Howdy. This is The Erne, the pickleball newsletter that makes you feel like it’s Friday, everyday.

Here’s what we've got today:

• Major merger alert 🚨

• Pickleball in Central Park

• The most pickleball obsessed city in America

MAJOR MERGER ALERT 🚨

Pickleball4America, a company formed in late 2022, announced that it has merged with the US Open Pickleball Championships®.

For those who don’t know, the US Open Pickleball Championship is the largest pickleball tournament in the world, hosted in Naples, FL. Last year, over 3,000 amateur and professional players participated, and that number is expected to be even larger this year.

In addition to this announcement, Pickleball4America announced the launch of their Ballpark Festival Series where they will host professional pickleball tournaments in Fenway Park in Boston and Oracle Park in San Francisco. There will also be open play for us normal folks.

If we knew how to use photoshop, we would‘ve put pickleball courts in the outfield, but you can use your imagination…

There’s not much online about Pickleball4America, but we’re excited to see what else they have in store.

PICKLEBALL IN CENTRAL PARK

Speaking of badly photoshopped images, check this out:

Starting April 7th, CityPickle is opening 14 courts in NYC’s Central Park. The courts will rent for $80-$120 per hour depending on the time of day. Paddle rentals are $6 a piece.

The courts will also host tournaments, clinics, and lessons, and will be open until October 9th

So, for those of you out there complaining about your $10 per hour courts…pour one out for our NYC pickleballers.

THE MOST PICKLEBALL OBSESSED CITIES

Like most people, we here at the Erne use Google for pretty much everything. So it makes sense that new pickleballers like to Google “how to play pickleball” before diving headfirst into the sport.

What if we told you the number of searches across the US for “how to play pickleball” is up 150% in the past 3 years? That’s a number any CEO would be proud of 📈

But that isn’t close to the real number. The real number is…drum roll please…284%!

And the city that is doing the most searching is Overland Park, Kansas. The top 3 is rounded out by Salt Lake City, Utah and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The midwest loves pickleball - that’s facts.

You can check out the report and more fun stats here.

WHAT’S COOKING IN THE KITCHEN

• A new way to practice your pickleball skills, and it has a great name (because it’s also our name)

• The city of Arlington is big mad at pickleball players as the war against pickleball rages on

• Pickleball super fan (and pilot) is embarking on a journey to play 48 days of pickleball in 48 states

THE PICKLE JAR

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