Pickleball’s meteoric rise has caught the eye of some serious money, and none more so than billionaire Tom Dundon. Best known as the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA and the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL, Dundon has doubled down on his pickleball ambitions. Having first invested in Connor Pardoe’s Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Tour back in 2022, he has now folded those assets into Pickleball Inc.—a holding company spanning retail, media, court construction, and professional leagues.
The latest move? Leading Apollo Sports Capital to raise a staggering $225 million, pushing Pickleball Inc.’s valuation to around $750 million. Dundon, worth an estimated $2.3 billion, is betting that pickleball’s accessibility and fun factor will continue to fuel its global boom.
“It seemed a pretty good bet that pickleball would grow because it’s easy to do, it’s fun, it’s easy to learn,” he told Sports Business Journal. With 25 million players picking up paddles in the past five years, the numbers suggest he’s right.
The Implications
What makes this investment particularly intriguing is Dundon’s reputation. He once made headlines for implementing cost-cutting measures with his teams, famously scrutinising budgets and operations to squeeze out efficiency. This most prominently happened with the Portland Trail Blazers, whose playoff appearance just this season was overshadowed by Dundon’s belt-tightening measures. That same mindset now enters pickleball, a sport still in its adolescence as a commercial enterprise.
The implications are twofold. On one hand, Dundon’s involvement could professionalise pickleball further, creating sustainable careers for athletes and building a robust ecosystem around the sport. On the other, his history of financial discipline raises questions about how lean and profit-driven pickleball’s future might become. Will the sport’s grassroots charm survive the corporate polish? Or will Dundon’s sharp eye for efficiency ensure pickleball avoids the pitfalls of bloated spending that have plagued other emerging sports?
Either way, pickleball has secured a heavyweight backer with a proven track record in sports ownership. The ne
