-ANNOUNCER: Last time on "I Heart Pickleball" we met 5.0 player Jack Munro. This time,
we travel to Florida to discover how one community is working together to put
Naples on the map as the Pickleball Capital of the World.
[upbeat music]
[music fades] -ANNOUNCER: "I Heart Pickleball" is powered by Hyland's
Leg Cramps. Proud supporter of pickleball players everywhere.
-CHRIS: I'm Chris Evon. -TERRI: And I'm Terri Graham, and we're the co-founders of the Minto US Open
Pickleball Championships. -CHRIS: And we're right here in Naples, FL. I think Naples is
the Pickleball Capital of the world 1) because of this world class event. But 2) because there's thousands of
pickleball players that are here. There is nothing like the energy you get when you come
into this park and everything starts humming throughout the day. -TERRI: We've worked in
sporting goods a long time, and we've gone to a lot of different US Opens for
those sports. The enthusiasm here is like nothing else.
Four years ago I was working for Wilson Sporting Goods, and I was running around the country
doing product presentations at Dick Sporting Goods, Sports Chalet,
Sports Authority. And everybody was asking me, "When are you going to do pickleball?" And I'm like, "Pickleball?
What the heck is pickleball?" I was intrigued by the sport of pickleball from
a playing standpoint and really from a business standpoint. -CHRIS: So,
she started looking into pickleball and producing a product for it. And then
she went to the Nationals in Arizona and had this brainstorm that
pickleball could use a really big event. -TERRI: My mind's going crazy, you know.
And get on the laptop and I just type in "US Open Pickleball Championships"
to see if there was a trademark available on it. And it was. So that's when I called
Chris and said, "Hey! I've got this brainstorm idea. What do you think if we do the
US Open Pickleball Championships?" -CHRIS: So, over the course of the next couple weeks,
we talked about it and we thought, yeah, you know, maybe this could be something good. -TERRI: And,
we started thinking where are we going to do this event? My first thought
was someplace out west. And then the more we talked about it, we thought
The Villages may be a good place to do it. You know, a lot of pickleball at The Villages.
So, we went down and we did a presentation. We did a whole business plan of why we should do it there,
and it just didn't work out. So, then we came down here and we had a meeting with
Collier County a couple of days later. And we were down in Marco
Island and some people down there said, "If you want to know pickleball, go up to Naples." So, we
walked in here. And I turned to Chris and I said, "This could work." And then we met
Jim Ludwig. -JIM: I'm a local boy down here in Naples. I'm sort of called the
Pickleball Guy down here in Naples. About 3 1/2 years ago we had about 48 people
playing pickleball. Courts were filled up. You were sitting waiting for 20-25 minutes.
And I realized how fast the sport was growing. So what I decided to do
is approach the county and convince them that we needed a couple of more courts.
It took me about 8 months to get them to finally approve
to get 4 courts. And then, along came Terri and Chris. They were walking
by and said that they were interested in running the US Open Pickleball Championships.
Which actually multiplied the factor that we needed more courts because
we all decided that the US Open needed to be here. -TERRI: So we end up going
to the Collier County Visitor's Bureau, and we had a big power point presentation
of why they should bring the US Open here. And in walks this man.
And he says, "Hi, I'm Jack Wert. I'm the executive director of the CVB, and I kick her
under the table and I thought, "All right! We've got some attention here now!"
-JACK: Well, originally I had heard about pickleball, and I really didn't know what it was.
Our Parks and Rec folks started talking about it a couple of years
ago. -TERRI: So, he sits down and he says, "You know, I'm not staying." And he stayed the whole meeting!
And he listened to the whole presentation. And we knew then that we had something.
And he asked a lot of really good questions, a lot of really good business
questions that related back to tourism. How this was going
to effect his tourism. -JACK: We are looking for ways to grow sports
tourism here in the community and I thought, well, this might be a
great opportunity for us to really get in kind of on the ground floor
of what sounds like a real growing sport. We said,
"We're going to take a chance here. We're going to take some risk." -TERRI: And we got
the contract 48 hours later. -JACK: The challenges that
we faced in the first year were convincing people
in leadership that this was a great idea. Our next stop
after talking to Chris and Terri and Jim was we took
it to the County Commission. -DONNA: My name is Donna Fiala, and you know, there was a day that
some people called and asked if they could come into my office. They said they had this great idea
about pickleball. What the heck was a pickleball? They said,
"Why don't you come down and watch?" So, I went down to the park, and there were about 100
people playing down there. So, I thought it was fascinating. And they were talking about
having some tournaments here. And I said, "Fine. You know, we're going to
assist you in any way we can." And then they said, "What we need is
a sponsor." -CHRIS: And Terri goes up to Donna, and we're standing and talking, and she goes, "Do you have any
contacts with a sponsor that does housing developments?" She goes, "Yeah, I know
the VP of Minto. So, she gets out her phone. She calls
Bill Bullock at Minto, and she says, "He's interested. He wants to meet with you guys in the morning."
And we go home, and we put a power point together, and we get back here
at the park at like 10 in the morning. And Bill comes over, we do our presentation.
And really within about a couple hours, he was on
board. -TERRI: So, with our sponsorship with Minto, they're building a housing
community which is literally right next door. I could throw a rock and hit a house over
there. And the first year that we did this event, they sold four houses that
weekend. And it's just skyrocketed since then. Chris had a contact at Zing Zang
because they're based out of Chicago. We went to present to the founder
of Zing Zang Bloody Mary Mix. He took a gamble on us. He took a gamble on us
because of Chris's relationship with him. So, we ended up calling this court the Zing Zang
Championship Court. What better name for a Championship Court? -JACK: So, the next
discussion was, so what do we need to do to really get ready? If we grow this,
we need more courts. We went back to Terri and Chris and talked about that.
They reached out to the pickleball community, and virtually every
one was unanimous. We want to play right in
one location. We want to be able to walk around and see our friends playing
and so forth. We don't want to have to get in the car and go somewhere else. Well, that discussion
really convinced us. Let's just make East Naples Community Park
the best for pickleball. Play, rec play,
championships, tournaments, whatever it might be, they're going to be
number one. -BARRY: Collier County Parks and Rec, we have 74 parks, and this is one of our older parks.
It was built in the late 80's. So, what we've done is re-purposed
some of our recreational amenities for pickleball. And what has grown is into something
fabulous. And it's good for the tourists, but it's also good for the locals. We have a lot of local play here. It's been
great. -CHRIS: One of the things we discussed early on is wherever we go, especially in a park
like this, is we want to leave it better than we found it. The Minto pod over
there used to be an old skateboard park. Our vision as soon as we saw it was like,
"Hmmm. This would make some really good pickleball courts." But everybody said you'll never get
that. You'll never get the county to change this into pickleball courts. So, we kind of
let it go. So, we go to lunch one day with a couple of county people and Donna,
and we're all just sitting and talking about what our vision was. And all of a sudden
Donna says, "You know? Maybe we should change that skateboard park,
take it out, put it in another park, and change it to pickleball courts. So, again,
we're kicking each other under the table going, "What just happened here? You know?"
-JACK: The changes in East Naples Community Park was a
truly a partnership between Parks and Recreation and
Sports Tourism. -JIM: It really has become a wonderful relationship
because they see the value that we bring to the county, but we need them to be
successful. -CHRIS: The challenge was really just the unknown. Is this going to take
off? Could we make this work? Could we make it profitable? Are the players going to back us up?
We started traveling around so that we could meet players. I went up to Wisconsin
and I met Dave Weinbach. And Dave's a great guy and I liked him right away. But his first
thing was, "I'm not coming unless the west coast people come." And I said,
"But, Dave, there's going to be prize money, and it's going to be the biggest tournament." He said, "I don't
care." He said, "You're never going to get the west coast people." -TERRI: But once we started marketing it
down here and really throughout the country, you could just see the
excitement build, the enthusiasm. And we started getting emails about
it. And then it was on Facebook. And it just got bigger and bigger.
-STEPHANIE: Well, I'm excited to actually have all the great players come to my side of the United
States. -YVONNE: Yeah, there's a lot of buzz about it. It's going to be a historic event.
-MATT: And I'm pumped because it's the first big one on the east coast. -KYLE: Rusty, I wouldn't miss it for the world. It's going to be great.
-TERRI: We had a three year business plan on it. We were thinking, you know, maybe 500, 700
and 900 people. Well, the first year we had over 800 people play in it.
-CHRIS: The person who had the biggest smile on his face the whole tournament was Dave Weinbach.
-RUSTY: You guys, how are you feeling? -DAVE: Unbelievable!
-JACK: Pickleball turned out to be a true home run. It
brought so many people immediately the first year. -DONNA: Who would ever think that
837 people would sign up to play in a very first
ever tournament. My goodness, it was wonderful, from all over the US.
I think there were 37 states at the time and
I think it was 8 countries coming in to play pickleball.
-JACK: Right after the first year, Terri and Chris came back and said, "There's our vision for
year 2." -TERRI: County came to us and projected that we build a shade structure.
And then Jim ended up with his vision working very, very closely
with the County to put this up. -DONNA: We talked to our tourist development people and
said, "We have this shade structure. We have a picture of it. Rather expensive though."
And they said, "It brought us so much business this year,
we'll pay for it." -TERRI: But it ended up being a little bit over budget.
So, we ended up going to our sponsor Minto and asked them, "Hey, we
would like to do a little bit. Would you do a little bit so we can get this beautiful shade structure?"
And Minto said, in a heartbeat, we'll jump on board with you. So they ended up,
with our help, building this shade structure and naming it the Minto US Open
Pickleball Championships Arena. I can't think of any other
place in the country that has this many pickleball courts, all Deco-turf, with
this many people playing on a daily basis. Every morning there's a few hundred people
playing. You have to wait for courts here to play even though there's 40 courts right
here. They want to come and play at the US Open. So it's a really big deal
now. It isn't just a 7-day event. -CHRIS: And now what's happening is we've created the US Open
Pickleball Academy. So, we have the best instructor in the world, Simone Jardim, who
teaches here constantly year-round. And she teaches lessons.
They do leagues. They do destination camps. -BARRY: Naples is known for a lot of things.
The wonderful restaurants, the beautiful weather, our beautiful beaches. But to be
known as the place where the best pickleball in the world is played is just
the greatest feeling in the world. -JIM: Pickleball has benefited not only the county but the local
residents, the visitors and the tourists that come in town. Tourists can come into this park any day
of the week and get into a game of their level, their skill level, and enjoy it.
-CHRIS: Four years ago, I really knew very little about pickleball. And now,
I feel like I'm enmeshed in the sport. I really enjoy it. It's something that's not only giving me
a career, but it's giving me a lot of new friends and a lot of new opportunities.
-TERRI: I get so much satisfaction walking around this venue, and this is a lot of
work. But walking around and having players say, "This is the best thing that happened
to them." Or having the Pros come up and say, "Thank you for doing this event." It is so
cool to look at these players and see them smiling ear to ear.
It's very rewarding what's going on in the sport of pickleball now. We often think
what's the future of the Minto US Open Pickleball Championships? And
Chris and I were sitting in the bleachers the other day just kind of looking around, and I said, "We can't
stop this now. We have a responsibility to the history of the sport to keep this
going." And we went into this thinking 5 years. But when I sit here
today and I look at people like Kyle Yates and Simone Jardim playing on
this court as well as all the other athletes, we have a commitment
now to the sport and to the players of the sport to keep this
event going, and to take care of the name US Open.
-JACK: And it really has now become, not just one
event, but multiple events leading up to the US Open Championship.
And now the year-round academy bringing people literally from all over the
world to learn about this sport, has put real
credence to the fact that we are the Pickleball Capital of the World.
[music fades] -ANNOUNCER: No matter where you are,
pickleball can bring us together to celebrate community, learn new things, and
have fun! If you know someone we should feature on a future episode, we would love
to hear from you. All you have to do is send us an email and tell us your idea.
This episode of "I Heart Pickleball" has been brought to you by Hyland's
Leg Cramps, America's #1 over-the-counter leg cramp medicine. For more
information, go to hylands.com.
[upbeat music]
[music fades]