Naomi Osaka And Patrick Mahomes Join Wave Of Celebrities Investing In Pickleball

Following in the footsteps of NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant, tennis ace Naomi Osaka and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes are investing in a new Major League Pickleball team in a deal expected to be announced Thursday, a person with knowledge of the agreement tells Forbes.

The size of their investments and the valuation of the team could not immediately be determined, but the league’s expansion fee in other recent deals has been between $1 million and $3 million, the person tells Forbes.

The new team—whose ownership group is also said to include Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios, NBA super-agent Rich Paul, billionaire tech founder Soichiro Minami and Matthew Pritzker, a member of the billionaire Pritzker family—will be based in Miami and begin play next year. Major League Pickleball, which had eight teams for its inaugural 2021 season and grew to 12 in 2022, is set to add another 12 franchises in 2023 as the sport rapidly spreads.

Celebrity investors have poured into the league over the last several months, seizing on an opportunity to jump into sports ownership at a much more affordable price than the billions it can take in the major pro leagues. Former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees bought in in July, and NBA players Draymond Green and Kevin Love joined James in his September investment. Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady followed in October, the same month as Durant.

Mahomes, who makes an estimated $22 million off the field annually, has already stepped into sports ownership, picking up a stake in MLS’s Sporting Kansas City in July 2021. Osaka, meanwhile, invested in the National Women’s Soccer League’s North Carolina Courage in January 2021, part of an impressive portfolio that includes stakes in NFT juggernaut Autograph, plant-based-chicken brand Daring Foods, recovery-device maker Hyperice and sports virtual-reality company StatusPro. She also launched skin-care line Kinlò in 2021 and production company Hana Kuma in June and left IMG to start her own talent agency, Evolve, with longtime agent Stuart Duguid in May.

Osaka has ranked as the world’s highest-paid female athlete for three straight years, with an estimated $59.2 million in pretax earnings over the 12 months ending in May, which landed her at No. 19 on Forbes’ 2022 list of the world’s highest-paid athletes (regardless of gender). Of that total, $58 million came off the tennis court.

Pickleball, a sport that is often described as a combination of tennis, badminton and Ping-Pong, was invented in 1965 and gained a following among older adults because it requires only short bursts of running. But it has attracted a much larger fan base in recent years, with a Sports & Fitness Industry Association report counting 4.8 million pickleball players in the U.S. in 2021—half of them under 35. The trade group has called it the fastest-growing sport in the country.

Major League Pickleball, founded by hedge-fund titan Steve Kuhn, has been one of three pickleball leagues competing for players, events and dollars, alongside the Professional Pickleball Association and the Association of Pickleball Professionals. The PPA, purchased by Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon in January, appeared set to take on MLP head-on when it said in November that it was launching the VIBE Pickleball League, shifting from the PPA’s traditional individual focus to the co-ed team format favored by MLP. But just a week later, MLP and the PPA announced that they were merging under the Major League Pickleball name, bringing some clarity to the “wild west” landscape.

MLP has said it will double its number of tournaments next year, to six, with more than $2 million in prize money on offer across the season, although an Axios report Tuesday suggested that figure could rise to $5 million. Axios also reported that the league’s draft would air Thursday on the Tennis Channel, after the finals of its three 2022 tournaments were shown on CBS Sports Network.