Zane Navratil, a member of the New Jersey 5s, a Top 20 men's doubles player on the PPA Tour and co-host of the award-winning PicklePod podcast (click here to subscribe), reacted to the "leaked" e-mail allegedly written by Collin Johns after this past weekend's Major League Pickleball stop in Salt Lake City.

In case you missed it on Wednesday, an e-mail allegedly sent by Johns to MLP was leaked on social media and Reddit. It addressed many grievances about the MLP experience both he and his brother, Ben, are having this season. From poor lighting, paddle testing, the quality of play and substandard balls, the messaging is pretty blunt and passionate to say the least.

Collin Johns Allegedly Airs Grievances with Major League Pickleball

An e-mail allegedly from Collin Johns directed at Major League Pickleball was leaked on Tuesday, and is it ever full of grievances. We break down his beefs, point by point.

The Dink PickleballErik Tice

Zane felt compelled to respond and share his experiences and perspective on MLP:

I love MLP for a variety of reasons:

• Top players can’t stack the deck against the rest of the field by teaming up with the next best players. The distribution of talented players throughout the league creates more parity. The same can’t be said in individual tournaments where, historically, the No. 1 player teams up with the No. 2 player, the No. 3 player teams up with the No. 4 player, and you end up with the same gold-medal matchups week in and week out. MLP allows top players to further showcase their dominance by playing with people that they wouldn’t normally in a PPA event. I’ll share my stance on progressive tax policy in a different letter. 

• The scoring system ensures that every point matters. I’m entertained by MLP because (most) players are fully engaged for the 20-25 minutes they’re on the court. I don’t disagree that the scoring system could potentially favor underdogs in individual games due to a lesser amount of rallies. According to Real Clear Stats, the team that reaches game point first wins the match 89.4 percent of the time in the current MLP format. In competitive PPA matches, the team that reaches game point first wins only slightly more often – 91.3 percent of the time. If we wanted to optimize for the best team always winning, I suggest playing each game to 100, but as a sports fan, I appreciate the occasional upset. 
• Players not actively playing (should) have an important role in MLP. Pumping up the people on the court, reacting to in-game changes, challenging line calls and referee calls, calling timeouts, and coaching their teammates are all important roles for players on the sidelines. If people on the sidelines don’t have an impact on the game, why do all professional sports teams hire coaches? Additionally, if a top-level player like Ben is truly at the mercy of his weaker teammates, shouldn’t they be unsuccessful in the format? Prior to 2024, Ben had won 50 percent of MLP events that he had participated in and never failed to make a playoff. Winning the championship 50 percent of the time seems like a pretty good record to me, but let's compare it to all-time greats of other sports: Michael Jordan - 40 percent, Lebron James - 19 percent, Tom Brady - 30 percent, Babe Ruth - 32 percent, Wayne Gretzky - 20 percent, Novak Djokovic - 32 percent. A 50 percent win percentage doesn’t look bad for somebody who’s held hostage by bad teammates. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Dink Pickleball (@thedinkpickleball)

• Dreambreakers are electric. Enough said. 
• Who is MLP for? Is it for the players? Is it for the owners? Is it for the fans? At the end of the day, we play pickleball professionally so that viewers will be entertained, and Major League Pickleball is the most entertaining format that pickleball has to offer. Let’s contrast the player that is taunting, staring down, and, heaven forbid even screaming with a player that is completely checked out. Understanding that, at the end of the day, we’re paid to be entertainers, which player is more professional? The quarterfinal jackass giving it 110 percent or the disinterested superstar? There are players and teams that fans will love and there are players and teams that fans will love to hate. When the league finds its identity lines will be drawn, but it would be unbelievably foolish to stifle the passion that makes MLP unique. 

I spend a lot of time pondering things that can be improved in professional pickleball not because I’m ungrateful, but because I’m passionate about making this incredible sport better over the next years and decades. Balls, venues, paddle testing, refereeing, rules, etc. are all legitimate areas for improvement, however a non-fact based attack on the concept of team pickleball as a whole isn’t constructive. 

Prior to becoming a professional pickleball player, I was a CPA working 70 hours per week. I NEVER forget how lucky I am to be able to chase the Vulcan ball around as a profession.

Some people are even lucky enough to make millions doing so.