One of the biggest names in all of tennis continues to support pickleball.
Naomi Osaka, a professional tennis player who has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association and co-owner of The Miami Pickleball Club (a Challenger-level Major League Pickleball team), has launched a new business venture called Pro Pickleball Management (PPM), according to the Sports Business Journal.
PPM has already signed top pickleball talent
Through her boutique talent agency, Evolve, PPM has already signed five top-tier professional pickleball players: Anna Bright, Federico Staksrud, Hurricane Tyra Black, James Ignatowich, and Rachel Rohrabacher.
Notably, Staksrud and Black played for The Miami Pickleball Club last year, and each of the five athletes ranks within the top 14 of their respective gender’s PPA Tour doubles rankings.
According to Jamie Duguid, who is heading up this new venture, this aligns with PPM’s goal "to work with players at the top of pickleball."
Duguid is a former executive with MLS, 160over90, and IMG. He has been involved with Evolve since early 2023 and has been managing the Miami Pickleball Club for the past two seasons.
“We [Evolve] see an opportunity to change what we’re doing and add to our existing businesses,” Duguid said. “Our intention with this is to represent a small number of players and do a really focused and good job for them.”
Evolve focuses on quality over quantity
For anyone who remembers the 1996 film, Jerry Maguire, you probably understand their approach of doing a great job for a few clients instead of an okay one for a mass of them.
PPM's approach will be similar to Evolve’s strategy in tennis, where the agency represents just three clients: Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios, and Anna Kalinskaya. The agency sees significant potential in pickleball due to its increasing popularity at the amateur level and growing commercial interest at the professional level.
"From a commercial standpoint – in the short few months we’ve been involved on the player side, but also we saw evidence on the team side – there’s appetite for brands to partner with players and teams and tournaments," Duguid explained. "There’s an opportunity for brands [in that] it’s still fairly early. If you’re getting in now, it’s not going to break your bank, and you’re going to get really good partners out of this."
PPM’s strategy for athlete-brand deals will be highly individualized, focusing on quality over quantity.
The goal is stronger pickleball partnerships
"If you look at [Osaka] as a case study, five or six years ago, she had a number of brand partners – and actually that network of partners has probably shrunk in that time. She’s been able to go deeper in terms of the partners and investments that she feels really passionate about," Duguid noted.
"I’m not saying the pickleball players we signed are at that level or are able to do quite something like that at this point. But individually looking at each player and being very tailored about the brands that we’re approaching is exactly what we want to do."
Jason Flamm
Although Evolve is headquartered in Los Angeles, Duguid described it as a "pretty much fully remote business." Based in Atlanta, Duguid revealed that Evolve directly employs nearly 10 people and collaborates with close to 20 others, including those from Osaka’s production company, Hana Kuma.
While Evolve will continue to manage The Miami Pickleball Club’s commercial rights, Duguid indicated that he would likely step back from his role with the team. The details of a succession plan are yet to be determined.
