How Do Professional Pickleball Players Make Money?

Shane Dunn built Peak Pickleball Agency after discovering that an elite player was spending thousands simply to stay on tour. On the World Pickleball Podcast, he explains what changed next — and why ranking alone does not determine who can build a career in the sport.

How good must a pickleball player become before the sport starts paying them?

That question sits at the heart of the latest episode of the World Pickleball Podcast, in which host Chris Beaumont speaks to Peak Pickleball Agency founder Shane Dunn about the uncertain economics of life on tour.

The conversation begins with the player who changed Dunn’s view of the business. Aanik Lohani had the athletic background, the game and the personality to compete at an elite level. What he did not have was a financial model that made doing so sustainable.

According to Dunn, Lohani estimated that travelling and competing as a professional was costing him roughly $15,000 a year.

Dunn saw both a problem and an opportunity. That first relationship became the starting point for Peak — and for a much larger attempt to build commercial infrastructure around professional pickleball.

The deal that changed two careers

Dunn did not enter pickleball with a long-term plan to become an agent. He found the sport during the pandemic, entered a tournament, was swiftly reminded how far he still had to go and became absorbed by the community surrounding the game.

Meeting Lohani gave that enthusiasm a direction. Dunn believed he had found a player whose college tennis background and natural presence could translate into a genuine professional career — if somebody could build the commercial support around him.

The timing proved extraordinary. As Major League Pickleball and the PPA-led professional structure competed for players, contract values began to move rapidly. Dunn says Peak eventually secured a little more than $250,000 in contracts for Lohani.

It was an exceptional early result, and Dunn is careful in the podcast to acknowledge the unusual market conditions that helped create it. But the impact went beyond the numbers.

As the deals arrived, Dunn watched Lohani’s confidence grow. The player who had been paying to compete climbed through the rankings, reached Championship Sunday in Las Vegas and faced Ben Johns on centre court. Dunn recalls sitting on Lohani’s bench while negotiating his first shoe agreement with K-Swiss.

For the player, it was evidence that pickleball could become a profession. For Dunn, it was the moment Peak became more than an experiment.

Who can actually make a living from pickleball?

The headline contracts at the top of the game can disguise how precarious the profession remains for everybody else.

Asked how many players are making a sustainable living, Dunn avoids presenting a single definitive number. Looking specifically at the United States, he estimates that the leading 10 to 15 players are generally doing well, with a paddle agreement often forming the foundation of their income.

Below that group, the picture becomes less predictable. Tournament results matter, but they are only one part of a player’s commercial value. Sponsors may also be buying personality, audience, credibility, content and the ability to connect with recreational players.

Dunn describes annual earnings of roughly $60,000 to $100,000 as a possible middle category for players who assemble several sponsors and find additional ways to monetise their place in the sport. That is his industry assessment, not a tour-wide salary benchmark, and the route to reaching it varies considerably.

Some players coach. Some make appearances or produce content. Some build unusually strong relationships with brands. Dunn believes that a player ranked 30th, 80th or even 100th can sometimes earn as much as somebody ranked 15th if they understand how to create value away from the scoreboard.

That changes the central question. It is no longer simply, “How highly are you ranked?” It is also, “Why should somebody care about you?”

Pickleball’s missing connection

That question leads into the episode’s most important argument.

Pickleball has an enormous recreational playing base, yet many regular players would struggle to name five touring professionals. Its leading athletes can be among the best in the world while retaining relatively modest social followings. Participation has raced ahead; fandom is still trying to catch up.

WPM explored that same divide in “Pickleball Has Players. Now It Needs Fans.” Dunn approaches it from the commercial side: placing a logo on a professional’s shirt does not automatically make recreational players buy the product.

His proposed chain of influence runs from the professional athlete, who gives a product credibility, through teaching professionals, facility operators and trusted figures inside local clubs. The final recommendation may come from a familiar 3.5 player rather than a household sporting name that pickleball has not yet produced.

That is why Peak is expanding beyond conventional athlete representation. Dunn says the agency currently has 20 publicly represented players and expects that roster to approach 30, but he describes most of its day-to-day work as building relationships with brands — including companies far beyond paddles, shoes and other endemic products.

From representation to infrastructure

Peak’s next step is Summit, a platform Dunn says has been two years in development and is being formally launched in September. Its ambition is to connect professional athletes, facilities and brands rather than treating each as a separate commercial market.

Dunn’s own description is more revealing than any agency label: Peak does not merely want to participate in pickleball’s growth; it wants to build infrastructure around it.

Whether that model can work at scale is one of the questions facing the sport as it matures. But the need it is trying to address is already evident. Pickleball cannot create a durable professional class through prize money and ranking points alone. It needs players with recognisable stories, businesses able to value those stories and stronger connections between the professional and recreational games.

The full podcast explores Dunn’s first steps into pickleball, the frantic deal-making that helped launch Peak, what the agency looks for in a player and why the next phase of the sport may be built as much in clubs and communities as on centre court.

A major Shane Dunn and Peak Pickleball Agency feature will appear in the September edition of World Pickleball Magazine, going deeper into the people, strategy and ambition behind the business.

Further reading and listening

• Pickleball Has Players. Now It Needs Fans.
• From 72nd Seed to the Semi-Finals: Matthew Barlow’s PPA Mesa Cup Run
• Inside the Journey of 14-Year-Old Professional Camden Chaffin
• More episodes from the World Pickleball Podcast

Chris Beaumont

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…

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