Pickleball just punched into the major leagues of investing.
The sport's parent firm is Pickleball Inc. It owns Major League Pickleball and the PPA Tour.
The firm raised a record $225 million Friday. The money came from Apollo and a rich NBA owner.
The raise valued the firm at $750 million.
The deal also brings the total funding in the firm to $315 million.
The new money comes from two backers. The first is Apollo Sports Capital, a new sports fund that Apollo just launched.
The second is Dundon Capital Partners, owned by Tom Dundon.
He owns the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers. He also owns the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes.
Dundon was an early backer of the sport at the pro level. So this is doubling down rather than a first move for him.
The raise also rolls Dundon's other pieces of the sport into the firm. They include:
That roll-up creates what the firm calls the largest setup of its kind to date. One owner now sits behind the leagues, the gear store, the event software, and the courts themselves.
The firm's lines pulled in more than $140 million in 2025 sales. On the pro side, the league and the tour made $60 million last year.
About $30 million of that came from sponsors, per the United Pickleball Association.
Leaders are aiming for $74 million in league and tour sales in 2026. The player base behind those numbers is bigger than the league itself.
The sport had more than 24 million U.S. players in 2025, per a top sports trade group.
That makes the sport the fastest growing one in the country for three years running.
The CEO of the league and the tour is Connor Pardoe. He called the new deal a "seismic day" for the sport.
Pardoe said the deal pulls pro play, gear, tech, and media into one place.
Backers say emerging sports are now a clear place to park money. Apollo and Dundon are not just buying a paddle firm.
They are buying the whole system behind what could be the next big sport on U.S. TV.
The firm plans to put the new money into content, media, and event hubs. League head Samin Odhwani said the sport is "no longer an emerging sport" and is "quickly becoming the next tier one sport in America."
The next leg of growth is media rights. Tier-one sports in the U.S. (the NFL, NBA, MLB) all built their value on TV deals.
Dundon and the Pardoe family will stay as the main owners after the new money lands.
The firm is now set up to chase a TV deal of its own at the next level. The next big leg of the bet is whether one of the major TV networks bites.
