Major League Pickleball is taking over the NYSE to kick off the week in New York. Filmmaker, Chris Olson (@thepickleballstudio) is a go to source for paddle knowledge and puts out some of the best content in pickleball. He joins the pod for some good old fashioned paddle talk and we cover how to create the perfect pickleball documentary.
Like the ep? Do us a favor: subscribe to our channel and leave a review on Apple
-Subscribe to our 'all things pickleball' *free e-newsletter* at thedinkpickleball.com/signup
-Follow us on IG *@thedinkpickleball*
-Continue the convo in our private FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedi...
-For everything else we do, visit https://linktr.ee/dinkfam
GET THE NEW BEN JOHNS HYPERION PADDLE AT FROMUTH PICKLEBALL. If you snag anything else before you checkout, get 10% off with 10DINK (exclusions apply).
*Show notes*
(5:15) Chris Olson jumps in the mix
(7:40) Almost got an Oscar for “Speedcubers” documentary
(16:30) Let’s get into some paddle talk
(23:13) Decrease paddle regulations or increase quality control?
(33:09) MLP to ring the opening bell for NYSE
(38:40) PPA Tour’s new testing policy
(42:12) PicklePod gets into the paddle testing business
(51:34) Do you prefer the Championship Sunday format for tournaments?
(54:12) How data science will change the game as we know it
Transcript
Tyson 0:00
Um, look up. I am.
Thomas 0:05
We're live.
Tyson 0:06
Oh, we are live. Oh, you got me again. Dude, you came back from a break and then just turned it on, Kyle. Well, I mean, I have intros on all my other podcasts.
Thomas 0:18
Yeah. So as your other products, some of
Tyson 0:21
them have music, like, professionally recorded music by the guy who writes the music for Rick and Morty. And then another one is just me coming in and being like, welcome everybody.
Thomas 0:35
We put music in afterwards, like post production. So yeah, music.
Tyson 0:39
No, I hear the music. I've listened to the podcast, but then it's a scar with the cord like, Hey, we're here. So I haven't.
Thomas 0:48
I haven't listened to one of our own episodes. And I don't even remember the last time I listened. Oh, go ahead. I was gonna say I listened to the Gary Vee. Because I wanted to make sure that we could put it out there.
Tyson 1:03
I listened to last week's and my audio was really bad. And I think it was on my end. I think for some reason. My mic wasn't picking up. It was just the computer. So now made sure and made sure that it's the mic. That is the correct mic this time.
Thomas 1:20
Last week was kind of a mess of an episode to be honest, but
Tyson 1:24
all time low.
Thomas 1:27
Rock quality, quality wise, disorganization wise. Yes.
Tyson 1:35
We've got great news for everybody.
Thomas 1:37
We have a yes, we do. We have a few pieces of news. But yes, go.
Tyson 1:43
But our own personal news. Yeah. Thomas shields who you know, as my co host here on pickle pod. Yes. And myself. We'll be covering the Major League pickleball draft live in New York next Saturday.
Thomas 2:06
That's right. So you've you've been a paid, you know, TV personality? For four years? Yes. Over a decade. Yep. I, on the other hand, have never officially been compensated for any sort of on air appearance or any sort of like,
Tyson 2:24
hold up. You're getting paid.
Thomas 2:27
That's right. That's right. It's
Tyson 2:29
if turned.
Thomas 2:31
So I'm a professional, would commentator commentator that's the answer.
Tyson 2:35
If so then that's not the only bit of news. Then the next exactly the next week, we go to Austin, where Thomas shields is currently already located. Dreamland, and we will be commentating the Major League pickleball event. So Right. We will be breaking down the draft for you all day, Saturday or all evening, Saturday live as it happens. And then the very next week, we'll be on live again, Major League pickleball in dreamland outside of Austin, breaking down all of the gameplay and is going to be exciting.
Thomas 3:10
It is going to be exciting. I'm pumped. I'm thinking about whether or not I should adopt one of those like announcer voices or just like,
Tyson 3:16
let's hear it.
Thomas 3:18
Coming to you live from New York City.
Tyson 3:20
No, that doesn't sound real, bro.
Thomas 3:23
What about like the newscaster stuff? You know, we're like, where it's like, and we're live from New York City where, you know, it's like these, like abrupt.
Tyson 3:36
We were chosen because we're awesome. A but also for who we already are. So why would you deviate from that?
Thomas 3:45
True? True? All right, I see Chris in the studio. So we're gonna have Chris Olson on K pickleball. Studio. Yeah, I would say that he's probably the best content creator in pickleball. And I'm putting him above like us. I'm putting him above Ouch, the dank. I'm putting him above you in terms of the quality of
Tyson 4:06
quality. Yeah, my production quality is not the greatest, but I'm also 42 years old. So come on.
Thomas 4:13
Yeah, that's true. I should mine should be mine should just be better. But you're
Tyson 4:17
sure yours is better. But mine is where it should be because I'm 42 years old.
Thomas 4:24
I see him in the I see him in the waiting room. But we're going to wait to bring him in. So Chris, I see you. There when you're making your headphones. You're just we have just a little bit more news. Okay. Actually, we can. We'll talk about this. Let's bring Chris in. I really want to get his take on the whole panel controversy thing. I want to get his take on paddle innovation generally, and then a host of other things. But without further ado,
Tyson 4:55
do you want to get his take on us? Commentator Hang on the major league pickleball draft and Major League pickleball.
Thomas 5:04
Yeah, that's really important to be okay, good. Okay. All right. Without further ado, we got Chris Olson. Let's bring them in.
Chris 5:12
Hey, how's it going?
Tyson 5:13
Oh, Chris, look at our pro. You look, look at that bat. I found everything's going on.
Chris 5:18
You gotta make the camera look good for the stream.
Tyson 5:20
Where are you?
Chris 5:21
I said my office. You have an office? Yeah, well, like I'm from home, but it's just my home office or whatever. It was a small little box.
Tyson 5:31
Cool. Welcome.
Chris 5:33
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
Tyson 5:35
Thanks for being here. You are a content creator. You have a YouTube channel. You broke down. You do a lot of product review style stuff, right?
Chris 5:45
Yep. Yeah, mostly paddles right now. But I think it'll, it'll branch out as time goes. Do you have a favorite paddle? Yeah, right now it's the bend John's Hyperion CFS. Before that it was the model II. That was also really good. But yeah, that the bend John's has been really good.
Tyson 6:03
Okay, the new Ben John's from the new company. Correct? Correct. que yo la del tiempo la, the one. I was going to take a swing at it, but I probably was gonna mispronounce it. So I just like left, let it be and figured people would figure it out.
Chris 6:17
I was so shocked when that news came out. I especially because my brothers played table tennis. And they always said Jhula I'm like, I heard I heard y'all. And I was like, what? This can't be right. And then obviously it was but so every time I say it, I have to like think for a second and see if I have it right.
Tyson 6:34
Is it though? Have we had a representative from the company? Yeah. If
Chris 6:38
they made like a video that's like, here's how you pronounce it with Ben.
Tyson 6:42
Oh, okay. I missed that while I was working at CNN plus. Okay, cool. So that's your favorite paddle? Yeah. And Thomas said your content is far superior to anybody else's in the game. You agree or disagree?
Chris 6:59
I do think it's really good. But I guess it really just depends what you measure it on. I think you'd be measuring it purely based on like, camera skills and like production quality. That's probably true. But I think we have like, tons of people who are super entertaining. Like, obviously, che is really good. Pickup ball well, and there's like a number of other content creators that make like, really good content, but the quality still needs to go up a little bit.
Tyson 7:26
But you're a pro. You're a pro at this. This is what you do by trade. Yeah.
Chris 7:30
I've been doing filmmaking for like 10 years now. Okay.
Tyson 7:33
And your most notable project is the Rubik's Cube documentary on Netflix. Yeah, the speed cubers speed cubers. I watched that as it came out. I was yes, of course. I
Chris 7:44
did. Oh, that's great. That's awesome.
Tyson 7:47
I loved it. I love little quirky, like niche documentaries like that, where people are super passionate about this thing that nobody else fully understands. Even their parents are like, we don't fully get it. But we're supporting these guys. Right. Let's
Chris 8:01
finally when we made that, like, we were pretty confident we have like a good story. What like, Okay, we we knew we had a good story on our hands. But it was one of those things where we're like, maybe this doesn't catch it. Like it just falls into the Netflix abyss. But like Netflix had a meeting with us, I think the week after, and they were like, this is like one of the best in like a seven day period that we've had, like, come out. So they were like, super pumped about it. We almost almost got an Oscar for it. We're in the top 10 Like nominees and then we we didn't make the top five, which was a bummer. But casual. Yeah. It's so funny, because like, I feel like, uh, I mean, I am just like a super regular guy. So like, anytime I talk about this, it doesn't feel like a big thing. I think like five years ago, if someone told me like, oh, you would have done this, I would have been like, Oh, I must have made it. I must be like, rich and like super cool or something. But I'm like, my wife really grounds me. She's like, you're still just a regular guy don't want to get to your head.
Tyson 8:58
What does she do tell you your net worth? Or how is she grounding? You know, she's
Chris 9:01
just like, you are very much like a normal guy.
Tyson 9:07
So now that you've gotten that close to winning an award, yeah. Do you think that magic can be recreated? Are you like, in your mind? Like, I can do that, again. It's just a matter of time till I find the next cool thing. It would
Chris 9:21
it would need to be like a really, really compelling story because I think that that's really what helped the speed. cubers is like the, the story was like super, super compelling and like had, you know, just brought a lot of emotions up. So I think that's number one. And you just need a really, really good team. Like I I would never attempt that type of project on my own. Okay, I hope eventually to do like, this is like way, way in the future. Who knows that this ever actually happens, but I think it'd be super cool for one to exist for pickleball like, I think it's only it's only bound to happen that some pickleball documentary ends up on Netflix sometime in the future
Thomas 9:55
people Yeah, I mean, there's many there's been many winning ideas circulating it Well, I mean, like, and I've sat down for interviews in these things, but I never. You never hear any. You never hear any, like, follow up. And then it's sort of just like, you know, so who knows? I mean, yeah, it could be any week where like, some documentary pops up and we're like, oh, shit, like, there were people at major league pickleball. One group. There will be a group at this upcoming major league pick a different one. Okay. There was groups at where was that? The Phoenix Desert Ridge this year, Randall Emmett?
Chris 10:36
I, like they're all working on documentaries. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yes, it's a race to see who gets it.
Tyson 10:43
I know, for different parties. Currently, I'm aware of four different parties trying to make pickleball documentaries. But if they all cover different topics, and you know, it's good for the game, right. And that's
Chris 10:53
what they focus on. I'm sure some of them are like, generally more broad on the sport than maybe some niche on the players. But I'd be curious to see which ones succeed the best.
Thomas 11:03
Yeah, but I feel like I think the way to win at that is, you almost need to attach yourself to one individual personality. Yeah. And build out there singular story. Yep. Oh, to really get an audience make
Tyson 11:15
our own and Thomas, you're here, given all these great ideas to these Hollywood elites that are now going to take it and run and you're going to wish I don't know
Chris 11:23
what people to pick. That's the problem. I mean, it's not always the obvious choice. It's not always obvious choice.
Tyson 11:29
That's true. Christians know which people to pick,
Chris 11:32
I don't yet I really would like to get closer to some of the pros and kind of learn some of their stories. I'm sure there are a lot of people in the sport that like know, some of these backgrounds, quite well. But I think, you know, like, obviously, everyone would default to like Ben. And I think I think I'm sure Ben would be interesting. But there's someone a little smaller, like climbing up the ranks, like grinding super hard, they have some crazy growing up background, and like how they even got to where they are is crazy. Like, that would probably generally be a more compelling story than like, Oh, hey, this guy wins everything all the time. Like you can't beat him.
Tyson 12:08
Yeah, that's true. Nobody, nobody likes a winner.
Chris 12:13
Well, there might, but maybe just not as much as
Thomas 12:18
I like I like both. What about a documentary, and this is, you know, this is why I'm going to be up for an Oscar eventually, at some point, let's hear what about a documentary where it's like, you pick two players, and they serve as a foil to each other. Because I would say that the backgrounds are so diverse, that Jeremy could pick one of these, one of these, one of these players who is grinding their way up, and maybe comes from like, the country club, tennis background, you know, has always sort of had everything handed to them. And then on the on the flip side, it's somebody like grinding from the ground up, and they're both competing for this country. And
Chris 12:57
it's, and those are super compelling. Like that type of story is actually very compelling. Because you just have such contrasting two personalities. Like I often find that stories that focus on two people and have like, good contrast is better than just one person.
Thomas 13:12
What about Tyson?
Tyson 13:14
It does. It sounds really good. It does sound really good.
Chris 13:18
Thomas do it.
Tyson 13:19
No, I'm stealing that idea. Here's the other What about this, Chris? Then John's winning everything? Then you got this guy grind? And all the way from the ground? A guy named the guy? I don't know, because it has to fit this guy. That's everything he has. He's built himself. No help from anybody. All the way up. And then you pit them against each other in a match to the death.
Chris 13:47
match to the death. It'd be pretty intense.
Tyson 13:48
Yeah, see?
Chris 13:52
Netflix would like the gore. But I mean, maybe for everything. That's not
Thomas 13:55
fair. You can't just you can't just add in the element of fight to the death. This is a pickleball documentary, you got to stay within the bounds here.
Tyson 14:02
Well, obviously, it builds to the point where they both face off in the Gold Medal Match somewhere. Yes, against each other. That's what you want.
Chris 14:12
Man that kids. We with our documentary, we were like, fairly lucky in that both the people we followed were like essentially the two best in the world. And we were like, quite well, we knew for sure they would make the final it would be like Ben John's not making it like a semi final or something. But I imagined in pickleball, you'd have to follow people for so long, hoping for that eventual matchup if it's someone grinding up the ladder, which, of course, like eats into budget and all sorts of other things, but
Tyson 14:42
Well, you could stage it.
Chris 14:44
I suppose you could do that. But I don't know how much the people would like that.
Thomas 14:49
I liked that. You're willing to get a little you know, bend the rules here at Tyson. You're willing to do what it takes to to be successful. So I'll be the one to do it. I'll be the vision guy. You'd be the grit guy. As your you're on the one who's and I think will be, I think will be Oscar worthy here and you heard
Tyson 15:06
it here first we're making a documentary s3 as a team. Here we go. Okay.
Chris 15:12
I hope Thomas has got budget.
Tyson 15:16
He does. I've seen it. I've seen that pickleball court
Chris 15:22
he plays a couple more sponsored ads here in the podcast.
Thomas 15:25
Yeah, If only that were making.
Tyson 15:29
Have you heard of relight? Chris, have not?
Thomas 15:33
Tell, hey, tell them about it. Tell me
Tyson 15:35
real light is a electrolyte beverage drink drink mix, has 10 times more sodium and electrolytes than other leading brands in the industry. And that, that is the amount that your body generally sweats out in an hour. All right, so you're replenishing everything you're sweating out. And for me, personally, it's honestly the only thing that's ever kept cramps at bay, ice, like I feel a difference with muscle cramps and this product. So friends with the pod if you use pickleball, at checkout on relights website, you get 15% off. And yeah, it's the only thing that I drink that I noticed a difference with good stuff. So there you go. That's one. Yep.
Thomas 16:20
Chris, those are good. Those are good reactions there. We're pretty sure.
Tyson 16:24
Thank you, Chris. Not even rehearsed. No, not at all.
Thomas 16:28
Really curious. Let's paddle talk. Yeah, yeah. So Chris, I just kind of want to ask more of like, an open ended maybe like thought, or maybe just like make a statement. But sure. I think there's there's a lot of different angles to come at this. But essentially, what's happening is these paddle companies keep trying to innovate and push the bounds and make better paddles, but now they're coming up against the rules and regulations. What's just kind of like, your general thoughts on all of this, you were the one who put together that video of like actually testing the RPMs across, I don't know, 20 Something paddles and comparing them. And now we're seeing that, you know, the one that one is actually illegal, right? And that with that decision, by the way, was was withheld recently by USA pickleball. So all those carbons, they're not going to be reinstated. What are just like your general thoughts on on all this, this controversy and, and paddle innovation? Generally? Yeah, it's
Chris 17:27
super interesting, because I think the I've so I've done, I've probably tested like 50 Plus paddles at this point, like, every time I get a new one, I go out and test it. Like, I'll play with it. And then I'll run it through the test. And generally, I'll have a couple other people do it as well just like, just to see if there's like any anomaly like was I noticeably higher. And most of the time, the results are like really consistent. But what I find very fascinating about this whole carbon thing right now, and super funny in REC play is like, I don't know if you guys have experienced this yet in areas, but some areas people are like actually mad at people using carbons and like rec plan. And I'm like, Dude, it's like, they're like, Oh, you shouldn't be using an illegal paddle. And you know, they're bent out of shape that it gets so much spin. And I'm like, I can list like six other paddles that rank higher than the carbon and some that are like, like a whole tear above carbon. And they don't complain about those, even when I tested in original carbon recently from November, and then one of the supposedly illegal ones with the all caps letters. They were like, almost identical in terms of spin. And maybe like mine wasn't, I didn't have the little meter to actually test if it was over or whatnot. But they were essentially identical. Same numbers is like the first time I tested it. So it was like it's funny to me that people are getting so bent out of shape out of this when there's paddles that do even even more spin.
Tyson 18:52
I had the opposite experience where a guy I play with as soon as he saw the news drop about the carbon paddle he went out and bought one assuming you wouldn't be able to buy these illegal paddles in the near future.
Chris 19:05
Like now he plays with people to do that too. Which I thought was super funny. Yeah,
Tyson 19:09
so now we've got these guys playing their illegal paddles against us in REC play, but doesn't bother me.
Chris 19:17
Yeah, it's one of them. Another thing too I tell people is I'm like, in less your four or 55050 Plus Like honestly, even four or five to five oh, it probably really doesn't matter. You're probably not even able to use well. Okay, let me rephrase, four or five and below are almost certainly not able to use that paddle to a point where it's like, abusing people purely on the notion of spin so I I think that's just silly that people get so upset about it. I think it's just one of those like, I heard it was banned. So you must have some advantage over me that others don't. But like as far as the paddle innovation in general. I think it's really good that companies are pushing it like some are pushing like doing things that are kind of gimmicky, other ones are like you doing things that are like actually benefiting quite a bit like Selkirk said some stuff recently. That's like, quite impressive to me. And yeah, it's just quite impressive in general. But I would like to see the rules get a little less strict. I know one of the things people are worried about is like, if you let it go too far, then you know, like, maybe the skill gap gets too big. And now it's harder for like newer players getting in because like tennis players come in and just abuse everyone will spin. But I feel like we could probably limit a bit here and be fine. Like I I don't think we'd hurt ourselves too badly.
Thomas 20:35
I agree. What about the counterpoint that if you continue to extend what's what's allowed people will go to that? Yeah, like, shiny object, if you will. Right. So yeah, everybody's trying to innovate, innovate on grit and spin right now? Yeah. And they might be actually neglecting the core or the handle. Yep. Or playing around with other elements of the paddle that might actually have a better impact and really improve pickleball more. It's like, okay, if if, if everybody's just focusing on this one thing, it's to the detriment of other components of the paddle that could actually advance the game and be better for pickleball as a whole?
Chris 21:10
Yeah, I think there's, there's probably some merit to that, I think. I think there are always people experimenting with all of the other things like, you know, different cores handle all of that. But I think the tough part is, we're probably like a little bit aways here. Before we move away from like, the polymer core that we use right now, just because I think it works. So well, like you have gearbox doing like pretty incredible things, technology wise, but that hasn't really caught on, some people just don't like how it feels. But I think that experimenting is always happening. But the players don't necessarily make it easy for companies to experiment with it. Like a lot of times, it's like they try something new. And people are like, we don't like this, you should have just gone back to, you know, the thing you knew works at Polymer core, or whatever. So I think in that regard, it's hard. And I'm not a materials expert, but it just seems hard to find something better than polymer right now that everyone still likes.
Thomas 22:05
Yeah, you bring up a good point about gearbox their, their pedals are so different than anything else out there. And they still, like, it's almost like, what if, what if all of a sudden, every pedal company was like, Okay, this is the way to go. And they all started innovating with the foundation of like that, basically, one, it's like one piece of, right, like, it's, it's more of like a solid object. What if that were the foundation and everybody innovated on top of that, that could take the paddle in a whole different route? So I guess my point is, I think, I think there's still just like a lot of different things that can be done with paddles generally. And I think the paddle will still continue to change whether it's spin or not regret or not, over the next, you know, 10 years, and we're probably going to be playing with some crazy paddles. Oh, I bet years from now.
Chris 22:58
510 years from now, like, we're gonna look at the paddles we're using now and probably just laugh I imagined. I Percy rules relaxing a little bit. I don't know how much they'll change. But like, you already see them flexing on the rules a little bit, right? Like when the 002 came out with the hole in the face and like one shot, it says you can't have any holes in the face. And then somehow that got around it. And if you read the rules right now, I believe technically, they say, you can't have any texture on the paddle that helps you impart spin. But clearly, that's not enforced at all. So I don't know, I think they'll they'll get a little more loose. But what I do think is going to happen with all of this carbon stuff is every manufacturer is going to get a lot tighter on their quality control. I think they rent like everyone realized here, you could probably almost go out of business overnight. If you make this big of a mistake. Like it sounds like this is hurt carbon quite a bit. So like, I'm sure everyone's buying that meter. Now. They're going to talk to their manufacturers and tighten up the tolerances. And yeah,
Thomas 24:02
yeah, it's interesting. And it's, it's interesting, because I think it hurt carbon more, because they really focus on like, the inner community of pickleball being their market, as opposed to the broader segment of the market, which is the casual player. Yep. Whereas like, if you go to a random court, you're more likely to see like a maverick. Or an onyx, which dominates it like Dick's and Walmart. Yep. Right. And we don't really hear that much about those those types of paddles. I mean, like Lucy and Matt play with onyx, but like, they're never in the conversation about like, what's the hot paddle right now? Right. So yeah.
Tyson 24:43
They may be worth three or four years ago. Yeah. When they first came out,
Thomas 24:48
yeah. All tough plays with if we're thinking of onyx, Altaf Lucy. There's quite. Callie is still playing.
Chris 24:55
Does still. Yep, sure. Yes. Yeah. It's interesting there. number of brands that I've like been looking at recently and I'm like, Hmm, you guys really have not done a whole lot in terms of like making new paddles or really trying anything new. And I don't know if, if they're just doing something behind the scenes and like taking a long time to do it. Or if they just know, like you said, like, the broader community of Pickleball is what you focus on, right? Like, you don't have to be the top top tier, because that's such a small market in comparison to like, yeah, your 50 to $150 paddle.
Tyson 25:28
So we're talking five years, 10 years down the road, what are we seeing in paddles? Are they so expensive that only the five richest kings in Europe can afford them? What is? Give us some predictions here, Chris,
Chris 25:41
I envision they're going to be I would not be surprised if $300 was a common price point. Everyone flinched pretty hard, when Selkirk did that but I mean, I actually think Minnesota might have the densest population of 00 twos aside from where they're made. Like I know so many people here who have that battle, and no one's like batting an eye at spending. Once they heard it was good. No one bats an eye it's spending the money on it.
Thomas 26:04
So for those for those listening, by the way, the 002 is the Selkirk paddle that Tyson is using, is he currently using it? Yeah, with the open throat, right. So it looks as if there's this funny hole in the middle of the paddle. Yep. They will say that it's not in the middle of the paddle face, right. That's how they got around the rules. But if you look at it, it is right. It's weird.
Chris 26:26
I honestly think that so I think $300 would not be I don't think it'd be like calm and like, Oh, this is the the mid tier low tier like I think that's probably going to be, you know, on the higher end. But I also wouldn't be surprised if we had the holes and almost everything, I just looked at another paddle from a company called Kitchen Pro. And they actually have a throat that's like a, like an actual tennis racket, like instead of just being a punch out in the face. It's literally a throat hole like a tennis racket. And I you know, I think everyone harps on it. Because the thing most companies focus on is like, oh, it's more aerodynamic. And I think that's like a gimmick pretty much no matter how you slice it. But it seems like as I talked to engineers, and some other people that there are other benefits, like you know, it add some, some flex to the handle, which can give some more power back. And, you know, shift the sweetspot a little bit and some other stuff. That's like a little hard to prove, but it does seem like there are benefits, and I wouldn't be surprised if we just moved towards that entirely. Yeah, tetanus did it for a reason. Fidel does it for our reasons, though. I don't see why pickleball wouldn't.
Thomas 27:27
Yeah, yeah. Or if there's just an entire, like a, like a total material change. Like, I remember I was a hockey player growing up. And when I was younger, wouldn't would not be six, everybody played with wooden hockey six. And then one year, the synergy came out. And I think it was like, I think it was fiberglass. And that changed the game. And now that now every pet, nobody's making wood, wood sticks anymore. Unless it's like a nostalgic thing that like dinner one of these, like Bauer or something is doing just because like, you know, they're doing it for the hockey Royalex. Yeah, but like, people are buying the fiberglass or might be carbon fiber, you know, whatever it is now, but it completely changed the landscape. Yep.
Chris 28:09
And I think that's still bound to happen in pickleball. Right, like it, we're still so early in like, I would say the bulk of companies right now are not like even the manufacturing plants are probably not pickleball specific, only where they're like only trying to work on Pickleball materials that work well for pickleball. I know one company specifically. And I talked to their engineer quite frequently. And all he does is pickleball stuff. He's the only one that I know is like, I'm trying to figure out what specifically grabs pickleball the best or you know, all the materials that work best. And I think we're gonna see a lot more of that, which will then push innovation forward a ton.
Thomas 28:48
And the fact that you chat with this engineer frequently, is, I don't know why you do that, or why you would ever be in that position. But that's why I knew that you would be a great guest on this podcast. It's
Chris 28:59
just so fun. I don't know I love nerding out about paddles.
Thomas 29:04
I would I would like to hear you and Ben and Colin just like go off about this stuff. I'm sure it would like,
Chris 29:10
it would be interesting. I always hear mixed things about Ben. I've heard from some people that he couldn't care less what paddle he uses. And then other people are like now he's like kind of picky about it. And I'm like, Oh, I don't know if you get
Thomas 29:20
Yeah, when you get him talking about it. Like he can even go on for days about the materials and stuff. And so Colin, I mean,
Chris 29:26
it makes sense. He was a engineer for college, right? Material material material sciences does that. Is that something like that? And if that's the case, I don't see why you wouldn't be picky. You clearly know something about it.
Thomas 29:38
Right? Right. Okay, so Alright, so what what paddle you're playing with Hyperion right now?
Chris 29:47
Yep. I yeah, I think it's a great battle. I can I can see why Ben likes it. I I would have all the battles I've used right now. I'd put it in the top five pretty easily. I think it's just a solid over all paddle that doesn't really have A lot of problems.
Thomas 30:01
I've been using it it's the first thing to make me put down the Franklin bend Johns because I tried to carve and I went to Electrum. And I would always go back to the Franklin. Nice. And I think this this Yola paddle as they make me say, right, they want to say yo la. Yep. I think it's pretty impressive. So I told my dad I'm like when you're back on the court, this is your new battle. That's just how it's gone. Sir. It is. Also like so I have a little bit of a tennis like just like doing like tennis in the summers. I didn't play high school tennis or anything like that. But sure, you know, I learned to hit my forehand is like a tennis racket, right. So yep. Everybody has to make the slight adjustment when it comes to pickleball tennis. The Yola when I'm at the baseline, my forehand. Yep, I've been able to do and come over it more like a tennis forehand put more spin on it be more accurate. And just have a better drive overall. Yeah. Which I don't on. I mean, I think that's a huge advantage. And then as long as it's consistent at the net, in my opinion, you can play with like anything. Yeah. Yeah. And
Chris 31:11
I think it it really is one of those things that seems to do. I'd like categorize it as like an all kart paddle where it like pretty much Excel does good at everything. There's not really anything I found that it doesn't do well, like it's not as powerful as some paddles. But like, if you're someone like Ben, you don't you have a big arm. You don't need the paddle to do all the work for you. Yeah,
Tyson 31:32
right. Big are those arms.
Chris 31:35
Mine are not very big. I don't know about Ben. My arms aren't very big either. Thomas is the one with the big arms here. He
Tyson 31:42
does have big arms. So Thomas and now that you got this new battle, are you going to be able to carry us to a 5.0 victory and then next tournament, we enter together?
Thomas 31:52
You're gonna hit your thirds.
Tyson 31:53
Or you're gonna hit yours?
Thomas 31:56
Yeah, that's actually it's gonna. My but my thirds are, like more considered their lights out right now.
Chris 32:04
Are you guys competing at the New York tournament?
Thomas 32:07
No,
Tyson 32:08
we are just commentating for the major league. Pickleball draft break down.
Chris 32:14
One day, right? Yeah, so why not? Why if you're gonna be there, why not compete?
Thomas 32:18
I don't know. I didn't even think about it.
Tyson 32:20
And I'm still not thinking about it. I'm going to bring up pickleball stuff. I'm gonna play some games. Sure. Yeah. Tennis Center. Right, Thomas? Oh, yeah.
Thomas 32:29
Yeah, well, yeah, we should. We should definitely play. I was gonna play with those NYC pickleball dudes. Oh, yeah. The one the 1:37pm. Guys. We're doing an event together. Thursday night.
Chris 32:40
Are you gonna be there? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Thomas 32:45
Okay, cool. It's, well, we're like, partly hosting it. I'm going to be on a panel so fun. I'll try not to, you know, stumble over myself and embarrass myself.
Tyson 32:56
I won't be a panel but I will be in the audience probably pestering Thomas while he's on the paddle.
Chris 33:04
I guess we can make some good content about
Tyson 33:07
Thomas blue.
Thomas 33:09
You know what else? You know what else I'm gonna be doing in New York? What? Well, did you hear the news at major league? Pickleball is going to be ringing the opening bell to New York Stock Exchange. Are you going to hear that Wednesday morning? I will be there flanking them just like yeah. Cool. Have You Ever Have you ever seen it? It's like, there's the one person ringing the bell and then everyone's like,
Tyson 33:29
yeah, standing by them. What? Uh, what days that
Thomas 33:33
Wednesday morning, so I'm gonna do that. So my mom just texted me. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. NYSC and then a bunch of like celebration emojis. And I'm almost feeling like guilty because I did nothing to deserve this spot. The New York Stock Exchange has just invited me which is really really nice of them and it's gonna be awesome to go Sure. It's like people are like this is gonna be the it's almost like they're congratulating me on my guide into any I don't like I'm just showing up Yeah. Yeah, right. That's great. That's great. But I did have to go get a polo with that and I got a little dink put on a polo so I can at least have a collar you know? So when the last
Chris 34:11
time you guys put together did you play five? Oh, together
Tyson 34:14
can we play five or five? Oh, we play five.
Chris 34:17
So do you both play five All right now then. No,
Thomas 34:19
I play replay I typically play five Ah, okay. I should play I
Tyson 34:24
don't play yeah. Yeah, I
Thomas 34:26
actually I like never i i did tournaments last year. I did some pro stuff. I've I've played
Tyson 34:35
pro. Yeah. Google Thomas pro pickleball player. Don't look at the last name. Just look at the results.
Thomas 34:47
No, but I had I think I said this on a podcast before but I had a couple pro wins. At like a good good time in the year to where it like, skyrocketed me to like top 30 In In the world, which was awesome. And I was like, again, another one of those instances where I'm like, this is cool, but I do not deserve this, sir. Sure. Sure. Yeah,
Chris 35:08
shut it down persona.
Tyson 35:09
You should have you could have been the documentary story that we followed the country club kid.
Chris 35:13
Yeah, there you go. Your own media company is making a documentary about you.
Tyson 35:19
Yeah. Growing up with a silver spoon in your mouth getting out,
Thomas 35:24
everyone. No, because what as I was like, laying out the narrative that I was like, the the natural play here is to make the country club kid like the villain.
Tyson 35:33
Yeah, for sure. You know, you're Johnny from Karate Kid. Yeah, yep.
Thomas 35:37
Yep. We need more villains and Pickleball. I'm in Santa.
Chris 35:40
I went yeah, it will certainly make it more interesting. I mean, I don't know if you guys talked about it on a recent episode or not. But that whole mat right, Julian Arnold, mixed doubles match was probably the most intense one we've ever seen in pickleball.
Thomas 35:54
Yeah, well, Matt's been in many tense matches, just because he's an antagonist. It's part of his game. Sure. Which I love that about him. And Julian's more new right? And he is, he's like, in your face, screaming. And I think it's like inevitable and I guarantee like, the next time they play like, we're gonna, we're gonna see that again, just because they're too loud, obnoxious players. And I love that. I agree. I think that makes for way more entertaining match for sure.
Tyson 36:23
So now all met, right needs to do is get like a full scalp tattoo or something dope, some, maybe some face stuff and a little bit of stuff. And we'd be off to the races with our villain.
Thomas 36:34
Yeah, I don't know if his law firm would appreciate
Chris 36:38
it, it'll be interesting to see it develop because Pickleball is like, in this, like, it's a very community influenced sport. You know, a lot of good sportsmanship like, people are very nice to each other. So it's only inevitable I think that it evolves into every other sport where you start seeing like thing when you watch a tennis match, and it's so dramatic, you know, like, people are screaming at the sun. Like, I have a feeling it'll happen in pickleball it might take a little bit, which will be a little sad to see because I like elements of it right now where people are, you know, pretty chill. They're all nice, but also, I watched that match between Matt and Julian and I'm like, Ah, this was like, really entertaining. Pickleball
Thomas 37:15
Yeah, you need you need both of those things to exist. Yeah, need the niceness and the you know, the neighborly vibe to bring in more of the casual players and help the game grow. But at the top level, I want these people trying to kill each other.
Chris 37:28
You know, with the documentary you're trying to make about yourself. You could just become the villain
Tyson 37:33
you wanted to know we are casting Thomas's the villain. He's the country club kid, dude. That will make it happen pops his color hangs out with all the other kids that have their colors pop.
Thomas 37:44
yellow square, like pink and green. Double collar Polo. Make sure it's like the actual polo like,
Tyson 37:53
Oh, is it polo brand is not Abercrombie. I gotta go.
Chris 37:58
To or we found out he's using a carbon paddle. But he just like Reese face. Yeah. So you wouldn't?
Thomas 38:03
Yeah, there's like a scene. There's a scene right before I play. It's like I have my paddle like I put it down low. And I take like, a quarter and I just kept scratching.
Tyson 38:12
Yeah. Or you get you inject the paddle with like some serum in the core that makes it like, pop and touch way harder than a things popped in touched before.
Thomas 38:24
Yeah, you're you're always pushing the limit. I like it. You're always thinking outside the box. You know,
Chris 38:28
I have an interesting one for you guys that if you saw this or not. So obviously you heard about like, the PPA is going to start doing like paddle testing on site right? Did you see the actual like document they published about how that's the whole thing is gonna be handled.
Thomas 38:40
Connor texted me Pardo like commit, he just texted me the thing. So I just read that I didn't. I didn't see when they actually published it. Yeah,
Chris 38:48
I think I can't someone was linking it the other day, I think it was on the PPA website. But I think it's gonna be really interesting that all this paddle testing happens now, especially with what I imagine is most companies have pretty loose quality control, like from what I understand the companies that have this surface and are not made in the US, which is almost all of them pretty much come out of one factory from what I know. That's like, Yeah, and like, I've talked to a buddy who makes some paddles and has messed with that surface. And the company is like, yeah, we make like all of these. So like, if it's bad for this one, it might not be good for this one either. So like or if it's good for this one, it should be good for that one. So interesting stuff there. But if the quality control is so loose, I feel like the paddle testing is gonna get dicey at some of these tournaments or like every pro is going to own one of these $2,200 testers and test their paddles themselves. So that because some of the things were pretty interesting there was like, I'm paraphrasing here. I don't remember exactly what it said. But it was basically like if you got caught twice, within like a certain time period of having illegal battles. You got like a pretty big substantial ban. 90 days,
Thomas 39:58
90 days. Ovation exactly sounds
Chris 40:01
like, people are gonna get really picky about their paddles, I think and if some of these bands do come out, that's going to be
Thomas 40:08
really important. They're gonna hold optional testing before each event. And it's basically on the player. They're saying, I see you as a player. It's on you, if your paddles illegal, we're putting these windows here for testing. So this is your opportunity to make sure that you're not over, you know, you're not in violation. Now, you are gonna get penalized TAS during
Chris 40:30
that phase, right? What's that? You won't get in trouble if it tested illegal during that phase. Right? Okay. Right. Yeah. That's just to make sure I see.
Tyson 40:39
Yeah. So Thomas, who's the first program to serve 90 day ban?
Thomas 40:48
Somebody using a carbon?
Chris 40:52
Well, you know, it'll be interesting. Now, let's go to the pot. But you know, Yola was obviously very close to the limit. And they had published a video of like, doing their own test. And they had like, all the math, and they were like, look, we're legal. But then people online were like, wait, they did their math wrong. Like it's actually over the limit. And then I was just checking today to like, find that video cuz I was like, Oh, I'll check the math myself. And the videos are gone. Like, I can't I can't find them anywhere. So now I'm like, huh, that doesn't that doesn't look great. Like I would imagine a company that big. Probably tightens up their quality control. But I don't know, I thought that was that was kind of interesting.
Thomas 41:32
The saga continues. As the test itself is not reliable. It's inconsistent. Yep. The threshold they chose, which is 40. So it spits out a number every time you do a measurement. Yep. And then you do on one panel, you do six measurements, and you take the average? Yep. 40. Is that threshold? Where did the 40 come from?
Chris 41:55
Yeah. Why 40? And also, I mean, like you were alluding to, with the test not being super accurate. I'd imagine if you tried to test a second time and placed it in different spots on the first, you probably get a different reading, like you could probably get a legal reading, or an illegal reading, depending on how close you are to know somebody,
Thomas 42:12
somebody was sending me a video. I won't say who they had the thing. And they were like, the same paddle in the same spot. Because you Tex, you test six different spots. Yep. They put it in, in the spot. Press the button, get the reading. It's like 36. Yeah, they pick it up, like an inch, put it back down in the exact same spot, do the reading. It's like 48. And then they just kept doing it over and over again. It's like this, this device. This randomizer is inconsistent. It just so yeah, everybody is at risk. I mean, if I'm a paddle company, I'm hitting up all the other paddle companies. And I'm like this, how are we supposed to survive? And this is a risk to all of us. Now we need to push back and be like, This doesn't make any sense. We need a more reliable test. Yeah,
Chris 42:59
I agree. I think even as I've like, looked at some interviews and some stuff about like, how these tests are done, and kind of the whole process of things getting checked later on. Like, the whole system seems like it needs to be completely revamped.
Tyson 43:14
Do you have a paddle tester, Chris?
Chris 43:16
I don't really want to get one though. Because I think it would be fun to like, add that in reviews. And like, obviously, that adds some like, oh, it should probably spin better if it's near the limit. But $2,200 is a hard pill to swallow right now.
Thomas 43:30
Yeah, that's how much it is what?
Tyson 43:33
I heard that in two months, those things are going to be cost probably like six grand. So
Chris 43:37
I've heard that like flying off the shelves right now. So are they the Sterrett? SR 160? I think something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I like I said, I'd imagine pro players are buying this. I imagine every single manufacturer probably owns one of these at this point. Yeah, I imagine they're, they're getting sold
Thomas 43:58
out. Yeah. It's not made for I imagine it's made for some other. Yeah. Like, for pickleball.
Chris 44:08
We need a thing like for pickleball not like, oh, we ported this over and it kind of works. Right? Right. Yeah. Lots of lots of improvements to be Chris. We could
Tyson 44:19
make that thing. Well,
Chris 44:21
I mean, I don't know if I'm smart enough to make one of those. But I mean, I'm down to my team and attempt.
Tyson 44:26
Yeah, I'm on the team too. But I'm the I just came up with the idea. So now
Chris 44:29
I'll tell you what, you make the idea. Thomas executes that. Yeah. And I'll make the commercial for it.
Tyson 44:34
Okay, so I got the idea already. That part's done.
Chris 44:38
Thomas soft. Do you
Tyson 44:41
think that specific to pickleball that's more accurate than the thing they're currently using? Dude. This is a genius business idea
Chris 44:49
that we're just given lots of business ideas right now you better hope no one steals.
Thomas 44:53
I already know the answer and it is take droplets of water. Drop them in the center of the paddle. tilt the paddles slightly at a specific degree, and then measure the speed at which the water travels across the surface. Ooh, take an average of six different spots, that's gonna be better.
Chris 45:12
But how is this going to make you money? In
Thomas 45:15
your part, you're making the commercial your marketing.
Tyson 45:18
It's the machine, you put it in this box that lays it level and then it does the exact amount of droplet every time. And then it tilts the paddle specific angles and watches the droplet move around the paddle. And you
Chris 45:30
saw some really specific water that only works on the pickleball paddles. Yeah, razor blade
Thomas 45:35
model and you have to keep re up. You have to keep buying the water from us. Yeah,
Chris 45:39
naturally. And it expires after five days.
Tyson 45:41
Yeah, you have to buy 17 gallons and expires in five days.
Thomas 45:48
Like okay, back to the New York Stock Exchange thing. Do you hear the second part of that? No. in the board room, which I guess is a room at the New York Stock Exchange. I think it's Zane. Yeah. Robin honoree? Yep. Lena padega. Mai Tais however the heck you said that and Anna brighter place match. That's in a board from the stock.
Tyson 46:13
That's awesome.
Thomas 46:14
Yeah. So that'll be that'll be interesting. I'm gonna, you know, I get I like, I like filming matches, sometimes throw those up on social, there's gonna be some interesting clips. Is it?
Chris 46:25
Like a just lines on the ground? Is it an actual court? Like, what did how are they doing that?
Thomas 46:30
We're gonna find out, aren't we? Oh,
Chris 46:31
that'll be that'll be fun.
Thomas 46:34
Yeah. And then that, and I have heard that there might be. I don't know if I should. Other TV appearances that week as well for the crew. So hopefully, more to come on that. Morning Show stuff. Yeah. Pickleball. I mean, it's everywhere. It's crushing right now.
Chris 46:57
Everyone's talking about I feel like every week you hear about some new celebrity that's like, kind of like pickleball.
Thomas 47:04
Yeah. Well, the most recent was dope wreck. Right. And based on the play I saw from him looks good.
Chris 47:13
Yeah, like, I don't know if this is true, but I heard he played D one tennis. I'm like, yeah, like, you should, like consider playing pickleball like, you look really good.
Thomas 47:24
Yeah. And that'd be that'd be pretty legit for for the sport as a whole. If everybody started tuning into him trying to make a pro run. Yeah.
Chris 47:33
And you'd have like a much younger audience like caring about pickleball and probably think it's cool. Yeah,
Tyson 47:38
I for sure. Want to be honest with you guys. I had no clue who this guy was. Yeah. And somebody sent me a clip of like a 26 year old girl from big brother sent me a clip and she's like, Could you get me in touch with this guy? He's so awesome. I love him. And I was like, I have to be honest. Like, I've heard that guy's name because I saw him playing pickleball with people, but I have no idea who he is. Or what he's his thing is or anything. She's like, Oh, he's a YouTuber. Do you think you could connect with him? Somehow? He's like, Well, the guy he's playing in the video I know, personally, so I'm only one degree away. But it's our own trainer of the stars. Pickleball McNasty.
Thomas 48:22
I think this is great. I think this is this is far enough past Tyson now that we can say wasn't Dan Bilzerian interested in in playing with you at one point?
Tyson 48:32
He Yeah. He made us fall in Las Vegas. Yeah, and yeah, for people to play. Yeah. So
Thomas 48:40
like everywhere? Yeah.
Chris 48:42
I it'll be crazy to see by the end of this year. Who else is in this? Like? I feel like we're getting pretty close to some talent shakeups like I mean, even with like Anna bright on the scene, like I don't know if you guys watched the singles match with Anil yesterday, but that was like, that was good. That was some exciting. Pickleball. And I think that's the first time they've played against each other and singles. Maybe Yeah, I think so. Finally, someone who like gave her gave her a run for her money.
Tyson 49:09
Did they bail it as the Anna versus Anna?
Chris 49:13
They didn't but they should have? Yeah, the better Hannah.
Tyson 49:16
Yeah. And a one and Anna to fight for it. Now.
Thomas 49:19
This is almost as it's almost as thrilling as the big debate on who's Thomas one and Thomas two. Yeah. Who's almost as thrilling really? Second.
Tyson 49:30
What else we got Thomas anything any other great news?
Thomas 49:33
Well, we got the Atlanta open going right now. Yeah, there's like a ton of people missing Ben's Ben's missing while from singles yesterday. Ben was missing JW was missing JW was missing. Tyson MacGuffin withdrew. So again, the door was open for like a Ryan Sherita to make a run and go back to back at the at a PPA. But it ended up being in the final it's it's two people who would be so it's not it's Rafa Hewitt and then one of these like young you know former D one tennis players in the in the single spinal which again like I think it's gonna keep it's gonna keep happening.
Chris 50:11
Yeah, it was I mean I'd heard both the names but only like superciliously
Thomas 50:16
Nada vich James Ignace de vich who is that? I haven't heard that right. Yeah, wait, I have it. I think right here yeah, James or is it stalker? No,
Chris 50:29
no, Federico, whatever the last name was you just said is in the final and then Rafa.
Thomas 50:35
Okay. I gotta make sure we get that right.
Tyson 50:40
Yeah, you do need to because it sounds like you currently have it wrong right now. Is that in the reading from the newsletter?
Thomas 50:46
Well, yeah, so that's why I'm I'm like, Wait, do we get it wrong in the bracket right now. Okay. Yeah, stocks heard. No, we got it. Right. Stocks, read verse Rafa Hewitt in the final.
Chris 51:00
Okay, yeah, that'll be interesting to see, because I actually kind of want to watch that, because I haven't really seen either of them play. So it'll be interesting to see what that what that looks like.
Thomas 51:08
Yeah. And then Perrineau verse waters in the final I wish Maybe Anna was on the other end was on the other side of the bracket from Anna in a bright was on the other side of the bracket from Mandalay waters. And we somehow had that in the final, that would have been very entertaining. What's your
Chris 51:24
guys's take on this? Because I've had a lot of people talking about this recently. So especially this one, I don't and I don't know how many people I just heard there was a number of them. But since if you lose, you can only come back for bronze. A lot of people will just drop out after the draw. Yeah. Do you think the format needs to change? Does it not matter that people do this? Because like, it's kind of unexcited when you have like a top talent just drop out. But it's also not exciting when the best they can do is bronze.
Thomas 51:51
Yeah, no, this but they switched to this from like, you could come back around. Yeah.
Tyson 51:57
Used to be able to come back through the backdrop, not
Thomas 51:59
the standard. They did
Chris 52:01
it just because of championship Sunday. Didn't they wasn't I like the whole reason?
Thomas 52:05
I think so. So I think that was the main change. Yeah. And also like, also, if you do end up coming back around, and let's say you're like a Ben, right. And you also have to play singles and doubles. And now you're playing like, five matches. And then another match of of mix, like, yeah, that's not sustainable ones
Tyson 52:27
for gold ones for bronze. You're known for the bronzy. Yeah, I don't know. Do you like the gold medal Sunday? Championship Sunday? Thomas. I get it.
Thomas 52:39
I think so. And you also, I mean, you need to create a focal point, like you need to create something that matters for everybody to tune in.
Tyson 52:46
So you think that you think that because I feel like with the championship Sunday format? Everybody's tuning in Sunday, but who's tuning in Thursday, Friday, Saturday? Yeah, ya know, versus versus like, okay, the champ the singles championship is on Thursday night. So you got to tune into that the mixed doubles championship is on, you know, another night and this is on another night. Like what I
Thomas 53:11
think you you want the crossover benefit from all the matches, right. And, and, I mean, it's like any sport, right, like, people watch the regular season, but not as much as they watched the finals in the semifinal. Right. Like, Yeah.
Chris 53:26
It'll be interesting to see. And, you know, I wonder if we start seeing people just specialize in events more at some point, right? Like you said, it's not really well, to do all three, because it beats your body up. So at what point are we going to be this guy only does singles? This guy just does doubles? Or maybe they do both doubles events? Like,
Tyson 53:42
or maybe they just do mixed doubles? Like maybe it's gets that specialized? Yeah,
Thomas 53:47
I was. So we've talked about this, Chris, we've talked about this a few times on the podcast, but I was having a conversation yesterday with a like, basically, like a sports data scientist, he comes from professional soccer, is a coach for the New York Red Bulls. And he loves pickleball. And we were just talking about the lack of data generally in pickleball, and how it's like once it does get here, and we're able to get a little bit more scientific with the way that we're playing the game. Basically, it'll be an anomaly for someone to be at the top in singles, and in doubles, because of the way data is going to help. In particular, singles players play better and more efficiently and end points sooner, just by positioning themselves a little bit differently, hitting different types of angles. And really, we just need data to kind of open up that door. And once it's here, it's going to change the game and it's going to be very rare that somebody comes in and goes yeah, I'm a triple crown, like or even like a triple crown like candidate level on somebody who does go and win the Triple Crown right?
Chris 54:51
I am excited for data to get in the sport more. I've already started seeing people like do some pretty intense breakdowns and Facebook groups and some other places. Then it's super fascinating. They did one for singles. And it was super, it was mostly like a third shot drive analysis. But it was super interesting to see the spots players were hitting depending on where they were on the court and their opponent. And I think stuff like that is like really going to help even just after the fact knowing like, you know what, Ben does this a lot. And this is weak for him right now. People just aren't doing that. But they might know generally like, Oh, this isn't a great shot for him. But when you have like actual data, it's like, 70% of the time he loses if x happens, like that's super valuable.
Thomas 55:33
For sure. Yeah. Like it's gonna change the way the game is played. I mean, it's it. This is a theme across all aspects of the sport. Yeah, it is still in its infancy. Yeah. In so many ways. Yeah, we have a long way to go, regardless of what we're talking about in pickleball. And I think that's what makes it so exciting. Yeah, and with the growth of the sport, we're also just gonna see innovation across the board. So yeah,
Chris 56:01
that's gonna be good.
Thomas 56:05
That was like a good little close up. Thought it
Tyson 56:08
was really I almost did like a little baby cry when you were like it's in its infancy and wasn't been I decided to not
Thomas 56:16
it was good that you did. But then you did. Right.
Chris 56:20
And you're no Thomas isn't going to
Tyson 56:21
edit that out. But in my head, I was like, maybe he can put a better like little baby cry in there. When he edits it for the clip on social media.
Thomas 56:29
There you go. There you go. You know, we've done we've done one of those social clips where it's just you doing like, random stuff before? Like, I think we're do like you'd make, like, odd faces.
Tyson 56:42
That one wasn't cut together by you though. And it was like us everything was a fast cut. So like I watched it once and then I had a seizure.
Chris 56:52
You know, you know what, how you now you're made it is when you have fans start making all of these various edits for you like best of like 2020 to dig episodes or whatever, like the highlights and all the risks.
Tyson 57:05
Why don't you get on YouTube get in the search bar search bar ins put best if Tyson from survivor
Thomas 57:13
thing for you already? There's there's one of me too.
Chris 57:18
Is that really for you?
Tyson 57:20
Oh, yeah. Am I looking Chris?
Chris 57:23
By the way, there's like several of these. A lot of you look so different. That's hilarious.
Tyson 57:29
Oh, it was about 15 years younger there. That would do it. That would do it. Do I look better now? Is that what you're saying?
Chris 57:37
Well, naturally, of course.
Thomas 57:38
Yeah. Take off your hat.
Tyson 57:41
I just got my haircut.
Thomas 57:43
He's got a mullet. Now.
Chris 57:44
We got it. Sounds like Tyson starting rock that thing. So it sounds like you're just on trend.
Tyson 57:49
It's mindset, like a Major League Baseball mullet. So like if I was in the baseball league, they wouldn't even consider this a moment. They just be like that's a regular haircut. So
Thomas 57:59
I might Yeah, right. It's pretty cool. It'll help with the whole villain thing. Yeah, it will
Tyson 58:05
for you for sure. Yeah, yeah, you gotta really work that thing out, man. Especially when you're like, I'm the first one to ever get a mullet. And then everybody's like, that's not even true. That would make you very villainous.
Chris 58:15
I think every time I show up at a tournament that Thomas and I just happened to be out I'm going to need to have like my camera ready for just like some completely out of context thing he does to like, crank up this whole villain thing you know, like you just you see him take something from like 15 year old Patrick Aidan Quinn or whatever and yeah, right.
Thomas 58:34
You push him like face to face. Why don't you like dress up? You will get like a walker like a gray wig. Like, a night a night gown, a night gown and like you
Tyson 58:44
take my pickleball bag and run. Yeah, or
Thomas 58:47
just like push you over? You know, lose or something? Yeah.
Tyson 58:52
That's what you that's what you get for being old. You should say
Thomas 58:58
it's on center court. People are like why is there an old woman like walking
Tyson 59:01
across Center Court getting mugged by Thomas shield
Thomas 59:04
basket. Stop asking questions. Did you see what Thomas just did? Yeah.
Chris 59:09
I mean, where you need those fans that are like super talented, like animators, and they just animate the whole story you just talked about, like that would be hilarious.
Thomas 59:17
Yeah, we could we have one of those listeners.
Chris 59:20
Hey, if you're here Thomas is hiring. I heard.
Tyson 59:23
Yep. Yeah. Always always hiring.
Thomas 59:27
Okay, are you in conversation? Go paying Bitcoin?
Tyson 59:31
That's what? Yeah, me as well. Right now. Goes
Chris 59:35
there. Yeah. Now's the time.
Thomas 59:39
All right. I think that was good. I mean, we could have ended on a closing thought. But I think the that old lady getting pushed down is the new course. Was it good? Yeah.
Tyson 59:47
Matter. Yeah. Thanks, Chris. For being here. That was awesome. And all your insight into paddles. And I guess we'll see you in New York too. Yeah. Look, do you live in New York? What's that? Do you live in New York?
Chris 1:00:00
cuz I'm in Minnesota
Tyson 1:00:01
okay well we'll see you in New York anyways
Chris 1:00:04
yeah can't wait guys gay later
Tyson 1:00:07
all right yeah
