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PickleCon: The World’s Largest Pickleball Event

Last updated on September 7th, 2023 at 01:58 am

The Simply Pickleball Podcast with PickleCon's CEO Keri King, Pickleball Director, and Alyssa Morrison, Pickleball Director

Have you heard of PickleCon? Join Triple Crown Sports CEO Keri King, Pickleball Director, and Alyssa Morrison, Pickleball Director, to explain the details of the largest pickleball event planned in Kansas City, Missouri, in August 2024. 

Keri King shares his father’s vision for Triple Crown when he founded it in the 80s and his transition to leading the company and becoming CEO. Alyssa shares details about PickleCon planning, including tournament play, vendor booths, food, local tours, and more! Click here for more information on PickleCon. 

Transcript

Introduction with Keri King and Alyssa Morrison

0:00

hi I’m Crystal Brown your host and you may have heard of Triple Crown Sports as one of the largest amateur college and

0:07

youth sport organizer maybe in the areas of volleyball softball or fast pitch baseball but did you know that they’re

0:14

organizing the same fund for pickleball called picklecon CEO Carrie King and

0:19

pickleball director Elisa Morrison join us today to tell us all about picklecon it’s a huge convention in Kansas City

0:26

next year so keep listening to hear all the details now to the show Welcome to

0:31

Simply pickleball the podcast where we discuss all things pickleball the fastest growing sport in America and

0:37

around the world we are interviewing the founders industry leaders athletes lovers of the sport that are driving the

0:45

spectacular growth if you love pickleball as much as we do listen in okay so I’m so excited to be speaking

0:53

today with Carrie King and Elisa Morrison from Triple Crown Sports and we get to hear about all things took a ball

1:00

before we get started on that um Carrie I hope you can give us a little bit of a background on Triple

1:06

Crown Sports and how it came to be I know that it’s a family business and I know that it was started by your father

1:13

but it would be really interesting to hear about you know why this business is in particular interested in pickleball

1:18

when we get there but first why it started to begin with yeah very good I’ll definitely start out so in 1982 so

1:25

roughly 41 years ago my father and mother were playing in a slow pitch softball tournament so this is adults at

1:32

the time not not a youth event and they were disenchanted by the level of organization and the awards the lack of

1:40

officials there was a lot of issues they took that right to the event director and he basically told them if you think

1:46

you can do it better go do it on your own so then that was the challenge to start the very first ever event in 82

1:52

and that event was the idea that my mom Annette King and my father Dave King had

1:58

was to create an event that was very memorable and something that had all of the bells and whistles so it wasn’t just

2:04

the games but it was social activities it was uh great awards ceremony maybe uh

2:12

pro athletes all these different elements that would enhance the game of softball to make for an experience that

2:19

was out of this world and that was the original vision of Triple Crown and then

2:24

in 1987 it became a company and so it was just on the side for the first five years from 83 through 87 and then it

2:33

really focused on expanding the slow pitch softball footprint and zoom all

2:38

the way to today in 2023 we now have no slow pitch softball events and we are in

2:45

youth baseball youth girls fast pitch softball youth volleyball college

2:50

basketball and soon to be pickleball and this will have a pro and amateur element

2:55

and all kinds of different aspects to it and it really encompasses that original Insight that Dave and Annette had at 82

3:03

to create Granger and joy and memories inside of the event itself and the

3:09

format is designed uniquely to where it can bring memories learning Hospitality

3:15

to the Forefront so it meets our purpose of why our Triple Crown Sports

3:20

organization exists it also meets the mission of what we do which is the the creation of high quality events and so

3:28

it’s very exciting that we’re entry pickleball it’s gathered a lot of momentum uh in a very short period of

3:34

time and I think Alyssa’s email inbox warrants that I’ve never seen so much

3:39

activity and that as being an analyst going to pickleball director it’s a lot

3:44

different now because a lot of people want to know more about what exactly are we building what do you think your

3:51

parents felt was missing exactly I mean if you could be specific is it because

3:57

there was that I imagine at the time there’s Major League Sports so we can move that out aside for a minute even

4:02

though we might talk about Major League uh pickleball and then there’s Collegiate pickleball that’s coming

4:09

Collegiate sports but there was and there’s youth sports but somehow you’re it sounds like they had they had a

4:16

division of somewhere in between where maybe it’s amateurs don’t have a place to compete and have fun they felt like

Vision of Triple Crown Sports

4:22

there was is that what they were looking at that was missing yeah you really had a ditch Market that wasn’t being served

4:28

a high quality product and so what was there what were tournaments that were

4:34

very Loosely organized so instead of the schedule being posted a week in advance or a month in advance it was you know

4:41

posted as you walked into the facility instead of having the facility maintained which in the slow pitch

4:48

softball world would look like a infield that has been groomed so it’s flat instead of a bunch of undulations on the

4:55

infield and Hawk lines that are actually painted in an outfield fence actually

5:00

having an official behind the home plate and one of the bases and then when the event

5:06

um is being played the teams are segmented properly meaning the teams that are good are playing against each

5:12

other the entire time the teams that are in the middle and the teams that are mediocre they’re bunched and segmented

5:18

together nobody was doing those kind of things for the amateur Marketplace and so uh with the event finished there was

5:25

a the awards were there on site there was an awards presentation and it put a

5:31

bow on the event leaving uh great memories along the way whether it was some of the social events that happened

5:37

at night there was a not quite a a runway model show but if you can imagine

5:43

a slow pitch softball uniform okay now now you put that softball player on top of the the bar okay and have them walk

5:51

up and down the bar and auction off for St Jude’s Children Hospital their Jersey

5:56

so the person would come away with the jersey and the money would go to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital that was a

6:02

fun way to celebrate softball raise money for a charity and also create a social environment that left lasting

6:09

memories and so when when we would produce events early on and really throughout the time frame it also the

6:16

events were produced in destinations that were engaging for the family so places like Stevo Springs Colorado is a

6:24

ski resort community and in the summertime it has lots of horseback riding fishing and it’s a beautiful cool

6:31

weather setting those were the initial building blocks is to build those kind of Highly organized events around social

6:38

and high high quality ingredients in settings that generated an expansive

6:44

place for your children to be at or maybe your parents would come watch you even if they were older parents they

6:50

would be with the the grandkids at the time yeah to the river uh you know we did so many different we call them spin

6:58

events and another way to look at that is if you were to go to a typical hamburger joint you have very limited uh

7:06

options at McDonald’s of what you could do you can put the ketchup the mustard maybe some pickles right and cheese but

7:12

if you go to a place like a Smash Burger you could put peanut butter and bacon strawberries jam and and you can layer

7:20

the burger to where you’d like it and so Triple Crown is well known now for being

7:26

that option where you could layer your experience unlike our competitor events that

7:31

typically produce the standard issue hamburger or that hamburger joint that has the layers the special ingredients

7:38

and the atmosphere the high quality service to where you walk away saying I’ll go back there again oh that’s

7:45

awesome so it’s it’s really event planning around Sports and you know combining those two and which is awesome

7:51

because it’s you know healthy I don’t know about the peanut butter on hamburger part but

7:56

um so Elise Alyssa tell me about your inbox so you said off camera you said

Decision to Create Pickleball Event

8:04

that your inbox is completely full um and you know what did Carrie come to

8:11

you and say like start some research like how did this start over at Triple Crown because there’s a lot of other sports you guys could have gone into you

8:17

decided to go into pickleball you know someone must have had a clue yeah so it was Carrie um that came to me in 2018

8:24

and I had done research on a few other sports um a few that I was like yeah we can

8:30

continue research and a few that I said no this doesn’t seem like a good fit for us

8:35

um and so he came to me and it actually as senior pickleball and so that was

8:41

what it was at the time and I went to a few events I did some research I was like it’s a little more than senior pickleball it’s just research pickleball

8:47

as a whole and so I researched it for probably a little less than a year and then got our CEO involved and said

8:54

okay I think there’s some something here there’s good momentum it matches our values I think there’s a niche that we

9:01

can provide something new to the sport something different that there is not already out there and so he got involved

9:07

how we went to carry with it and he’s like yep keep going with it and so I had some resources and we’re planning on

9:13

getting into it I’ve had someone hired and had an event kind of scoped out for 2020 and then as we all know covet hit

9:22

and some as an events company had to navigate that as everyone else did and so kind of

9:29

pickleball to go back burner like didn’t think about it we’re like hey we’re just putting the quash on this we’ll revisit

9:34

it so after we got through covid um stayed alive as a company

9:40

um and then probably about the past year have been researching it again and I’m

9:45

glad that Carrie had the foresight he did to start research in 2018 because it’s very different right if

9:52

anyone has been around for six years Piqua has grown tremendously but it’s also changed tremendously which is like

9:59

the number of players the number of tournaments that we provided the number of tournament providers and people and

10:07

money in the game um is just crazy and so it’s been really great to see it from

10:12

the beginning and then be able to change our vision for what’s now needed um in the sport because it’s very

10:18

different than what we originally thought was needed back in 2020. yeah and I and I want to I want to double

10:24

click on that and and get into that and I think so so Carrie when when she came to you or or the CEO whoever came to you

10:32

and said we want to look into pickleball what were your first thoughts have you have you had you played pickleball had

10:37

you heard of pickleball yeah I dabbled at playing pickleball at the time and I

10:42

realized that um different age individuals could compete against each other at the same

10:48

time and some of the the what’s called youthful abilities in sport where as you

10:54

you know age over time you can’t do as much they were somewhat eliminated out there um there were people that were

11:01

older to be that were way faster somehow and they were able to get around the court with no issues and I I saw that

11:08

the sport could be expanded into you know multiple different ages and like Alyssa noted it wasn’t really just for

11:15

seniors in fact it was a lot of fun for somebody that uh likes to downhill mountain bike and snowmobile uh I’m a

11:21

civil Bill Hill Climb Racer as well and I like high-speed things and this right

11:27

there is is one of these sports that you know satisfies the connection with others uh but you still have this

11:34

opportunity and this is something that I talk about a lot but you still have an opportunity to create losing and I think

11:41

if you could create maybe for loss it builds the character for when real loss

11:47

happens in life and so it’s a practice ground in a game setting to learn how to

11:52

lose and pick yourself back up again and so any kind of way we can create competition so that we can learn to be

11:59

resilient in the face of adversity because our life is chock full of adversity and it’s not losing a

12:05

pickleball Magic’s losing our mother or our father or God forbid a young child

12:11

and these are the things that really help to build character help to build resilience in people and so if we can

12:18

create fun memories around Sport and segment people to where they’re playing the right opponents or the fun opponents

12:25

or the best opponents and we can create this atmosphere where people can walk away and say I can’t wait to come back

12:31

yeah that’s so interesting um was that part of your mission by the way just around resiliency and and

12:38

around it’s interesting the way you just gave perspective on lost I think it’s

12:44

absolutely true uh to to help throughout life I think Sports has has a lot of

12:50

threads a lot of them it’s not just about winning it’s about losing it’s about training it’s motivation discipline you know there’s so many

12:56

elements that you learn that you can apply to different parts of your life but curious if that was part of triple Crown’s Mission from the beginning or or

13:03

maybe you’ve added that no I probably added more of that I love to see losers

Lessons Learned from Losing

13:09

kind of attitude and I mean it’s just this straight up truth there’s room for one winner and everybody else loses and

13:15

so how do you keep attracting people to come back when they don’t ever win well there’s a lot of ways to do that and so

13:22

um you know at the end of the day I probably was that athlete that did not

13:27

achieve the greatest results whether I played college baseball I’ve been at

13:33

snowmobile Hill Climb Racer and I’ve always been quite mediocre I I lose often and I still keep coming back and I

13:40

I get that hit feeling in my stomach of I let myself down or I’ve let my teammates down and for that I get to

13:48

generate the resilient moment so I can manufacture the ability to handle bigger

13:54

issues that come up later and I and I know this to be true when looking at different kinds of you know very

14:00

difficult suicide rates with teenagers and young adults those that play sport

14:05

worked in to be less likely to commit suicide and so I just know our what we

14:12

naturally create which is these tournaments they generate a ton of opportunity for failure adversity making

14:19

mistakes and losing and for that we give lifelong blessed cities young players

14:25

usually but a senior can have the same kind of lesson late in life too and and

14:30

still face difficulty pick themselves back up or outperform their expectations

14:36

and those those things were great about sport yeah one of the best things about it and so we’ll keep coming back to

14:42

different sports over the course of time I think you’ll see us enter uh more Sports in the future and really try to

14:50

create the number one number two or number three event in the country so that Triple Crowns known for the best of

14:57

the best events when they come to produce the event in the sport that I love we know it’s going to be an amazing

15:04

experience well that’s different we’re exciting I want to get to the the event you are planning already and at

15:09

picklecon I definitely want to talk about that and when you guys thought about like how do we put together an event maybe let’s say you can share some

PickleCon 2024

15:16

of the the ideas you wanted to make sure happen during this event so like I said it kind of evolved over the years of

15:22

researching it so um starters just like computer research behind the scenes of who are the top players with sanctioning

15:29

bodies what does it look like what are price entry barriers things like that

15:35

um Geographic places like hotbeds and then went to events and talked with

15:41

players talked to that everyday players talked with Pro a lot of pro players and so at the time they weren’t making a

15:47

living doing it they were subsidizing their living doing some camps and Clinics so we were like hey how can we

15:53

help you guys make um a living well now they a lot of them are making more money with tournaments

15:58

and so kind of lost that and then talked to tournament providers and a lot of Brands and like what are you guys seeing

16:04

and so we’ve still continued that so although our vision has changed because like you said there’s a tournament every

16:10

weekend now so if you want to go play you have opportunities to play Pros they have opportunities to get money brands

16:16

are popping up a lot more brands are coming but like I said there’s just a lot of different companies in pickleball

16:23

right now and not one person bringing them all together and so our CEO Sean Hardy he

16:31

started our volleyball division kind of the same way a very collaborative approach of asking what’s missing asking

16:37

what has worked in the past um what they want to see what they don’t want to see and so that’s really what

16:43

we’ve done is just talked with a ton of people from Pros the brands to Everyday players and tournament providers and

16:49

seeing what’s in the sport is working and why change what’s already working

16:55

but what also what’s missing and so I’ve noticed a lot of Brands aren’t allowed at specific tournaments because they

17:01

only have their four paddle brands that are allowed there and Pros can only play

17:06

in certain events because it’s on their pro circuit but there’s also a need for like people to just Network and talk

17:13

talk with people and there’s a bit large community in so the local communities are really strong but how can that

17:18

Community meet a community from across the country and be able to play and be a

17:23

mixer and be like oh we like obviously the same thing in pickleball but we also have these other initiatives and how can

17:30

we line up club or tournament providers with different facilities from across the

17:36

country and so just finding that need of what we’ve seen in our other sports has has worked

17:41

what felt we felt like was missing in pickleball and then just the idea of

17:47

just bringing everyone together like that’s the point of pickleball like that’s why it was started it’s just that community that left for the game being

17:52

close to someone and so that’s really where Vision kind of grew sounds like kind of tying a bow around the whole

17:59

thing because it it has a lot of different tentacles right now and I think you’re right there’s a ton of new

18:05

brands we interviewed um a Paddle Company that right now

18:10

um doesn’t even sell on Amazon I mean just direct a great Paddle Company and we we’re taught I mean I feel like

18:16

there’s more and more Brands and there there needs to be right like we want the cream to rise to the the top and people

18:22

you know you might buy one tennis racket every 10 years but in pickleball it seems like if we’re open this black one

18:28

every other month so Carrie what I don’t know how involved you are in planning pickle con but um how have you sort of

18:34

seen this sport influence what you guys are doing day to day at Triple Crown is it starting to grow in terms of

18:41

attention and time yeah it’s making all of our you know company-wide goals it’s

Triple Crown’s Increasing Focus on Pickleball

18:47

you know got attention with human resources outside of Alyssa which in

18:52

this case is in the in the operation side we’re talking to you about pickleball but we also have a marketing

18:58

department find finance department and technology and each of our main departments are you know building

19:04

various aspects to fit the needs of what is being created and really like Alyssa

19:10

said what’s being created is a product of what the marketplace has told us to

19:16

create and for that we didn’t have and we currently do not have all of the aspects created that the market wants

19:24

and so we have to design our e-commerce solution to do different things the way the website

19:30

showcases tournaments versus camps and Clinics social activities and so our

19:36

marketing department has launched several different teaser campaigns in in

19:42

collaboration with uh different uh suppliers of pickleball equipment to

19:48

event coordination uh companies and we’ve really networked this event it’s

19:54

like a Triple Crown 5.0 I’ve never seen us come together as a company to infuse

20:01

the markets insights and create an event that’s entirely built by the market not

20:07

simply by the smart Personnel that work at Triple Crown but really

20:12

um like the railroad car coming from a great distance away if you get your ear on the track you can hear it or before

20:20

it even makes a sound and so Alyssa has done really good research too uh and

20:25

Sean Hardy to really listen for what’s supposed to be built well before its

20:32

time and so I’m very excited to see what they’ve done from an internal perspective to get people that work

20:39

there excited about pickleball and then you know the local market in Kansas City

20:44

the millions of Impressions that were happen on news outlets and radio

20:49

stations uh you may be talking to us generated from some of these more activity uh you know it’s it’s just

20:56

amazing how quickly uh this event picklecon has gained attention from you

21:02

know local media sources to to National media sources and then it’ll be probably

21:08

one of the largest most diverse Statewide event ever created at Triple

21:14

Crown in its immediacy and it may be the the most diverse pickleball event in 2024 that they’re eat that there is so

21:21

it’s very exciting it’s getting a ton of attention on our three-year plan one-year plans who’s doing this job that

21:28

job when do we hire this person all this stuff is happening right now that’s awesome I mean I think you you

21:33

highlighted a couple things that I just want to underline you know which is it is an incredibly incredibly diverse

21:39

group of people that play from age to socioeconomic background to location

21:45

geography and I think that’s what’s really exciting about it and what I personally like about it also I I was a

21:53

competitive athlete in college and since then have not really wanted to compete I’m I have tons of friends that say you

21:59

should do a triathlon you can swim you can run and I don’t care about it and now that I play play Pickleball all I

22:05

want to do is compete every day and so and and part of that is because it’s so much fun to compete and it’s you know

22:12

short games you can compete in in all different formats um and I also just and again kind of

22:19

underlining that it’s one of the only Sports where men and women compete against each other pretty fairly I mean

22:26

there there are a few other sports like that but not a lot so I think that diversity you are expecting at picklecon

22:34

you will get we’re sure based on what I’ve seen so you know just sort of

22:39

diving into picklecon a little bit um what you know maybe we can talk about what what we should expect and and who’s

What to Expect at PickleCon

22:46

gonna go and and you know what’s your vision so far right people console has all the convention aspects

22:52

um so it’s 400 000 square feet of Convention Center space wide open we’ll put down right now it’s backed out to

22:59

hold a hundred courts um that’ll change as we get going with multiple tournament providers so that

23:04

we’ll have a lot of different people running their own tournaments inside our event so again give that diversity of

23:10

opportunities and options for type of product that you want to be seen there um multiple camps and Clinics so having

23:16

pros come in teaching clinics having destination camps doing a mini camp there having other provider Camp

23:23

providers come in and showcase their product and then a ton of vendor space available with courts inside vendor

23:31

Village to do demo so you can demo paddles and you can do pro-ams and

23:36

different like activations at the booths um and then just the inside of panel

23:43

discussions and educational breakout sessions so there’s new technology popping up everywhere so how can we

23:51

um advertise and explain those and get people in front of a wider audience and

23:56

then a lot of people are wanting to get into refereeing and figure out it was a whole process he learned that there’s an

24:01

entire process I was like oh we can just get referee certified at our event um no

24:06

it’s not that simple a lengthy lengthy process so how can we educate people on

24:12

what is that process and then maybe start the um process of getting certified and

24:17

we’ll have tons of games going on and so they need practice games so go upstairs and practice all weekend and get all

24:24

your games in and have someone watch you while you’re doing that um and so it really is just kind of

24:32

bringing together that convention side of the education and community and networking but also pickleballers they

24:39

want to play they want to play so providing a ton of Courts just opportunity to play in tournaments playing camps and Clinics and then also

24:45

there’ll be just a lot of open Play courts that you can reserve or just go drop in like couple Brown robins have a

24:52

mixer meet some new people some activities outside of it partner with a local group that

24:59

um I do a tour bus type situation of picking people up and taking people around Kansas City and seeing all the

25:06

pickleball places along with maybe some barbecue places and things like that that make Kansas City Kansas City and so

25:11

really just creating an event that has something for everyone but also pulling

25:17

in Kansas City and saying come to the city as a whole make a family vacation

25:22

out of it make a girls trip guys trip whatever you want out of it where our event is awesome but you also have some

25:29

really cool memories and experiences outside of the event as well oh wow I’m so excited already you you know you both

Pickleball Technology

25:36

mentioned technology and Carrie maybe you know you said that there’s been some technology changes within and I I I

25:43

don’t know if if you’re planning on building anything that’s specific to pickleball I know there’s a lot of

25:48

missing pieces right so there’s what duper is putting together and some of the other rating system technology

25:55

that’s kind of missing there’s you know where to to play and and you know not

26:01

just on a map but like more specifically it changes there’s technology around building courts and so I’m just curious

26:09

Carrie if you guys are jumping into any part of that or maybe you already have no I think those organizations that you

26:15

just discussed are more equipped to do that kind of uh technology development the technology that we’re talking about

26:21

is just more how to like generate ease of use to get into the event to find

26:27

your schedule to understand what camps and Clinics fit your needs to filter and

26:32

search there there is you know maybe 50 different offerings and it’s not our typical event where everybody goes

26:39

through the same conduit sides up and then it’s it’s cut and dry there’s like a one point of entry and and that’s all

26:46

you have to do well this is like an A La Carte you know purchase where not any

26:51

person is going to buy the same one two seven things and so that is a different

26:57

way to to Showcase whatever our offering is and so that’s the technology that we

27:03

have to design just to make ease of use now a Triple Crown did start a uh

27:09

business during the pandemic it was poor timing uh we didn’t know about the pandemic but we started a data and

27:15

analytics company called CSE and that is a technology company that measures the

27:21

objective measurements surrounding athletes movements or speed in which they travel through time the way the

27:30

speed that the ball exits the bat or their hand or the you know this is done

27:36

in baseball and softball right now the CSE brand measures athletes as they perform their

27:43

Sport and then gives them those objective measurements back combined with the subjective human evaluation

27:50

unlike swimming where 100 meters done in a specific time period is good bad or

27:57

ugly baseball has a lot of subjective eye tests they call where a athlete you

28:03

know uses their hands appropriately to feel the ground ball or to come through

28:09

the zone and those things are uh somebody that knows the sport can can

28:16

offer a decent rating of how they’re doing to would they move their feet round or their attitude is you know a

28:24

characteristic of you know performance if things get tough are they going to be

28:29

resilient enough and so a lot of coaches still want that in baseball and softball and I’m imagining that pickleball may be

28:36

a great source for some of these objective criteria especially for the Pros to know how fast did that shot just

28:43

come through you know or what you know angle is the um is the ball coming uh at to for the

28:50

most ideal Precision shot and who’s doing that the most consistently on the pro level those kind of things CSE could

28:58

play a role in as it evaluates that would not be something this will be happy we’re not going to do that this

29:03

coming year we’ve already got enough on our plate to start this event right however there’s

29:10

an opportunity here for an amateur athlete to see how fast if they want to get better you you’ve got to be able to

29:16

move from this side of the court to that side of the court in this amount of time and that’s consider getting better or

29:22

good and if I can hit it this fast or react to a ball within this amount of

29:28

time frame those are all things that CSE could inject into the technology side in

29:34

the future um and so that would be some of the technology play that triple crown could provide down the road vote for the sport

29:41

as it continues to grow that’s really interesting I’m glad you brought that up I I’ve often thought I have a tech

29:47

background and I’m in San Francisco so forgive me but that is where my brain goes and I’ve often thought that you

29:54

know from a rating standpoint why couldn’t we have you know our phone record us and then it feeds into some

30:01

database that gives information back so that at least again like when you’re asked are you a 3-0 player a 3-5 a 4-0

30:07

that you have something more specific than guessing which is happening for a

30:13

lot of amateur players um and so I think there’s definitely room for that and and I also think that

30:19

most pickleball players always are striving to get better they it not just

30:25

like maybe if you’re a runner you want to get faster but with with pickleball they want to to be more strategic and

30:30

they want to know which shots and shot construction and they’re constantly learning such an appetite and I think by

30:36

giving some feedback like this program probably could it would really help a

30:42

lot of players so I think there’s definitely a need in pickleball and even the change to Rally scoring

30:50

um I know I know the pros are now using rally scoring more the um but amateurs

30:55

have are still using the traditional scoring and so you know every Point matters it’s not

31:01

you know and so even like you said I’m I’m I’m not okay with losing but I it’s

31:08

okay I know that I’m not the best pickleball player yet but I do always want to win every point so if so as soon

31:15

as I lose a point I’m back how can I win the next point and I think again like if you get feedback around how you how you

31:22

play or what you’re striving to do it’s really important so I think your insights there are very good

31:28

um I guess but let’s say you’ll have your work cut out for you next year

31:33

well uh so when is maybe you can just give specifics so anyone who’s listening can

31:40

make sure that they check out the event um and and I’ll have some links in the show notes but

31:46

um so make sure everybody subscribes to this so they can hear more because we’ll probably talk closer to the event again but uh where can they find out more

31:53

about the event yeah so the event will be August 8th through 11th 2024 at the Kansas City Convention Center barter

When is PickleCon?

31:59

Hall and we have a websites you can see it via triplecrownsports.com or just go

32:05

straight to it at picklecon.com so we’ll have all the information up there as we release it all of our partners that

32:11

we’re talking to inside the pickleball world as well as ways to get involved like we said we have a very collaborative approach so there’s a get

32:18

involved tab of do you want to be a vendor do you want to run a tournament or just do you have brands that you want

32:24

to see there that maybe we haven’t talked to yet so um gives us an idea of what to who to reach out to and continue building that

32:31

event with with the public and with people so Carrie do you think that your dad would be is is he interested in

32:37

pickleball himself would he be excited that you’re going into pickleball and see like look any event is fun what’s

32:43

busy you know he’s very excited he’s still like is in the office oh listen to

32:49

this I mean we walk by his room every day we go to the office and he’s still

32:54

in there with like grease boards and he’s coming up with different ideas he’s the one that generated the CSE company

33:01

with data and analytics um and that was born after he uh passed the CEO transition from himself to me in

33:09

2017 with that space he you know had time to think and he thought well I’ve

33:14

been developing players my whole life he’s been a coach for over 45 years and he transitions them from the amateur

33:21

field into Collegiate and all the athletes the girls softball players end up playing college somewhere it’s just

33:28

will they say that at that uh College will they be happy will they get playing time will they exceed will they be a

33:35

role player will they sit the bench that’s where you know his head goes is how can you get the development for the

33:42

athlete and so I’m very treat when you said pickleball players are always wanting to get better and I love that

33:47

because I think that it gives a lot of opportunity for Triple Crown because we are good at giving feedback whether it’s

33:54

through the segmentation uh hey if you get better you’ll be in the we call them power pools or you know you you can earn

34:01

your way to play with the elite customers and so my dad is very in Innovative he’s inventive and you know

34:09

he has heard the way in which we put all the the disparate tournament providers

34:15

together and all the brands and he’s like super excited how we know he looks

34:21

at this as like a brand new way to enter a market and he’s very excited with the

34:27

the talent that we have on it Alyssa and Sean as well as where it’s pointed so it looks like he’s very delighted with

34:33

what’s happened when you were growing up did you see yourself becoming the CEO of

Culture of Triple Crown Sports

34:38

the company or no sort of what he’s going to do and you’re gonna yeah

34:43

snowmobiles yeah I was not going to work at the family company I was you know I

34:50

didn’t know where I would be but it was not at triple crown and really what got me to stay in 2003 four and five was

34:58

being in the office and being around the culture and it’s a culture of respect

35:04

Family First and work ethic and so if we know that those Associates that Excel

35:12

the most at Triple Crown prioritize their families before work and the work

35:19

will get done and so we have this culture where we’re respectful of each other we can have our families come into

35:26

the office we can leave the office to go to um weddings funerals school plays

35:34

sporting events it’s encouraged to be a coach in the community and give back to

35:41

Young athletes and I think it’s it’s actually speaks to what most people

35:46

when they leave work if they work around people who have similar values and and priorities they are happy and if they

35:53

feel celebrated and you know they’re because we’re human we’re not just robots although sometimes when you’re

36:00

driving around San Francisco and you see self-driving cars you’re like wow this is really going in a different direction

36:05

but you know for the rest of us that are still going to work um in in the traditional sense I think

36:11

that means a lot I’m really excited I would love to to plan to check back in before picklecon is is happening so we

Conclusion

36:19

can learn more about the specifics and I’m so glad to hear and learn more about Triple Crown as a company and and your

36:26

mission and so I really appreciate your time today and again I’ll put everything in the show notes but I hope everyone

36:32

can you register already or is there just information now hopefully at the beginning of the year we’ll start

36:37

putting some gate passes on sale and then a little later in the spring we’ll

36:42

get some of the camps and tournaments up and going awesome so hopefully people listening can reach out and make your

36:49

inbox even more full [Laughter] awesome well you guys both thank you so

36:54

much good luck to both of you and really really interesting um conversation about triple crown and

37:00

picklecon so thanks okay hey guys thanks for listening to

37:06

Simply pick a ball we will be back very soon with great interviews discussions and more all about pickleball don’t

37:12

forget to subscribe to our channels on YouTube Twitter Instagram or any of your favorite podcasting Outlet until next

37:18

time happy thinking

 

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