Pickleball Takes Over the Tennis Channel

The Tennis Channel is diving deeper into the fastest-growing sport in the nation, pickleball.

On Thursday, it was announced by Major League Pickleball that the league’s premier-level tournament semifinals and finals will be broadcasted on the Tennis Channel.

The Tennis Channel is taking advantage of the extreme surge in the popularity of pickleball. According to the CEO of the Tennis Channel, Ken Solomon, the TV network has “big plans.” “We’ve gone from one pickleball event in 2021, we had a pretty full year of coverage in 2022 and that is going to escalate significantly in 2023,” he told CNBC.

Solomon said the network will have no problem transitioning to pickleball as the TV network has “all the infrastructure in place and all the human capital and the people who create the narrative to the engineers.”

Pickleball, which combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong, is believed to help attract new fans to the Tennis Channel due to its fast-paced nature.

Also, according to CNBC, many Major League Pickleball players come from a tennis background. Current and former tennis players including Naomi Osaka, James Blake, Kim Clijsters and more have already invested in professional pickleball.