What You Need To Know About The “Picklegate” Pickleball Scandal

Are we witnessing the biggest sports scandal of the last decade? If you are new to the world of pickleball, here’s what you need to know.

It appeared that the PPA Tour and MLP were getting along very well in the world of pickleball, Players from the PPA could participate in MLP competitions, and vice versa. A merger was planned to occur shortly, but the last week before signing the contract, MLP suddenly went rogue and began signing a ridiculous number of players to exclusive contracts. The MLP simply launched a stealth attack and snatched up a sizable number of the greatest players in the entire world including top talent Tyson McGuffin, Riley Newman, and Anna Bright. An arms race commenced to see who could sign the greatest players, with new signings coming out almost every hour. These are not minor signings either, We’re referring to multiyear agreements for thousands to millions of dollars annually.

Fast forward, it seems that both the PPA and MLP have put their differences aside and the merger is back on, but with the dust settled a scandal emerged. It was reported that MLP owner Steve Kuhn allegedly tried to revamp the idea of going against the merging with the PPA once again, this time investors and team owners didn’t want anything to do with it.

Owner and CEO, Steve Kuhn, sent an email earlier this week that states the following;

Soon after this email surfaced it became apparent that Steven Kuhn had a plan to fall back on if he did lose the “tour wars”.

Multiple sources suggest Kuhn had no intent of upholding the multimillion-dollar contracts that he had negotiated just weeks prior. Players have also reported that Kuhn went as far as offering team ownership on top of contracts as a negotiation tactic, knowing that if his company (MLP) had to merge with the PPA, he could take cover and resign.

It’s still unknown if, and how, the players who signed with Steve Kuhn and MLP will receive their contracted salaries.