The Joy of Pickleball - Episode 6

This is an opportunity to come together, not just for the sport but for the community. This is what progress looks like in our city and our community.

I'm so proud of all We spent a lot of time traveling around the country looking at all the clubs that are out there to see what, like, best in class is and get a feel for why they're the best in class.

Now we're one of those, like, components that's building the programming and all of that. And honestly, that's why I was attracted to Pod Play is they had a lot of the same philosophies I did in building tech and how they ran, how we helped institutions run facilities, they're helping us run our club here. You know, it's kind of like your children. You can't really have any favorites, but you do have favorites. So Pod Play has been crucial to our success. You know, obviously you guys You guys are sort of the glue that holds a lot of this together. So I love having a system that we can rely on as well.

We wanted this to be a place where people could come together whether they play pickleball or not. But there's so much more to it here. The restaurant, the cafe, the different seating areas, the different elements where we can bring people together.

What's up guys, it's Pickleball Chick and we are out here in St. Petersburg, Florida at the one and only St. Pete Athletics, one of the most luxurious and amazing pickleball facilities in the country. Let's go check it out. Oh my God, this place is insane and absolutely packed. This is day 2 of grand opening weekend.

Look who it is!

How you doing?

Good, how are you?

Good.

Ready for a tour?

I'm ready, I cannot wait.

Awesome, love it. Well, welcome in. St. Pete Athletic, um, about a 50,000 square foot urban country club mostly focused on pickleball. We've also got padel and table tennis, um, and of course Podplay hooked up to all of it. We've got our welcome reception desk with all of our concierge, pro shop. We got our pro shop in here.

Insane.

Look at this place.

Everything from our own, our own branded, uh, stuff. Um, you know, bucket hats are big. We've got our limited edition grand opening hats here as well. Yeah, I don't know if you're into this. We've also got whole like onesie setups as well.

Oh, sick.

You gotta— I don't know if you're a crop top. Oh my God, we've got the Retro brand in here too.

Oh, I need that. Okay, so I'm just I'm gonna raid this when he's not looking. Everything is so high-end, like it's just luxe.

It's all about the details, you know?

Okay, we need to hear about the details because I see birds. Yeah, so I see tile.

So we're actually located in the Warehouse Arts District in St. Pete. We're one of the first like larger businesses that's like not an arts business in the district, which is good. You want a bunch of different things and mix and all that, but we want to contribute to the art space. So we worked with a very prolific artist, Chad Mize. So he, he got 24 different artists to, uh, hand paint unique paddles. That's a whole gallery show. Those are all for sale as well. Um, you mentioned the birds up here, so our icon, our logo, is the roseate spoonbill, very rare pink Florida native bird. Gorgeous. Um, so there's 5 of these hanging around the entire facility. They're all unique. One of the more prolific muralists that we have has done the Vitali mural back here that's based off an old Florida Highwaymen-inspired painting, and then they added the roseate spoonbills into that.

It's insane.

This is our full restaurant bar space. Just in our first week alone, we hosted 3 different events of over 500 people in here, so This whole room can transform into all kinds of different setups, and everything we do is from scratch. So we even make our own ketchup from scratch.

I've heard that the ketchup's really good.

It's incredible.

Fries?

And it's all real stuff.

Just rightly salted.

Beef tallow fries, salt.

Yeah. Ooh.

I'm on.

Sounds dirty to me.

Yeah.

Eagles!

Let's go! Let's go!

Is that your hometown? No, but I grew up in Bentonville. Oh, I'm from right where you're from.

Oh my gosh. Cool.

Pro exhibition going on right now with the Florida Smash. Catherine Parenteau, take a look through the arch. Rachel Rohrbacher and Travis Rettenmaier playing against Kaysen Campbell and Catherine Parenteau. So it's about to be awesome here at St. Pete Athletics on Championship Court. The 3 mascots of the Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Tampa Bay Lightning and the Rowdies are coming out here to play some pickleball and use the Pod PlayTech. I cannot wait to see them play with the Replays.

All right, and we have a very, very special guest in the house. Did you guys know this is Ryan Pepio, the pitcher of the Tampa Bay Rays?

Look at that reset from Ryan.

Oh, Raymond going with the smash! Watch Travis getting lobbed. Oh, oh, wow.

Ryan has played pickleball before, I'm going to guess.

Finney looks agile and ready to play. Look at the bend in the knees from Finney.

A huge thank you to Pickle Putty for sponsoring this episode of The Joy of Pickleball here at St. Athletic. I've been using this lately and look how simple it is to apply. You just place the strip on your edge guard, press down firmly on the orange cover, and hold the tab with one finger while you peel. It's virtually weightless. We're talking the weight of two paper clips, so it won't mess with your swing weight at all. The best part? You don't need to stab at the ball. Just a light magic touch is all it takes for a clean pickup. It leaves zero residue on the ball and it won't accidentally stick during a point. It only grabs when you press it. We've been handing these out to everyone today, from my friend Ruby 7 to Raymond the Rays mascot, and everyone is obsessed with how much easier it makes life on the court. It saves your knees and back, and it's also fun to play with. One strip is usually good for a full day of play, but here's a pro tip: don't toss that orange cover. If you put the COVID back on before sliding your paddle into your bag, it can usually stretch for another session or two. And when you're finished, the tab peels right off, leaving your paddle looking brand new with no sticky residue. It's a total game changer. Check out Pickle Putty today.

So This whole space and all the courts that you'll see in just a minute is all open to the public. So the public can come in and get day passes to play. They can come and eat and drink whatever they want. They can watch play however they want. But we are a members club as well. And so there's a bunch of members amenities and stuff with that. We are sold out of membership. We pre-sold out 800 memberships before we opened.

First club that I've ever heard to do that.

Yeah.

And we're at $250 a month for those memberships. And then we have a huge waitlist of hundreds on top of that waiting to get in as well. So with Pod Play, we're actually able to secure all of our different doors to get into. So because I have the app my phone. I just wave my hand over it and it lets us in.

That's Podplay for you. This is insane.

So this is the members' clubhouse. There's a few different spaces and rooms back here. This first one is called the Commons, and so this is mainly a coworking space during the day. We were, we were partying here very late last night, so we have a little quiet start this morning, but we had a live jazz musician back here Um, we had a, uh, a finishing table for Old Fashioneds. We had an 8-foot charcuterie table back here. Past apps, the whole thing. That's our, like, pre-launch party. Um, but generally—

oh, we had a good time.

Yeah, we even have a call booth for, you know, phone and Zoom calls and everything. I guess someone very tall was just looking in there.

Literally no other pickleball facility has a space where you can come in completely soundproof, take calls from your boss so they don't know you're playing pickleball.

Genius.

This is actually so popular we're getting a second one.

Okay, so the level of service here, yeah, is on a different tier. Yeah, like you almost feel like you're at a Four Seasons.

This is Tommy, our GM, actually.

Tommy, you actually like to say the same—

Regis, rather than Four Seasons.

Okay.

We don't consider ourselves just a pickleball club, we consider ourselves really like an urban country club, right? And so we want to have that level of service. We want this to be a place where people want to come to learn that level of service, create their own things as well, but We want to have that, you know, kind of iconic feel here when you're, when you're here across every part of the entire club.

Okay, this is absolutely insane. We have Kris Krauch, Rachel Rohrbacher, and Katherine Parenteau, 3 signed pros. 2 of the top women in the world are practicing right here at St. Pete Athletic using the Pod Plate technology. I mean, where else can you watch 3 of the best players in the world? What is on tap over there? What is this? It's a tequila fountain and we're doing Palomas. Okay, it's a tequila fountain. We got a DJ going. Oh, am I doing it?

Yeah.

I really believe pickleball is going to save the world. Does anybody believe me?

Maybe. Pickleball saves the world!

I don't see anybody making any big statements.

I see people just wanting to have fun, wanting to care, wanting to teach, wanting to educate each other, wanting to share how fun this can be. Share some great food, some great beer, and let's have some fun. That's what America is. That's what St. Pete is. We are the best place on earth, and you are here today, baby.

Helping on projects like this, that's the stuff that moves the needle that nobody gets to see. This is the fun stuff. This is what we sign up for. So to the whole team, thank you. We love you. St. Pete loves you. Thank you for being here. Continue to celebrate things like the St. Pete Athletic club, and it's been an honor, and it's my honor to introduce the mayor of our great city, Ken Weldon.

This is an opportunity to come together not just for the sport but for the community. This is what progress looks like in our city and our community. I'm so proud of all the work, um, and that's why we love to say we are St. Pete. Now put your hands together and let's bring up the visionaries.

Ready?

On the count of 3, everybody. 1, 2, 3!

So I played with BK in the St. Pete Athletic Advanced Tournament. I was one of the only females to play, the only female to make it to playoffs, and the one to win. Shout out to my partner BK for being a great partner. I mean, to partner with a female in a, in a male tournament or in an open tournament takes a lot of guts, so thanks for believing in me, BK. I am right now on PB Vision where you can upload your game tape, upload your drill tape, and see hard data. Let's take a look at the firefight. It's a good slide. Oh, just get it over the line. Getting back up to kitchen, dropping it cross-court, and going diagonal backcourt, and it's just long. I don't hate it. I want to be more aggressive than stagnant, so not too bad. Let's take a look at the poach here. BK coming over big time overhead. Love to see it. We can go over to player stats. Let's look at pickleball chick myself. All right, so we have on the left-hand side, we have shot accuracy. I'm in the 99th percentile. A lot of people say that I'm consistent, but it's really good to see the hard data. My serve is an average of 31 miles per hour, in the 58th percentile. Let's look where my serves landed. Okay, so there's a decent amount in the back third of the court. That is ideal. Seems to also be a lot in the second quartile of the court. Ooh, love to see this. Okay, so my serve 50% were deep in the back third quartile of the court.

Love that.

But I need that to be higher. I want 75 to 80% of my serves to be in that back third quartile, putting pressure on my opponents so hopefully they give us shorter returns. Great to see the data. I can adjust it in my practices, drilling, or rec games. But you're never gonna know unless you really see the data. So this is amazing, and and helps me make adjustments in my game. Catch arrival while serving. Pickleball Chick, let's go! I was number 1 there. Shot accuracy, I was number 1. I love that you can actually filter these by shot type. Let's see if I filter. Let's do forehand ground stroke drop. Oh, beautiful drop by BK. I absolutely love this Pod Play integration with Pickleball Vision. If you are at a Pod Play facility, you are able to take your game tape, your rec tape, your drill tape, upload it into PB Vision and see the hard data to be able to improve your game. Know what you have to work on and then improve it. Thanks, PB Vision.

7-7-1. 0-2-0.

All right guys, I just picked up the two co-founders of Podplay. We got Max Vogler in the house and Ilya Ripken.

Even at grand opening, we're on the clock.

Never stops. The grind never stops. The brains behind Podplay.

2 out of 3 coaches.

2 of the 3. Ben Borton. I love you, Ben.

Oh, we love you, Ben.

But you should be here.

Yeah, what happened?

No, Ben does everything. All right, we're going to go check out the second building that is not completed yet.

We're going to sneak through. All right, behind, coming through. Small line coming through.

Like, perfect.

Small line coming through. Small line coming through.

What's up, guys? You're on Candid Camera.

Whoa. Oh, holy moly. That's not a real thing. Wow. Yeah.

So this is our new building.

Oh my God.

Are you kidding me?

So this is another 18,000 square feet. This goes 33 feet tall.

The ceilings are way bigger.

We're playing padel here, KK. Where's the fly? Glass is right around the corner here. So we have 6 more pickleball and then 2 padel. Plenty of courtside space in here. Um, oh, at least one of the stadium courts for MLP will be in here as well.

Yeah. Wow.

So in 3 weeks we'll be playing in here.

Okay. I have to say that I usually think that when people tell me, oh, it's gonna be 3 weeks, it's gonna be bullshit. But Ruben, I'm not doubting you.

No. Yeah, we're—

we'll be—

we'll be rolling. So we'll be able to do this later. This is our recording studio. So Bad Calls films Out of Here, which is Graham and Travis's podcast. They fight for number one podcast in pickleball every week. They get like 20,000 to 30,000 listeners a week. We're hosting a bunch of different local, like, news and other podcasts. We're probably gonna start a hospitality podcast around this and stuff too.

So I love this idea. I think a lot of facilities are starting to build podcast studios. Yeah, to bring in more community, not just the people that are associated, like Travis, but bring in members.

And then, as you can see, we have a big window in the back so you can film in your podcast and you get the courts behind you without the sound.

That was like a really aha moment for us. Sounds crazy. Let's build a social club that happens to have some pickleball courts on the sidelines.

This is our fitness studio here. We actually did a partnership with Technogym to bring all the equipment in from Italy. We have all the basics that you need for workouts here. We got a few cardio pieces here as well.

Unbelievable. You were the best. You were awesome today. You had so much fun out there.

Yeah.

We just finished up kids clinic. We had 24 kids, a slew of coaches including Travis Rittenmeyer.

That was amazing.

Top 10, you know, male pro in the world. Incredible energy, awesome to have them all here. A great way to open up our, like, ribbon-cutting day, of course.

I mean, that's Travis's bread and butter, and the kids were having such a good time. So the most typical thing you'll ever see when Rachel Rohrbacher is on the court is her husband Bobby. Avi supporting Rachel and Catherine. They're going to be partnering up this year on the PPA Tour. We also have Tina Pisnic's wife, Rachel Rohrbacher's mom. Travis ordering food again. All right, Reuben, you showed us all 3 facilities. You showed us the member-only perks. You showed us what the public gets to see. I mean, this is insane. You're going to have 14 pickleball courts, 2 padel courts. You have table tennis. You have one of the most gorgeous tile bars I've ever seen in my life. Full bar, full kitchen. You thought of it All frame TVs, the design, like the hospitality, next level. Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

How do you feel about it?

It's great to have it open, but we got a lot of work to do. We want to put together all kinds of events and programs and make this a real place for the community.

Well, congratulations and thank you for the tour. That was absolutely next level.

Thank you.