A short while ago, I watched The Dink Pickleball with Zane, Tommy, and Tim (?) who was the 'guest expert'. Tim is, I will generalize, and call him a Profiteer. Tim is very smart about money and how to monetize things, maybe even monetizing mowing the grass to be facetious.
When I 1st watched the podcast, it was very interesting, inviting, and I might even say I supported the idea of PB 'Going Big'.
Now, after a week maybe of thinking, partly due to the fact that I'm retired, and don't 'quest' for a dollar at any cost anymore, but, I STRONGLY DISAGREE with the idea that PB needs to be Monetized.
Pickleball does NOT need to be Monetized. In fact, I believe PB will be ruined, slowly and surely, if it is.
Even if every single person in the US plays PB, we still don't need PB to be Monetized. Taxes can and do pay for the courts we need, in general. Even if there are some statistics which suggest that only 1/10 of the Players can find a court, these stats are misleading, because not all the players need all the courts all of the time. In other words, stats, coming from a Profiteer, can be swayed to say one thing or another. I used to see this being done in Engineering too. It happens. Certainly in politics or TV, the swaying of stats happens on a regular basis, more often than not.
Monetizing PB does not 'buy' anything for us players, as all we need are courts.
Pro PB doesn't need $50-$250 spectator fees. PB doesn't need to be like Pro tennis or any other sport for that matter.
Take this away with you; different people do different things. Some people make money just because they can. Does a person really need more than $1,000,000/year ? Obviously not. Does PB or those in control really need $20,000,000 yachts ? No. Do we need PB to be Monetized ? No.
Monetizing, and gambling, will ruin PB.
