Professional pickleball in Palm Beach County with Palm Beach Royals

Zach Hunter and Sofia Sewing grew up playing tennis and competed at a high level, so they had similar reactions when people suggested they give pickleball a shot.

“Somebody came up to me and said, ‘Hey, have you tried pickleball?’ ” said Hunter, recalling a conversation from about six years ago. “And I said, ‘That’s not a real sport. That’s fake tennis.’ “

Sewing’s initial response to a former tennis doubles partner: “You’re crazy. I would never do that.”

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But times change, and so do attitudes. Hunter and Sewing are now key figures in a new professional pickleball venture in Palm Beach County. 

Hunter is a co-owner of the Palm Beach Royals, a Boca Raton-based Major League Pickleball franchise that will begin play in May. Sewing is one of the team’s first signees, ranked No. 1 by the Association of Professional Pickleball and coming off a triple crown (women’s singles, women’s doubles, mixed doubles) at an APP event in Malaysia.

Both are banking on the sport’s explosion among recreational players translating to the professional level.

Hyperspace Ventures, a digital development and investment firm, is the primary owner of the franchise. Hunter and three of his partners — two of whom are former University of North Carolina tennis teammates — are involved. They have recruited an array of minority owners, including Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, former U.S. Open tennis champion Bianca Andreescu, other current and former athletes, and local business leaders.

The team has named a general manager, David Grossman, and is preparing for the MLP draft on Feb. 27. Three of the six players already have been signed, including Sewing, a former tennis pro who grew up in Miami and now lives in Boca Raton.

Royals’ home court won’t be ready until 2027

In 2024, a merger of two competing pickleball circuits resulted in the current MLP, which has 20 teams stretching from coast to coast. The Royals were awarded an expansion franchise in August even though their home court in Boca Raton is still under construction and won’t be ready until 2027.

Under the MLP format, teams play men’s doubles, women’s doubles and two mixed doubles matches, with each worth a point. If the score is tied 2-2, the teams go to a “DreamBreaker,” a single game played to 21 points with all players rotating to play singles.

In a recent interview, Hunter discussed how the franchise came about, the overall popularity of pickleball and why he thinks the sport will succeed on the pro level.         

Q. Why did you decide to invest in professional pickleball (at a reported franchise fee of $16 million)?

A. We had invested in the pickleball space before this, but Taylor Meyer, my partner, came up with the idea to go all in. Pickleball is exploding, the league is exploding, so we talked it through and we thought, what better time to get in than now? … (The competing pro circuits) were not working together. It was like, ‘Who do you think’s going to win? Am I backing the right horse?’ Now that everybody is working toward the same goal of making MLP the biggest and best it can be, it became a no-brainer.”

Q. How did you settle on Boca Raton as a home base?

A. A few reasons. Boca is the mecca of pickleball. From a recreational standpoint, there’s more players, more courts, more interest in pickleball here than anywhere in the world. From a professional perspective, something that’s happened over the last few years is that most of the really, really top pros have moved to Boca or are from here. … Ben Johns, who was living in Austin, Texas, No. 1 in the world, best player of all time, moved here because he felt that the people training here were getting better. I think 18 of the top 20 players in the world live in Palm Beach County. And then you have the economic standpoint of Palm Beach County really exploding. We thought it was the perfect time.

Q. The Royals don’t have a home court with Boca Paddle under construction. (The facility will open later this year with a stadium court known as “The Royal Court,” 19 pickleball courts, six padel courts, locker rooms and a restaurant.) Did you consider delaying your team’s debut until 2027?

A. You don’t necessarily need a home court in Major League Pickleball. It’s a little bit different than what we’re used to as sports fans, where you have the Heat, you have the Dolphins, you have the Marlins, you have home games and away games. In MLP, you have 10 events during the year that are all based in a city, and each team goes to five of those. … So a team will go to New York, say, and play (a total of) five matches on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The next week, you could be in St. Louis or Dallas or L.A. It’s really kind of like a festival style rather than a traditional home and away.

Q. What have the last few months been like? How are you preparing for the draft?

A. We were thrilled to be able to get Sofia to sign with the Royals. We’ve also signed two other players, Tina Pisnik and Dekel Bar. We traded cash to Brooklyn for Dekel about five minutes before the trade deadline. It’s very much like you see in ‘Moneyball’ or in the movies where you think a deal is going to happen here and then another team calls and you don’t know what to do. … The draft will be handled by our GM along with myself and my partners. It helps us to know going in that we really only need one male starter. We know who’s out there.

Q. How do you plan to make the public aware of your team?

A. We’ve already started trying to go after local fans. Right now we’re having about five to seven events per week, things like beginner clinics, ‘dink and drink’ social events, competitive minor league or medal tournaments. We’re doing them all over. We’re really kind of nomads, but we’re trying to build our fan base through all of these different community initiatives. We’re also working on a deal for all our matches to be streamed.

Q. So you no longer think of pickleball as ‘fake tennis’? 

A. I play pickleball five days a week. I just love it. It’s so competitive and such a good workout. I call it mini-tennis mixed with chess — it’s really a thinking person’s game. It was known as a sport for older people, which was probably true five years ago, but now I think it will be a scholarship sport in college within five years and I think it will be an Olympic sport. … You used to see 100 people in the stands for an MLP match, now you have events with 5,000 to 10,000. There will be bigger TV and media contracts. This is very much the ground floor, especially from a professional perspective.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach Royals set for their first professional pickleball draft