The United Pickleball Association (UPA) emailed all its signed players on Monday, June 23, about new player contracts for the upcoming years.
The 2025 summer is going to be looked back in pro pickleball history as one of the defining moments in the sport. The shift that the UPA is proposing will be monumental in moving professional pickleball forward into its next era.
Quick TL;DR
- The UPA is asking players to restructure their current guaranteed contracts
- This is the second restructuring the league has asked the players for, since the beginning of 2024
- The guaranteed annual salary a player has in their current contract is being split into thirds, and spread out over the 2026, 2027, and 2028 years
- Starting in 2026, there will be prize money (over $15 million) on the line for players on both the PPA Tour and in MLP, in addition to the $11 million in guaranteed salaries and the $5 million in international prize money
- Players that signed during the 2023 tour wars are eligible for higher prize money pots, and are eligible for the "Gold Contract", while everyone signing in 2024 and later are only eligible for the "Standard Contract"
- Starting July 1, players will have the ability to sign these updated contracts - each different category of player has a period of time to sign the new contract, or stick with their current contract
How We Got Here
The real answer begins back in August 2023—the latest version of “tour wars”.
In August 2023, Major League Pickleball (MLP) started a tour wars between MLP and the Professional Pickleball Association Tour (PPA Tour).
At that time, players were either signing exclusive contracts with MLP or PPA, as the two entities were trying to sign as many players as they could.
Thomas Shields
MLP signed more players than the PPA, but PPA signed some of the best players in the world, in Anna Leigh Waters, Catherine Parenteau, and Ben Johns, among others.
Shortly after the tour wars started, they also ended, with a merger rumored to be in place. In March 2024, the PPA Tour and MLP officially merged. The parent organization over both is the UPA.
The contracts the vast majority of players signed during the tour wars were guaranteed contracts for three years, to start in 2024. So they covered 2024, 2025, and 2026. Most of these contracts are exactly halfway through their terms.
Player Contract Renegotiations #1
In the early part of 2024, the merger was in question. Could the combined tour even function as a business with all the player salaries that both sides agreed to?
The answer was a definitive no. Instead, most of the players who signed with MLP initially in the tour wars were asked to take between a 25% and 35% pay cut and subsequently reduce the number of days/events they were required to play.
On the other hand, most of the players who signed with the PPA Tour initially, were not asked to take this pay cut, or the reduction amount was less.
The majority of players who initially signed with MLP took this pay reduction, and the ones that didn't take the cut have had turbulent times with the PPA Tour - think of players who play MLP and not PPA.
An example of the early 2024 pay cuts: During the 2023 tour wars, Player X agreed to a three-year contract with MLP, worth $150,000 per year, for a total of $450,000 from 2024-2026. Between January 2024 and March 2024, that player was asked to take a 30% pay cut to ensure the league's viability. So instead of making $150,000 per year, Player X agreed to take $100,000 per year over the three-year period - for the good of the tour.
Now, players are again being asked to restructure their contracts (read: take less guaranteed money) in a new player contract extension season.
The New Proposal - Player Contract Extensions
The UPA is proposing new contract extensions across the board to its players. There are tiers of players and dates associated with those tiers.
Instead of the contracts ending at the conclusion of 2026, the UPA is proposing new contracts through 2028. Essentially, the UPA is offering contract extensions from now until the end of 2028.
What the Proposal Entails
The UPA is taking the amount the player is guaranteed in 2026, dividing this into three, and making that the guaranteed minimum for the player in 2026, 2027, and 2028.
Let’s look at an example for ease of understanding:
- Player Y makes $120,000 per year in their current contract, from 2024-2026
- They will have made $120,000 in both 2024 and 2025
- For 2026–2028, Player Y would have a guaranteed minimum of $40,000 ($120,000 ÷ 3) per year
Essentially, the yearly guarantee is cut into 1/3 of the previously agreed contract.
Why Would a Player Take that Deal?
I am glad you asked. The answer? Prize Money.
The UPA is proposing moving toward a lower guaranteed amount per player, but having a lot more prize money on the line. Currently, there are very few instances for prize money within the UPA. On the PPA Tour, no one makes any additional prize money at events. In MLP, prize money is only won at the Mid-Season Tournament and at the Finals. Other than those events, players who signed during the tour wars are on guaranteed contracts.
This means that whether a player goes out in the Round of 32 or wins an entire tournament, they make the same amount of money. You can quickly see how this may cause issues in terms of level of engagement and level of care about winning.
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Levels of Prize Money
There are four different levels of prize money grids and four types of players:
- Gold Contract
- Offered to players who signed contracts during the fall of 2023, also known as the tour wars timeframe
- Access to the Gold Contract Prize Money Grid
- Signing window is July 1–August 15, 2025
- Standard Contract
- Offered to players who are currently signed with the UPA, but signed after the initial tour wars deals
- Access to the Standard Contract Prize Money Grid
- Signing window is August 15–September 23, 2025
- New Player Contract
- Offered to players who are currently not signed with the UPA, but sign before the deadline
- Access to the Standard Contract Prize Money Grid
- Signing window is September 23–November 1, 2025
- Futures Contract
- Offered to players who are not signed by November 1, 2025
- Access to the Futures Contract Prize Money Grid
- Players will remain on a Futures Contract for a minimum of six months
- In order to move to the Standard Contract Prize Money Grid, a player must achieve one of the following:
- Top 25 ranking in at least one of the three divisions (singles, mixed doubles, gender doubles) OR
- Have a Top 30 PPA Tour World Ranking (explained later in the article) OR
- Be moved up by the UPA professional player committee
Required Events and Exclusivity
Every player signing a new contract agrees to two broad things: the number of required events they play per year, and to exclusively play under the UPA umbrella.
Each player is required to play in at least 25 events, between PPA and MLP.
Breakdown of required events:
- Fifteen (15) PPA Tournaments
- Three (3) Slams
- Four (4) Cups
- One (1) World Championships
- Six (6) Opens
- One (1) International Tour Stop
- PPA Finals, if the Player qualifies
- Six (6) MLP Events
- Five (5) MLP Regular Season Events
- One (1) MLP Mid-Season Tournament
- MLP Playoffs, if the Player's team qualifies
- Four (4) additional events selected by the Player from the following:
- PPA Tour Opens
- PPA Tour World Championship Series Events
- PPA Tour Challengers
- PPA Tour International Events
- Future MLP Events
In addition to the events, players can only play exclusively under the UPA umbrella. If a player wants to participate in a pickleball-related activity outside the UPA (including tournaments, exhibitions, or fundraisers), they must request approval with at least 60 days advance notice in writing. The UPA then has 20 days to provide a written response.
Prize Money Details
Gold Contract Prize Money Grid
Standard Contract Prize Money Grid
NOTE: The players who signed after the 2023 tour wars are stuck on the Standard Contract if they sign during this extension period - there is no way for them to get to the Gold Contract.
PPA World Ranking
This is the new PPA World Ranking that represents a comprehensive system designed to identify the top overall players in the world across all divisions. This composite ranking takes into account performance across all three disciplines: gender doubles, mixed doubles, and singles.
Rankings are determined using a weighted point system based on each player’s PPA Tour results.
52-Week Standings:
- Gender Doubles: 50%
- Mixed Doubles: 35%
- Singles: 15%
As you can see above in the prize money grids, the PPA World Ranking greatly affects MLP appearance fees, among other things. This will become the new ranking system everyone is paying attention to, moving forward.
Conclusion
The bottom line is this: The UPA is moving both the PPA Tour and MLP toward a system where winning matters and players can "eat what they kill," so to speak.
There are very few alternatives for players in today's market, so I expect the majority of players will sign these new contracts.
As always, when more news comes in, The Dink will cover it all - make sure to subscribe to the newsletter for all the breaking pickleball news.
