Season 26, Episode 17

There's a Nine-Year-Old Elephant on Your Tennis Courts

Shaun Boyce & Bobby Schindler with Dr. Rommie Maxey

Summary

Dr. Rommie Maxey didn't set out to become a pickleball entrepreneur. The sport found him — and he ran with it. Six-time national champion, co-owner of the Houston Hammers, trainer to 14,000 players across five continents, and now a member of the ARA National Advisory Board, Dr. Maxey joins Shaun and Bobby to talk about where pickleball actually is right now: the demographics shift nobody expected, why Houston went from 1 to 42 indoor facilities in four years, what the VAIR rating system changes, and why pickleball is basically a nine-year-old who just walked into a room full of adults and refused to leave.

Dr. Maxey recently joined the National Advisory Board of the American Racket Sports Association — the national organization uniting tennis, pickleball, and padel professionals. Learn more at americanracketsportsassociation.com.

Key Topics

• Dr. Maxey's path from collegiate athlete to pickleball influencer and entrepreneur
• The demographic surprise: average pickleball player age is now 34 and dropping
• Global expansion — Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and why badminton culture fuels it
• Houston's indoor pickleball boom: 1 facility to 42 in four years
• Club conversions, court-sharing, and the monetization reality for facilities
• The VAIR rating system: recreational vs. certified ratings and why it matters
• Pickleball as "a nine-year-old" — what that means for the industry's future

Keywords

Pickleball, Dr. Rommie Maxey, Houston Hammers, VAIR Rating System, Pickleball Growth, Indoor Pickleball, Tennis to Pickleball, Racket Sports Industry, Entrepreneurship, Global Pickleball, ARA, American Racket Sports Association

Sound Bites

• "Pickleball found me."
• "Houston went from one indoor facility to 42 in four years."
• "Pickleball is basically a nine-year-old — it doesn't even know what it is yet."

Full YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/7aFSqMzkoxQ

Dr. Maxey's King of Pickleball Answer: https://youtube.com/shorts/nwuG9p-4qww

Short Clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/mwIxTt_VGbM

Learn more about Dr. Rommie Maxey: https://www.nomercypickleball.com

Contact Our Hosts

• Shaun Boyce | [email protected] | americanracketsportsassociation.com
• Bobby Schindler | [email protected] | letsgotennis.com/windermere
• Geovanna Boyce | [email protected] | regeovinate.com
• GoTennis! | letsgotennis.com

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And now let's get into our recent conversation with Dr. Rommie Maxey.

Dr. Maxey has recently joined the National Board of the American Racket Sports Association.

He's trained almost 1500 players around the world.

He's owned some clubs, a professional pickleball team, and has taken the time to talk to us about

the pickleball industry and where it's going.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Who are you and why do we care?

I wanted to know what I was to.

Just being a former collegiate and professional athlete moving forward to being an athletic

director for 20 years, and then at some point pickleball found me.

And from that point on, it's been entrepreneurship with pickleball, a co-owner of the Houston

Hammers, which is a professional team here in Houston associated with the senior pro circuit.

I've done a number of things.

Obviously, I am an influencer in the sport of pickleball.

I found that out from my grandson.

I had to ask him what an influencer was.

But a lot of following him and enjoy the game.

I'm speaking at five conventions this year, national conventions.

Talking about a variety of things, some sponsorships to branding, to the VAIR rating system, to

a variety of things.

It was the future of pickleball, all those kinds of things that people want to know.

It's just a fantastic and growing sport.

I became very involved as a player.

It's lucky enough to be a six-time national and silver champion, which allowed me to start

training people.

They wanted to know what are you doing.

So that turned into 14,000 players now that I've trained and five national champions.

So the training aspect gives me the opportunity now to Costa Rica, to Punta Cana.

I've been going to Vietnam at the end of the next month.

Then to Turks and Caicos.

I've been to Jamaica doing various clinics and giving people the opportunity to share their

love for pickleball on excursions and things of that nature as well.

So that's kind of me and an entrepreneurial ship of pickleball, also own three indoor clubs.

I get to sleep occasionally.

I like the reminder.

I'm doing a lot, especially at this point in my career.

Now, a quick question.

You own some clubs.

You said the hammers, the Houston hammers, that speaks to me.

We had a name for our Alta team, which Bobby, if that says anything to you, our double

A2 Alta team had a name, we called ourselves the hammers.

So we will let that speak for itself, whatever that says.

So we can connect there and absolutely want to learn more about it.

It's almost impossible in the time frame that we have to go through everything that you've

done and everything that you've created.

I would love to remind everybody or introduce you as the most recent addition to our national

board for the American Racket Sports Association, because Dr. Maxey has agreed to help promote

what we're doing in the sport of pickleball as an expert in that world, because Bobby and

I come out of kind of purest tennis world.

We understand that perspective.

And pickleball has an entirely different view of the world.

Would you put it that way?

I mean, I think this works hand in hand.

There's a lot of tennis players that get to a point in their tennis lives that maybe they

want to convert over to pickleball, whether it be age restrictions and things that makes

it maybe a little easier and a little less court to cover.

I'm a former tennis player as well.

So pickleball comes and becomes a pretty good transition.

Of course, at this point now, pickleball is youth.

I mean, the average age is 34 years of age.

So the age just keeps coming down increasingly every year because of some of the young people

playing the game now.

You notice that in Cincinnati, I went on a trip with my family to meet our newly born

granddaughter and we ended up at a three different pickleball facilities in the area and the public

park.

It was fascinating to see.

It was all 20-somethings.

That's all it was.

It was packed with 20-somethings.

And Bobby, you got a similar perspective at your club as to who you see on your pickleball

courts?

It was the big surprise.

It wasn't the seniors or the older folks where it really resonated with the high school kids.

I always equated.

We played all the short kids who couldn't play basketball in a higher level, but still

love basketball.

We go wrong.

And these kids are out there.

This is their competitive outlet.

And really, that's who really graphed on that.

I don't think anybody really knew the dimensions of what it was going to happen there.

It's chaos, but it's fun.

Yeah.

Well, and the expansion now, of course, globally, just going to Vietnam, I think I mentioned,

but Vietnam and Malaysia and the Philippines are just, it's just massive.

I mean, literally tournaments, not every weekend, every day, they're having tournaments in those

countries and just to see the growth is just beyond everybody's imagination of what could

happen, I think.

And I think that's just an testament to people wanting to get activity and movement and doing

things that like you said, Bobby, maybe they can't play basketball, maybe they can't hit

a curveball, you know, in baseball, maybe they can't do other things, but if they have some

hand-eye coordination, it can still move, you know, and do some things that can have fun

on the pickleball court.

So I got to put in this, you know, I don't want to come off wrong here, but how did they

play in Vietnam and is the game different just because I would think their orientation

is coming more out of badminton and ping pong.

So I would find it think it'd be a much more risky sport, which could make the ball go a lot

faster.

Well, you know, that's really a good question because when I'm teaching, you know, the number

of people that I mentioned earlier that I've taught, one of the things that I tell folks

is tennis is a good lead-in sport because you have the baseline skills, but the game of

the pickleball becomes a more condensed portion when they get up to the kitchen line that people

understand what I'm talking about and the dinking portion of it and then the complexities

of the angles and all of those kinds of things in a closer proximity.

And I always say, if you've got a ping pong background, once you get to the kitchen, you

better start using your ping pong skills.

And because I think that's a really good lead-in to pickleball rather than, you're not going

to get away with playing baseline skills and pickleball.

Sooner or later, you know, it's going to catch up to you and you won't be the player if

you want to be.

You have to learn all the new answers of the game.

As a follow-up to Bobby's question, I want to ask, and this wasn't one of the things I

was expecting to ask, but can you describe what is the industry like?

I don't know how much experience you said.

You said you're going to that area, but I don't know how much you know about it already

or if you've been multiple times before.

I know we have another board member, Chris Harradine, that has Benny just got back.

He's in trains, coaches there.

But is the industry different?

Is it just the same thing there, just with their people, is it here, the country clubs and

the facilities and the public areas?

And what does pickleball look like there?

Is it that different or is it the same?

Not as much as the public side of it, but the clubs are growing and the private sources

and things of that nature.

It's just the massiveness of the people.

And I call the European country, China and all the Asian countries have always been paddle

sports, badminton.

I mean, there's 250 million badminton players in China.

Can you fathom that?

I can't even, that doesn't compute, but 250 million badminton players in China.

My point is, that's always been that type of sport.

That's what they play.

They're good at it.

And so the growth of pickleball, the explosion has just led those people that played badminton

or private played, maybe even played a little padel or have now transformed and gone

in the pickleball and it's just massive growth.

And it's fun to see in general because tennis is established.

It's like the giant business that's been there forever.

You see that slow moving machine.

And I've said recently that it's difficult to make change.

It's very tough to move that big of a ship and to take the traditions that are there.

You have country club traditions, which are hard to change.

And then you have the sport itself of tennis that's hard to change.

So are we really surprised that tennis is a little bit stuck and fighting back and we

say tennis as though it's a thing that has its own mindset.

But pickleball, if we picture it as its own thing, doesn't even know what it is yet.

It's basically a nine year old.

Facts.

That, you know, but all the country clubs are now realizing that rather than, you know,

at first it was like this, right?

Everybody was tennis player.

No, but now all the country clubs are going, well, we're not really smart if we don't join

hands at least.

And so if they've got 20 tennis courts and there's four to six of them that are not being

used on a regular basis, they're turning them into pickleball courts and creating that

environment where we're working together.

And it's, you know, I mean, it's all about monetization as far as air concern.

Any country clubs wants to have the.

And so when you have the tennis people starting to come to him and go, hey, we'd like to

play pickleball as well.

Okay.

We'll turn courts 16 through 20 and the pickleball courts is just a smart one.

Agreed.

And Bobby, I know you want to ask your question because Bobby did his club, I say recently,

it still feels recently you converted some tennis courts into pickleball and now is the

monetization question, right, Bobby?

Yeah.

And that's, it seems like from the industry standpoint, absolutely what you're saying,

do the clubs need it?

Yes.

You know, is it leading to new members not sure helping member retention?

Absolutely not translating on the coaching side yet.

And do you think that's just because we haven't, like you said, the average or median age is

34.

So everybody came in with a little bit of knowledge.

We're not growing yet, even though the more it gets established and the more it becomes

a mainstream sport, I think you'll start to see that.

Obviously the kids will see it and start going into it and that will bring in the lesson

revenue.

But is that where we're at right now?

Would you say that's a fair assessment?

I do.

I mean, I think, you know, it's up to the country clubs though to realize that need to start

their junior programs in pickleball, just like they do their junior programs in tennis.

In other words, make it available, make those youth programs available and let the kids

choose if they want to play pickleball or they want to play tennis of that matter because

the parents are already members of the club, right?

So then they've got all these children and some of them push them towards the youth tennis

because that's the only thing that was available at the time.

But now if they have pickleball as well, there could be, you know, a shared responsibilities

and then the monetization that they will come from that growth from the youth up.

Are you really?

Sorry, the Academy side looking at that, you just spoke of your demographic.

You didn't say it specifically this time, but we don't mind saying it.

Your demographic is a shorter than average demographic at your club.

So they're not going to play basketball, even though they all do.

Don't get me wrong.

They're all down there on the basketball court.

But should this not be the, okay, should my kid, he wants to go to vision one,

and play tennis and you're like, your kid's going to be five, three, five, four, maybe pickleball

is the way to go.

This could easily be the, I don't know, call it the plan B for those that need that college

resume option.

I don't know that it really works in the same way, but it could easily build a junior development

program at a club.

That's what I'm curious about.

You're outside of Houston, Dr. Maxey.

Yes, I'm out of Houston.

So, would you say your club is that's what's running the programming there is opposed to,

we're very HOA driven.

All of our neighborhoods have tennis courts and from that we developed out to, and now, as

you said, the bigger neighborhoods are throwing in either permanent, you know, turning a couple

tennis courts into pickleball courts or they have the lines down in temporary nets so

you can use the tennis courts for pickleball as well.

And if you, you know, and that's the interesting and difficult dynamic about Atlanta, we're

spread out thing if somebody in the long lines we're saying, if somebody was to sit there

and say a dedicated pickleball program, it can't be at every neighborhood.

And that's the problem.

We're limited because everybody has capacity issues, everybody has scalability issues, but

I think, you know, in Atlanta, at least, we all need to get together and say, okay, there's

five facilities. This is where we should concentrate on developing pickleball players.

And you know, if it goes into tennis, great.

The hard part is it's so against the culture here because the parents are so used to having

tennis at their fingertips.

They will drive a little further for their kids.

They won't drive for themselves.

They'll put up with anything in their own neighborhood.

They will drive a little bit for their kids, but we always joke, you know, get your circumference

out and make a circle eight miles.

That's about as far as anybody's going in Atlanta.

So it makes it challenging.

And I think the club background has a better chance, you know, getting the head start.

Let's put that with them.

We do here.

Well, and I don't know what Atlanta has done by the shirts pretty similar.

Houston in the last four years has gone from one indoor pickleball facility dedicated

to the strictly pickleball to relieve the nation now with 42 in four years.

So we have 42 indoor complexes with anything from four to 20 indoor courts in these indoor

complexes air conditioning because we're obviously eight months out of the year.

You don't want to play outside if you can help it.

Now, I've been good up to this point.

I've said the most god awful climate on earth is Houston, Texas.

So yeah, we know it.

Atlanta is not far off at times.

So we don't have your humidity.

I lived in Texas.

It's nothing like Houston.

But yeah, so we've gone to 42 indoor complexes and they're all most of them are doing fine.

And again, it's just the growth people want to play indoors.

I'll be honest with you.

I've played in Utah myself in a tournament a while back.

I've played 98% of my play now indoors.

I mean, why would I go outdoors?

If it's, you know, it is a pickleball.

Number one, it's a whiffle ball.

So wind affects it.

So it's, you know, 15 mile an hour wind.

It's not a lot of fun, you know, because the ball is doing different things.

If it's hot as heck, you know, it's not a lot of fun.

If it's raining, obviously you can't play.

You know, so the variety of things that are there is just driving pickleball because of

the smaller court and you can put more courts into a particular facility.

It's just driving the game indoors for the most part for most people.

And it's been good.

I mean, it's kind of fun to be able to go and get your court and play indoors and play

for a couple of three hours.

And then you can leave and call it a day if that's what they want to do.

But that's the course of pickleball right now, I think.

But the country clubs are all beginning to share courts now.

I mean, it's their understanding that we need to share.

I mean, I need to attend us and pick a ball.

And this needs to be a shared cooperative.

And I think that's what we're seeing around the country and at least in the United States.

So Dr. Maxey, your uniqueness is obvious, which is one of our, kind of our next questions,

is why are you unique?

And it sounds like where you've come from, how far you've gone and everything that you've

accomplished sounds amazing.

And actually finding information on you online is not that easy.

I know there's a list of accomplishments, but it's not like anyone has explained everything

that you've done.

Maybe it's just not possible.

There's too much.

But is there anything that you can tell us from an industry perspective?

We talk a lot of tennis.

We talk a lot of technology, business owners, but we don't get a lot of just pickleball

where here's the industry.

We could probably have a little bit of how to be a better coach.

How do you take the convert?

Because we have some that have left tennis completely been one of us for thousands of years.

And all of a sudden said, pickleball is great.

I'm in.

You know, Frank Solana, Jim Carella, the guys that have just really made the switch and do

that mostly.

But what are you seeing in the industry?

I know we talked about having the question that pickleball just received $225 million.

But where does that money go?

How does that work?

What's actually happening in the pickleball world?

The $225 million was an influx of money to the PPA, which is the professional pickleball

association or the UPA, which is the umbrella organization for professional pickleball in

that regard.

And just to sustain what they're trying to accomplish on the professional tour.

I mean, you now have several players on the pickleball tour that are making multiples

of millions of dollars playing pickleball now, which is a few years ago is unheard.

A lot of people didn't even know what pickleball was.

And now you have athletes making a good number of athletes that are making good living,

displaying pickleball on the pro tours.

And there's two particular pro tours, the PPA and the APP.

Those are the two association pickleball players that are out there.

PPA is considered probably the top more top tier players.

And the APP is maybe a little less, but still fantastic players.

Many of them have converted from tennis, you know, Jack Sock and of course, Andre Agassi

is just, he's taken pickleball under his wing all in now.

He's doing pickleball slams and he played the number one female player in the world.

And all these waters here, well, back for a million dollars.

I mean, you know, that's just blowing up the sport.

So to try to, you know, in a roundabout way, answer your question.

That money is just an influx of money to continue the progress of the professional ranks of pickle

ball and support the teams and stuff.

A team to purchase in MLP, which is Major League pickleball, which is another segment under

the umbrella of the UPA is, it costs 16 million dollars to buy a team now.

To buy a team for the Major League pickleball.

Much like if you were going to buy a WNBA team or something, they're not on the NBA or MLB,

you know, Major League baseball or basketball, not on that level yet.

But to buy, you know, a soccer team or by a professional women's basketball team, that's

beginning to be that level.

It costs, you know, around 15 to 16 million dollars to purchase a team to be in that league.

That's significant.

Bobby, Bobby, we're saving up our money.

That's 80 each.

We can pull that off.

Who are we buying that from?

Like, who owns the team to sell it?

What does that look like?

The PPA.

That's the professional pickleball organization.

That's the MLP Major League pickleball or the teams.

So as the team concept, the PPA is the tournament concept where you go to the tournaments and

all that, that kind of thing.

But the MLP is strictly team concept so that you own a team of professional players.

It's some of the same players obviously that are playing on the tournament circuit and

the ones that are playing on the MLP as well.

But I mean, they're building home complexes where they have training facilities and trainers

and their Major League teams.

I mean, they're being treated like Major League players that they are.

We just spoke with the trainer of the bouncers here in Atlanta.

The guy with the name of Brian Lee, they have a physical trainer that works with the team.

And Bobby, did you know we had a professional pickleball team in the area?

We should know this.

We should know this.

But I did not know this.

And they're paid handsomely.

Well, if they're bringing in that kind of revenue by existing and by doing what they

do.

Then yeah, hopefully the money's there and it's not just subsidized by big investors.

At some point, Bobby's going to run through the business conversation on that one, right?

Yeah, you just hit it.

I mean, and that's, you always want to be careful that don't make the mistakes that other

sports have made.

You know, is this really because the quickest way to make money in professional sports

is to franchise.

So when you come up with a random number and say, okay, this team is worth $16 million,

well, who benefits from that?

So obviously we love expansion.

It's the quickest way to raise your revenue.

So you've got to be careful.

Yeah, professional, the tennis store has the issues, monetarily with the smaller tournaments.

Are these tournaments truly making money?

Where?

What is it?

Because it's still not mainstream television yet.

I can't imagine, you know, your rights fees are not anywhere near what a right fee is

going to be for the US Open or Wimbledon.

So are you feeling the stadiums?

Last weekend they were on CBS TV, National TV all weekend.

And that's, I mean, we're getting there, but I'm saying it, but there's still not comparable.

I mean, you're talking to sustain what you're talking about and tennis struggles.

So even with what they have, monetarily, they struggle.

There's still only 100 players in the world, men and female making money in tennis.

I mean, you know, that's the part that you don't want to see the other sports go down

that same rabbit hole, rapid expansion.

One of the things you brought up, I think, it was great because I think you start to see

it here.

Initially Atlanta was very dominated without door courts and we could probably go back

to one of our, you know, we said the same thing.

Don't make the same mistakes tennis made.

I wanted this to be an indoor sport, make it special.

If you're a country club, say we don't do it.

You'd be better served to go to an indoor facility for all the reasons you talked about.

And this way you're keeping on a business side of it.

You're keeping the power.

You know, tennis is free in Atlanta.

It's a tough business model because of the way Alta became the phenomenon.

We don't play tennis in Atlanta.

We play Alta.

Alta so dominates that as we explained in the past, culturally speaking, developers come

in, build two tennis courts that are lighted with access to a bathroom so the facility can

be deemed out to playable.

So this, you know, this is something for your neighborhood to do.

It's a unbelievable phenomenon and that's why we have 60,000, you know, people playing tennis

in a league and it's been a little slow, you know, getting comparatively speaking.

Everybody's like, when it's pickleball, when it's pickleball, well, you know, this is 50 years

into making Alta.

Give pickleball little time.

Let's not make the mistakes.

Let's do this inside.

Like you said, let's get into the clubs.

Let's do the, as I said, Alta is a glorified bowling league.

I'm originally from New York.

The least of called is bowling.

They make pickleball even more glorified and say, hey, it's great because you're getting exercise.

Now we're bowling.

You really won't get any exercise.

These pickleball, you are getting exercise.

You're getting a workout.

So there's nothing wrong with saying we're playing it inside.

We're playing it in air conditioning.

And by the way, there's a bar over there.

I'm going to be here if I so choose.

Yeah, that's, that's my fear.

It's like, where is this money coming from other than, as Shaun said, because I just heard

something with the WNBA.

It's outrageous.

Out nine figure in millions of the franchises worth.

And that's because it subsidized.

There's no justification that for that whatsoever if you really want to crunch numbers.

Right.

No, I mean, I get where you're coming from, Bobby.

I think it comes from the fan participation that's taking place now and in some of the,

a lot of the events that are going on.

Plus the fact that, you know, and Shaun alluded to it too, you've got numbers of professional

athletes that are buying teams of other sports.

You know, you've got Tom Brady's and Drew Brees' and the football aspect.

And you've got the Torelloans and just on, on words of people like that, LeBron James

is, you know, all those people are buying into pickleball because they're playing pickleball.

Plus on the side or having fun, it's easier to put a pickleball court in your backyard for spacewise.

So you're seeing that phenomenon around the country that everybody's just filling in their

swimming pools and putting in a pickleball court because they're not using the pool, but they

will use the pickleball court.

So, honey, call Mike Emburnone.

We're putting a pickleball court in the back.

Yeah, we got a floating pickleball court.

I know how to get a floating pickleball court.

We can do it in the pool.

I mean, that's, yeah.

We've got to ride in the pool.

Here you go.

I'm floating.

I love it.

I mean, I have a, I have a close friend who is in the pickleball construction business and

now she has put in, you know, these 41 facilities.

I said that have grown in the last four years in Houston.

She's been a part of many of those.

However, her red and butter comes from the seven million people in the Houston proper

area that are putting in pickleball courts.

And their house is because they can, you can't, so many yards, you can't put a thinnest

court in.

I mean, they might like to have one, but it's just not possible, but you can put a pickleball

court in.

So they'll put basketball goals on both end, put the pickleball court in the middle.

And now you've got a really nice recreational area in your backyard.

So that phenomenon again alone is just creating that environment.

You become the most, you're the most light person in the neighborhood.

You got a good or bad, right, Bobby?

But you better have a pool in Houston.

Let me tell you, you better have, oh, exactly for after the pickleball.

Well, Dr. Maxey, I'm sure we can talk for four hours and probably what we'll have to do

is just make this a recurring, recurring episode.

We'll come back and do this once a quarter or so.

If Bobby is good and we've done a good initial conversation, we've covered quite a bit and

who you are and why we care and your uniqueness and the things you've done.

One quick thing I want to do, even though it's going to push us over time, I want to ask

about the rating system you're involved with.

Can you tell us about that?

Yes, the VAIR rating system is a rating system and I want to make this very clear and that's

one of the reasons I'm really excited to be involved with the American Racket Sports

Association is because there is also going to be the Racket Sports, Total Racket Sports

rating system.

They're in the pickleball space right now, but they're going to be with badminton, ping pong,

padel, all of those systems they'll be working with.

It's a better rating system and has age built in and has gender mixed, which are all different

levels of play.

People don't have a 50 player, we can talk tennis or pick a ball either one, it doesn't matter.

50 player at 60 years of age is not the same as a 50 player at 30 years of age, sorry, but

we'd like to think so, but it's not true.

We're not going to be, and we might get a point or two here and there, but we're not going

to beat them.

And so age is important.

I think I would like to know my 50 tennis player at 60 and when I'm playing 60-year-olds,

I'm okay with that.

I'm not a 50 player when I'm playing a 30-year-old.

That's facts.

And so that built into our algorithms, it's a great avenue for people to get to a better

rating system than probably what's available out there right now.

And that's what we're not trying to replace anybody, just want to give an option.

So we'll follow up with that as well, because we want to make sure people know about that.

I had not heard of VAIR, and you can virtually assess international rating.

That's what it looks like.

And it's a rating system.

So there are others out there.

We've got some relationships with some of the others as well.

Yeah, Dr. Maxey is intimately involved.

He's will send all questions your way because Bobby and I have no idea what you're talking

about at this point.

So we're going to have to solve ourselves caught up on how to do it.

It all works.

It's a similar rating system to tennis.

I mean, it's all related.

I mean, you've got your levels of, and the pickleball is very similar.

But Dr. Maxey, you are in Houston.

You can go to the tennis simulator.

Have you been there yet?

I have not.

I know of it, but I haven't been there.

I'll see those folks.

Go see Craig there, trying to get one here.

I think it's, but, you know, they're trying to build, because that was my big thing.

You know, I'm going to talk about golf simulators, opposed to tennis.

I always say the good part about golf simulator, you can walk out with a score.

Tennis, you just walk out with a workout or you learn.

But all these algorithms can be built in to the simulators.

And this simulator is the role's voice of simulators.

It's great.

They're looking for creative partners.

And I love the idea that they literally have, you know, a warehouse where they, I think

they have three or four of these set up where you go in and, you know, rent court on

essentially.

So, and I know I think I'm pretty sure it's pickleball.

They can change it over.

So, yeah, that would be a good contact to go see the tennis simulator people.

Nice lady, the lady who's founded it is an ophthalmologist by, you know, the person,

Bobby?

Yes, I'll send it to you.

I'll send you a, so I can look him up and you miss you out.

I'll be glad to hear it.

You're in the city.

Yeah, I'd like to send you just a report because I flipped.

Bobby wants to know.

I don't tell you.

I don't have a key.

Now I want to go check it out.

I'm going to go.

I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm in Northern Texas, guys.

So coming to Houston is a hard detour.

But I'm like, okay, can I go for a homecoming and go south afterwards?

That would be fun.

They ever, they're playing.

Yeah.

I mean, it really looks like a great piece of equipment.

I want to see that.

That's, that'd be great.

And we'll get all that connected and all those connections like Bobby's, Bobby's going

to send a bunch of, a bunch of things your way, Dr. Maxey, make sure you know and we'll obviously

try to know as much as we can about the industry.

And I appreciate you sharing with our audience.

But at this point, love to ask our final question and kind of get your perspective from this.

We ask our king of pickleball question.

And it can be on any scale.

It can be local to Houston, the United States.

It can be the whole world, the universe, professional amateur from any perspective.

If you were king of pickleball, is there anything you would do or change?

King of pickleball.

Well, the biggest thing is, is the challenge has been most recently of people not wanting

to be in an environment where their rating goes up or down.

But they play with their friends, they want to protect their rating and then I'm kind of

getting back to VAIR a little bit because we've segregated on the course because they're

afraid to use their score to play people.

And that's just, that's not why the game started.

But there, and it doesn't matter what sport we're even talking about.

It was about learning how to play and the camaraderie and the social aspects and the fun.

And we've taken that away a little bit by, well, I'm not playing with you because if you put

that score in, you know, I could, you know, get my, and that's not what's about.

I mean, I go into these clubs that we're talking about in Houston and if a beginner comes

up to me and says, Hey, would you play a game with me?

And I said, Sure.

I mean, I'm never going to worry about whether they put a rating or something.

And I'm not that person is going to, and I tell people all the time, we were all beginners

at some point, we were all beginners.

Someone had to show us.

Someone had to be kind enough to lead us into that game and bring us to it and get a passion.

So if I was King of Pickleball, I would just try to work really hard into making sure everyone

still feels comfortable in playing where people have the environment that they can go in

and share that love of the game and the passion and not worry about their rating that there

might be used against them at some point.

So I guess that would be the King of Pickleball.

Bobby, he encourages the use of a rating system and then says the rating system is part

of the problem.

Well, but ready for tech already looking all those former tennis players, that's, that's

who I heard when you were, they don't want to lose.

I'm like, well, that's why they left tennis.

They plateaued and, you know, they went to think of all they were kings in the beginning

and now everybody's catching up.

You know, when Jack Sock entered Pickleball, that Pickleball game changed dramatically because

that man hits the ball very, very hard.

No matter what he's hitting.

So it's a completely different game and now, and I completely agree with you because, and

I know that's one of the big stall points obviously in tennis is we're so segregated and

everything's a level, you know, I do drills at my club and people still, you know, well,

she's, they don't belong.

It's a club where neighbors first, you know, it's amazing, and especially, here's a great

part about Pickleball.

You took out the most difficult part of tennis.

You don't serve.

So you've really changed the dynamic of the game.

Everybody just played like you said, same with basketball.

It was, you know, who's next?

Okay, jump in the court.

And if you're not good, guess what happens?

You'll lose.

And then you've got to sit again until you get to play again.

And if you want to get better, you practice, you know, hit the nail on the head, but shine

getting back to your comment into the minute ago, that's one of the things that VAIR does

differently.

They have a recreational rating where you can just have fun and it doesn't count against

your verified rating or your certified rating.

So there's two different ratings.

So if you want to go out on the court and play with some lesser level players, it doesn't

affect your rating.

So that's kind of the beauty of it.

I'd like to mute my rating right now.

I'm just playing for fun.

I didn't mean it.

Can you do it afterwards?

Like when I leased a Bobby, I'm like, oh, no, I'll just kidding.

That was just for fun.

Absolutely.

Shaun, I was impressed.

I thought you were setting up for that great answer.

I was like, see, that's what you can tell Shaun does some homework with the guests.

And he knew the answer was he was feeding you a good answer right there.

I was a good lead in.

We've been working on that.

I was thinking he did his homework.

I was impressed with that.

This is not hard hitting Journalism people.

This is us making you look good and bringing out your competency.

But Dr. Maxey, that's obviously easy with you because like I said, you know what you're

talking about?

We appreciate you sharing everything that you know and everything that you've done.

We love seeing all that in 14,000 people you've trained.

That's an amazing number.

And that says a lot about the industry and what people can become because you didn't go

into the world.

You didn't come into the world saying, I'm going to be a pickleball trainer.

It's something like you said earlier.

I think you said pickleball found me.

And I think that's really important for people to realize Bobby and I were the same way a

few years ago.

People were asking us about pickleball and we said, we're go tennis.

Pickleball will present itself.

It will be here when it needs to be here.

Right now we're not actively seeking it.

But I'm pretty sure Bobby pickleball is here.

Oh, I think it's here.

Dr. Maxey, please come see us.

You're two roads away.

You get on 20 to your head 85.

You're in Atlanta.

I'm a Southwest flat away.

Even better.

Even better.

I'm an A-lister.

Trust me.

He's been on a few flights.

Well gentlemen, thank you so much.

I appreciate your time.

Bobby, as always, I appreciate it.

Dr. Maxey, thank you so much for being here.

We will be in touch.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Well, there you have it.

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