In a long anticipated move, the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Tour has announced a 2025-2026 season. This move is massive in redefining the PPA Tour season, along with the Major League Pickleball (MLP) season.
The Details
The PPA Tour has redefined its season, moving to a fall - spring season, similar to professional basketball and hockey.
Since its inception in 2020, the PPA Tour has loosely operated a season based on the calendar. This meant the season started in January and ended in December.
The 2025-2026 season began in June 2025, and will end in May 2026. There will be a total of 21 events during the 2025-2026 season:
- Worlds in Dallas - worth 3,000 points
- Three Slams: Cincinnati, Masters, Atlanta - worth 2,000 points
- Five Cups: San Clemente, Virginia Beach, Las Vegas, Mesa, and St. George - 1,500 points
- 11 Opens: Bristol, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Lakeland (FL), Daytona Beach, Lakeland (MN), Cape Coral, Newport, McKinney, Nashville, and Sacramento - 1,000 points
The PPA Finals, which began in 2023, will be played in May 2026, in San Clemente. There are no PPA Finals in 2025, to accommodate this scheduling change.
Analysis of the Change
Why the change was made: Once the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball merged in 2024, two distinct seasons were inevitable. The 2024 schedule for both the PPA Tour and MLP were very interwoven, making it difficult for fans to follow, and for the tours to really define their seasons.
In 2025, the seasons were more well-defined, but three PPA Tour events occurred during the MLP season, which is now going to be in the summer months. In this announcement, Major League Pickleball has also announced that its 2026 season will run May through August 2026.
The defined 2025-2026 PPA Tour season and the summer of 2026 Major League Pickleball season will help fans follow along better and more importantly allow for both entities to better position themselves for media rights deals and sponsorship packages, bringing in more money to the professional game.
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Effect on the Players: For the most part, this shift in season doesn’t impact the players much - those that play both PPA and MLP were playing year round anyway.
The biggest impact on players is that the points from the first half of the 2025 season are not rolling into this new 2025-2026 season for The Race purposes. This is like a season reset for the players in terms of The Race, which could be good or bad, depending on the player’s current form.
For more on the PPA Tour points system, The Race, and Rankings, check out our article from last year.
Erik Tice
Moving the Finals: The PPA Finals began at the end of the 2023 season and continued into the 2024 season.
A recap of the 2024 PPA Finals:
Erik Tice
The Finals have always been in San Clemente and will continue to be. The area has some of the best weather year round and is one of only a few tour stops that could have accommodated the Finals in December the past two years, and also still accommodate the Finals in 2026 in May.
The Life Time Rancho San Clemente is known as one of the nicest tour stops each year and players love playing there, so having the Finals there feels right.
“We are thrilled to end our season with the PPA Finals at one of the most spectacular and beloved venues on tour - Life Time Rancho San Clemente. This slight restructure of the tour calendar will allow long-standing and brand new fans to better follow both the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball.”
- Connor Pardoe - Carvana PPA Tour Founder & CEO
Final Thoughts
The newly defined PPA Tour season and coinciding Major League Pickleball season are great for professional pickleball. Both PPA and MLP will now have defined seasons, which has positive effects on players, fans, and the business side of things.
Keeping the PPA Tour Finals in San Clemente was a very good move, as fans and players alike love going to that event.
Overall, this is a great step in the right direction for continued growth for professional pickleball.
