over again when they should be challenging themselves so that was the real problem that and I think we’re

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still facing it in the pickleball Community we’re working on it as much as we can but if everyone had a duper we

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really wouldn’t be facing that problem as frequently yeah and I think that’s that’s a really good point because there

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is more money on the line and eventually college scholarships on the line and eventually sponsorship so

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we’re at the at a nascent stage but we have an opportunity to build something right and technology has kind

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of moved along that you can create some really cool algorithms so okay so I

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should download the app everyone should have it and start playing in more tournaments um and when what are you

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seeing for you know you you mentioned a bunch of pillars that that I guess the overarch company is duper and you have

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pillars within it right so you you want to talk a little about college which I would love to talk about what what’s

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your role for organizing things going on in Collegiate pickleball and maybe you know then we can go into you know what

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we’re seeing today and what you hope to see yeah my goal is just to build obviously dupers with MLP as well which

Collegiate Pickleball

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is the professional teams right it’s the NBA or NFL of pickleball so we’re really

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trying to create the pipeline of players the future Pro players and also you know

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builds the base of college pickleball out so that these teams can go ahead and

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get scholarships prepped privately right um you know we’re not we haven’t the

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NCAA hasn’t come in yet um and so we are trying to build out basically everything College pickleball

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and again like the big picture is for these players to develop in college scholarships get their education paid

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for the most important part of sports right in my opinion getting help for that education and then if they’re that

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good we’ve got the pipeline into MLP you know and hopefully we get it to the point where the MLP draft is drafting

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kids out of you know the University of North Carolina pickleball team rather than other Pro tournaments right

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so that’s the real goal and goal for us right now that’s awesome um because right now the steady state of things

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that there is no college pickleball that’s run by this it’s Club level right

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right now we’ve got Club level College pickleball exactly yeah we are essentially College pickleball right now

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and it is Club pickleball I’m trying to stay away from that word and call them programs because these are the these are

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the varsity athletes theoretically for these these pickleball programs right

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since there is no varsity right there’s no varsity yet but so I’m trying to like

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yeah and make sure that the kids know that like they are the varsity athletes on campus for their pickleball teams

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yeah well you know we we interviewed someone from U.S Collegiate pickleball we just had a real casual conversation about it

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there’s a list of all the schools that have programs going right now um I’m sure that it’s heating up you

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know I but I know there are hundreds of teams or I don’t want to say clubs now hundreds of friends already

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 and he had some opinions about whether the NCAA or some other entity should run pickleball and I’m curious 

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I was a college athlete you’re a college athlete um the way that tennis is run in

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college should it be the same or are there some significant different differences in pickleball and maybe it

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you know alike it should be like tennis but maybe some subtle differences

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yeah I think one goal that we have right now is to flip the seasons to

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potentially see a lot of Dual Sport athletes since the you know we’ve seen

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from higher level tennis players transitioning into pickleball it’s it’s a extremely quick transition and they

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for the most part are usually very very good um off the bat so that’s one thing that

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we’d like to see and then in terms of answering kind of first question on should it look the same was that kind of

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your where you’re going yeah yeah I’m curious do you think that it should look like tennis and should the NCAA be this

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over for the body overseeing what’s going on in college I mean I think the NCAA is great at the organization with

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the conferences and hosting national championships and and getting eligibility requirements done but I’ve

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seen a shift ever since nil has become you know a major part of College

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athletics where these kids are funding them their college careers often and

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their Futures off of deals that are outside of the university and ncaa’s

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kind of scope right so I I think the NCAA is really important

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um to other sports but I do see them kind of dwindling a little bit and and

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maybe they jump back on the horse and and help out more but I I see College

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pickleball as as being something that could probably succeed with or without

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um the NCAA yeah maybe it’s an opportunity for a different entity to oversee it I mean especially because

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some of the top players right now um like Anna Lee Waters she’s she’s only 17 16 or 17.

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um and she’s not going to want to pass up opportunities that could you know are served now for her like she doesn’t know

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what her future holds so why would she give up sponsorship opportunities or things like that so it’ll be interesting

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so okay so how do we get from where we are today with college programs not

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clubs but we’ve got you know what what what would it look what does it look like at a typical college today

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who you know who is it men and women are they competing against each other are they going to tournaments like what

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what’s the State of the State right now right now we are following the MLP format so that means every team the top

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team is two men two women um you know playing and they play a

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women’s doubles line and then a men’s doubles line and then two mixed lines and then if they split they play

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something called a dream breaker which is like a team singles um tiebreaker basically which is so

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exciting and so much fun to watch if anybody hasn’t seen how a dream breaker works I would do a quick YouTube search

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there electric I think it’s one of the coolest things that they introduced into the MLP format so that’s the format for

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these tournaments that duper is running on a re-run them on a regional basis and then that we’ve got a national

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championship a team national championship and an individual national championship

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which is kind of similar to tennis and um a lot of these all the programs are

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way different some schools have been able to secure a ton of funding through

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their Rec Sports or their Club sport departments some have been getting sponsor you know private sponsors from

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pickleball companies from local businesses and they’ve got a ton of money where they’re they’ve got

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uniforms they’re traveling they’re flying to tournaments right like they’re

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doing it right and you know some of them are actually in the final uh steps of getting locking down a couple College

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scholarships which is like the craziest thing ever and it makes me so happy

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because that’s really our mission is is to get kids money for further education

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right right and to help this be the vehicle that gets them there again and then the other side of the coin is

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there’s programs that don’t have anything really they’re just playing on their local park courts they’re throwing

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down taped lines like we all have done at some time they’re rolling out the net you know unboxing it throwing it

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together and then putting it in the shed and those schools are still competing again there’s a very wide spectrum right

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now of of programs yeah it’s interesting yes everyone’s put some lines down I had some friends that were so eager to play

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in San Francisco during covid that they found this little area taped it off but

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it also happened to be where there were some homeless and so they would get like so yelling and screaming going on during

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this game it was not related so yes that’s a that is that’s the problem for for a pickleball addict

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you just want to play so so with these with these colleges and these um you know is duper getting involved with

College Pickleball Scholarships

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each individual college or you know like is there an entity that can each College reach out and say hey we we don’t have a

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a program that that’s well functioning yet can do you have like resources for us and I want to talk about that like

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you know how can we help some of these colleges and then also are there besides that team format what if there’s a lot

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of other people that want to compete in tournaments so can they do both so you can answer either one absolutely yes so

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basically we want to be from start to finish in terms of getting these

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programs from no money to being fully funded right to helping them develop

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these scholarships so when somebody reaches out to us college at

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mydooper.com is the email you know this could be a student who has never talked

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to their Sport Club department but has two guys and two girls that are really interested in forming a team

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and playing in our events and we’ll take them from we actually fund um these we give them a thousand dollar stipend

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that they’re able to use for travel for equipment and anything else that they need to get

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this uh program going so we start there um and kind of help them out and we’ve got a whole basically training program

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on how to build a program from start to finish um so we help them on that front and

DUPR College Pickleball Tournaments

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then we host the events right so we’re like here’s here’s your tournament calendar basically and then we also

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introduce them to other universities that are local and more regionalized so

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that they’re not spending their whole year traveling to all of our events that they can play amongst

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themselves and build out a calendar and then ours is more like the bigger event the conference type Championship that

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they need to play in to qualify for Nationals gotcha so that’s so there are you’re saying there’s Regional

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tournaments that are not the MLP format of their their more traditional tournaments where a certain number of

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people can play or they are that same format of two two women two men we are recommending to everyone that they’re PL

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that is kind of the college format now is that two men two women and we also

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think and to talk back about the NCAA is that this is going to going to be the

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first sport that is a co-ed sport right which I think is the coolest thing ever

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for sports and like it just shows how far what how far we’ve come you know from women not even having college

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scholarships I don’t know how many years ago but like it the evolution of this to having a co-ed sport I think is more

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it’s going to be so cool that you’re not cheering on the Women’s Basketball team and the men’s basketball team and not

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and having to pick and choose which yeah right or even like you said the disparity in funding you know if you

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have one team you know I I was a swimmer and we um it’s so individual your time

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is your time and so it’s really easy to place people which I like that’s kind of what duper is trying to do like make it

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really easy to place you where you should be in the lineup or whatever um but also we trained with the men and

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I thought I felt that was really fair we would you know there was it it depended on your time so there were men and women

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but we never competed against each other so this is really interesting because you have that that

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um co-ed competition and um or not gender biased so that’s

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awesome um and so but so there are tournaments that college players if they don’t have

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a good program that they should try to go and be a part of right now right there’s there’s are there a lot of

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tournaments are they all year round who who’s putting those types of tournaments on yes so we’re putting together our

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regionals which we have 12 this year and then we have the team Nationals and the individual Nationals so we’ve got 14

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total events um they’re during the fall and spring um our calendar

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May look completely different next year because we want to either we’re thinking

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about either doing more events so making them more localized or we’re going to

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help the schools make sure that they have enough teams to play against uh during you know the fall or the spring

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to the point where we only host a couple Regional or conference championships so

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that they only have to travel um you know a good distance for one tournament right right so we’re kind of

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in the in the phase of deciding what what’s the right strategy for these

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these programs um at the end of the day because you know we had 12 regions that we had to

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pick this year and not left out you know kind of like the Pacific Northwest

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didn’t really get touched and then the the Northeast those were kind of our two

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regions that we weren’t able to hit every other region was taken care of but we had to pick and choose so that’s been

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the tough part is we got to decide either we hit every region or we only have a couple regionals so

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that all the schools travel to those few tournaments right um so that’s that’s where we’re at right

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now are you getting pinged all the time from different people interested in this course

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I want to have as many events as possible because I think there’s so many teams and like the barrier to entry is

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finding two guys and two girls who want to play Pickleball for a weekend we’re not we’re only charging 25 ahead

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you know we’re focused on building this and we’re only charging them so that you know it because every every

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time you have a free event people are more likely to you know kind of pull out so it’s kind of like a deposit that’s a

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good business decision anyway no matter you should always charge them of course get it for free it’s looked at

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differently so it’s only one team per school right like we actually have a

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challenger bracket for our regional events we allow as many teams as they would like to bring okay and then we

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also have a challenger bracket so if you can’t put together two men two women and you just want to play in open doubles

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competition for the weekend we have that bracket as well and at Nationals even if your team didn’t get a bid we’re

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inviting you to come play in The Challenger bracket because we want everybody there we want everybody experiencing the fun and the pizzazz of

DUPR National Pickleball Collegiate Championship

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of a national championship so let’s talk about that so the when is the National

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Championship or how many have you had so far yep so our team Nash Our First National

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Championship ever was in 2022 that’s kind of where this all began you know it

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was just kind of an idea that we had in the summer time we put it in November we

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were going to pay for the travel of eight programs to get them out there it was just going to be a fun weekend you

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know and it wasn’t there really wasn’t going to be anything else after it there was no plans and then we had 17 schools

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show up right we’re like oh no we we’ve got we’ve got something so we got to

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execute on it right and so now we’ve had I think we’re up to six regionals have

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happened this year and then we have six more this fall and then we have our team Nationals in November November 17th

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through the 19th in Atlanta at um the Peachtree Corners lifetime facility

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which is the same place the next MLP event in September is going to be as

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well so it’ll be the same show courts and a stadium and and everything so it’s

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going to be very cool yeah I was talking to the the CEO of the DC pickleball team

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and he was telling me that you know that future that Vision like of where are we

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going to be building these big you know centers with Center Court and an amazing facilities in each City how you know

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what’s exciting that Atlanta has that so how many teams do you expect or how many colleges do you think will be

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represented colleges and universities will be represented yep so we’re giving out

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what are we giving out 36 bids for colleges to be in the team bracket and

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then you know I mean I can’t imagine how many different other colleges are going

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to end up coming to the Challenger bracket especially because I have a feeling that a lot of these uh programs

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are going to catch on to like towards the middle of the semester and be like oh crap we missed our regional basically

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we can’t figure out how to get a bid for this year but we’re gonna go join the fun and and go join the party

25:45

Nationals right and then they’re going to get to experience them and then they’re going to get motivated to put

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together you know more structured  team and organizations so right I can’t

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imagine how many teams we’re gonna have represented so right now if if you are a

How to Put Together College Pickleball Team

26:02

college or you know a university you could put together your team of four and apply to be a part of it but what what

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do you need to have proven right do you have you do you have to go to Regionals or do you have to have a duper score do

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you need both of those things currently right now to qualify for Nationals you

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need to get first or second in one of our regionals so that’s um so 24 we’re giving out 24 bids that

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way and then we gave for our individual national championships which was in the spring we gave I think two schools had

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players that won their individual event which guaranteed them a bid however they

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still have to play and participate in a regional event so we’ve got a couple

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we’re probably gonna have five to six maybe maybe eight bids I think it is I

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need to go double check the math that we’re going to give out due to just them

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putting in the effort to put together a really good program and they may have been close to qualifying and getting

27:05

first or second so that’s for this year and then again for next year that may slightly change and then in terms of the

27:11

Challenger back Market that’s open to anyone that is taking six credit hours at a university has a doubles partner

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that they want to go play with so that’s kind of wide open if you’re any college kid is that Junior College an online

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college or does it have all right okay yeah I mean all in I mean you heard it here you can go back you go back right

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now oh God I know no it’s all right I’m already I’ve got daughters in college

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I’ll let them take that so going back to Youth for a minute I’m interested in this because a couple of players that

Youth Pickleball

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I’ve talked to including Lindsey Newman I I had a nice talk with her and she had played in middle school and actually

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Matt Besler who I said became a soccer pro and then now works at chicken

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and pickle he also played in middle school which is so our middle schools and and below are they already teaching

28:02

pickleball and if so like what you know what what should we expect in the years

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to come you know k through eight are is every kid going to know how to play Pickleball I think this is going to be

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one of those sports like basketball that really starts in the public school

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systems and in any school systems in general I actually just texted my mom she she’s a kindergarten teacher and I

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was like hey just you know out of out of the blue does your PE coach teach pickleball and she’s up in like rural

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Georgia and so I expected definitely not like why would you ask that and she was

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like yes they actually do so the fact that it’s it’s getting taught in such a rural area you know I I think is it

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speaks to how fast the sport is growing and how easy it is to to get this sport

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started right um you know if anybody has any extra cash or extra paddles or balls go to

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your local elementary middle school high school and and donate those because I I think it’s

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it’s going to be really valuable to those kids right yeah I mean it is there

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is such a low barrier to entry and I do think that you know um and it’s a great equalizer of a sport

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 I mean to be really good you still have to there’s there’s things um I think it’s really uh I’m glad

29:26

you’re bringing that up so you said that uh duper has some involvement in youth um what we’re in the youth space what do

29:33

you guys what do you have on the table Yeah I can’t I can’t say too much but the basic rundown is we’re working on a

29:41

junior pathway from start to finish right from the first

29:47

time you pick up a paddle you know running that event um we’ve got you know clubs on the

29:53

platform on the duper platform that are already running some Junior events um which is fantastic

29:59

um we we’re probably going to announce the national championship here pretty soon and kind of build it out just like

30:05

we did with college have a national championship get the interest right and

30:10

this is more High School level or or any any every yeah every every age is is is

30:16

great and I think this is going to be a sport that starts so early like like a soccer you know where it might be the

30:23

first sport that some of these kids play yeah um to your point it’s it’s low-beared

30:28

entry and it’s it’s easy to get confidence right and feel good about yourself because of how well you can

30:35

play right why do you think that um you know ping pongs similarly kind of easy

30:40

right and it certainly has taken off in certain countries I know I of Asian countries but why do you think

30:47

pickleball this is just your opinion versus something like Ping Pong like what what’s the difference and

30:54

and then I’d love to talk about what’s going on in in China and some other countries that you know about we’re definitely on the hype train right

31:00

now right we’ve got I mean especially at MLP you know team owners like Drake

31:05

Lebron James Tom Brady you know Kim klysters she was a pro tennis player

31:11

like there’s so many different groups of people that are getting involved in investing in pickleball I think we’re

31:18

seeing those folks getting in it again you to your point it is easy to play ping pong and you move around and it’s

31:25

anybody can throw it in their basement but I think also getting outside and like moving around a little bit more it

31:31

has that little extra edge of toughness right but then again it’s it’s not

31:36

tennis or like golf to the point where it’s taking so many hours to get at like

31:42

a baseline so that’s a good question though I’ve never really thought about that I mean I guess you know one of my

31:49

opinions is is or just as you’re talking about it I feel like tennis and golf are often played at country clubs not always

31:55

there’s public courses for both for sure there’s tennis courts all over cities there’s there’s golf courses that are

32:01

public but in order to be good enough to feel comfortable playing you really have

32:06

to dedicate yourself to both those Sports and again like still have that cachet of what was played

32:12

um and I think pickleball doesn’t have that it just has more of like a backyard

32:17

feel like anyone can play it but I love that duper and the MLP are bringing some

32:23

some real structure and which I think is needed and again like to your point about a pathway for certain kids I you

32:30

know again whether it’s confidence or whether it’s a pathway to scholarship I think it can be good for for anyone

32:36

adults too um so so what are you seeing internationally

International Pickleball

32:42

you mentioned that I really haven’t done a lot of research a little bit as I’ve been trying to think about where I

32:47

would like to go and travel and play all the time but what are you seeing in terms of the sort of structure being put

32:54

together in other countries yeah so I I think it depends on every country um you you would see this in the tennis

33:00

world too each Federation kind of has its own vision for the sport but what

33:06

I’ve seen that’s different from tennis is that each of these federations is kind of trying to come together more and

33:13

there’s more of a Vibe of rising Tides raises all boats

33:18

rather than in the past you know everybody’s trying to outdo each other you know I’m seeing a lot of collaboration amongst a lot of the Asian

33:25

countries as well again Australia’s humping and they’ve been there since really the beginning maybe not the

33:31

beginning but they’ve been doing a good job for a long time are they are they having

33:37

um the same similar type competitions are they using duper are you guys in touch yeah yeah we’re we’re in touch

33:44

with Australia they’ve got plenty of events that have been on the platform they’ve got a ton of people that are rated

33:50

we also just came back from the English open we had a few folks out there

33:55

and they were getting the ratings in that that tournament was huge

34:01

there’s a lot of Demands elsewhere I think we’re running into padell and a

34:07

lot of um International countries right Mexico is really David Patel a lot of

34:12

the other European nations are big with padell so again we’re fighting that a little bit I think in terms of adoption

34:18

but that still that was more of a country club sport it’s expensive it has like a wooden is it played on a

34:25

court as well I played on a court that’s a little bit uh longer I think a little bit longer a

34:31

little bit wider difficult I may be off a little bit and then it’s got the glass around it yeah

34:37

plexiglass so that’s expensive to build a I think it’s three to four times more expensive to build yeah a padel

34:43

court um so I’m not scared of them I just think early adopters and like the high

34:50

trains are on the hype train for Patel because padell’s growing rapidly well you know there’s it’s not the first

34:55

racket I mean there’s you know racquetball there’s paddle tennis there you know we’ve had other sports

35:01

you know the more the merrier but it’s just an interesting different vertical um so what’s next for you what are you

What’s Next for DUPR

35:07

working on what’s your next thing and um and what should we expect from duper just coming up so we’re basically just

35:16

trying to outline what does 2024 look like we have you know obviously super

35:22

successful tour of 2023 you know the national champion chips is again anybody

35:28

I can get out to Atlanta and wants to watch a college sport that in my opinion

35:33

is the most electric like watching it and being there and again pickleball is

35:39

so you’re so close to your opponent like just there’s this energy going back and forth constantly so you know I think we

35:46

should and we’re going to fill those stands too so anybody that can get out to Atlanta you know lots of direct busiest airport in the world so lots of

35:53

direct flights there um get there for it that’s kind of what we’re working on just kind of what 2024

35:58

looks like and then we’re obviously trying to bring on as many sponsors as possible Right the more

36:04

money duper can raise sponsor-wise we’re reinvesting everything we’re dumping everything back into uh building this

36:11

out and supporting these programs [Music] um so you know it’s it’s a win-win for

36:16

for any sponsors that are interested in working with us um so yeah that’s what kind of what we’re working on right now can a player

36:22

right now if they are on the PPA tour or if they are playing MLP can they all

36:29

connect and they’re in college can they still participate in the in the Nationals right now yes Colin Schick is

36:36

actually the great story of his first you know kind of pickable organized

36:42

event was with our national championship last year he was a part of the University of North Carolina who won it

36:49

and now he’s on um the Florida MLP team um so he’s still eligible to to compete

36:56

this year we have had some conversations and gone back and forth should Pro players be eligible but again we want

37:03

everybody to grow this sport as much as possible especially at the Collegiate

37:09

side so we we like the the camera attention that Colin’s getting so maybe

37:14

other kids that are playing an MLP or PPA will hop over yeah I mean we’re Reinventing you know and it’s with more

37:22

information same with duper so okay so in summary everyone should download the app and get their scores so that the

Conclusion

37:30

algorithm has more data and more information everyone should get to Atlanta in the fall

37:36

and everyone should donate their old paddles um well songs are not broken to their

37:42

local schools and that’s awesome well I’m thank you so much for explaining everything that’s going on um hopefully

37:49

I’ll be able to attend some of the events and really excited about what duper’s doing and I’ll have to have a whole another session just on the the

37:57

app itself that I think it’s really important that I know so in Building Technology myself that the the fastest

38:03

way you can make Improvement is to have people use it and get some feedback I don’t know if you know this that

38:09

Facebook didn’t have the like button for four years after they launched because they had a lot of complaints that people

38:16

didn’t want to write comments they just wanted to like it so interesting yeah so technology improves with more

38:23

use so let’s hope that happens and then similarly with um you know sort of Designing a college sport from the

38:29

bottom from the ground up it’s really exciting that you’re leading that and that you guys are really trying to and

38:34

it’s moving fast you have it hasn’t been that long right I mean a couple years absolutely yeah it has gone by so

38:41

quickly um the fact that you know last year was our first event ever again the support has been incredible and and if anybody

38:48

out there is looking to support College pickleball in any way please email us at College mydooper.com

38:55

you know we’re open for any discussions too on ideas or thoughts you know we’re an open book and like you

39:02

said we’ve got the paintbrush right now so we’re trying to paint the the prettiest picture and and the best picture for college pickleball that’s

39:09

awesome well thank you Ben this has been great I really appreciate it hopefully I’ll check in with you in a few months

39:14

and see where we are and I’ll put all those links in the show notes and um thanks so make sure you subscribe

39:21

everybody so you can hear what’s going on and um we’ll talk soon happy dinking hey

39:26

guys thanks for listening to Simply pickleball we will be back very soon with great interviews discussions and

39:32

more all about pickleball don’t forget to subscribe to our channels on YouTube Twitter Instagram or any of your

39:38

favorite podcasting Outlet until next time happy dinking