The Report
Before the stars arrive, MLP Asia is building around home
Good morning, pickleballers.
Today is less about who won a tournament and more about what gets built around one.
MLP Asia has selected the 18 domestic players who will give its six new franchises their local foundations before next week’s international auction. Japan may now have 330,000 people who have tried pickleball, but its real challenge is turning those first experiences into a lasting sporting culture. And in Vietnam, Stupa Sports and D-Joy are testing what happens when officiating technology, analytics and broadcast infrastructure are built directly into a rapidly expanding market.
The six inaugural MLP Asia franchises now have half of their rosters.
Three domestic players have been selected by each team, with captains including Lingwei Kong for the Dragon Warriors, Hong Kit Wong for Hong Kong Canons, Jimmy Liong for Malayan Stripes, Kim Saraza for Manila Helios, Yuta Funemizu for Team Tokyo and Quan Do for the Viet Panthers.
The International Draft on Monday will add three overseas players to every roster, and that is when we can begin judging which teams have built best. For now, the more interesting question is what each franchise has decided to build around.
Vietnam already has an established men’s partnership in Quan Do and Hien Truong. China has paired an experienced professional captain with players emerging through UPA Asia’s development pathway. Tokyo begins with recognisable domestic stars. Several teams already contain relationships, rankings and recent results that should prevent the local places becoming ceremonial roster slots.
The international players may eventually determine how good these teams become. The domestic players are beginning to determine who they belong to.
Read our MLP Asia Domestic Draft analysisJapan may have solved the trial problem. Now comes conversion.
The headline number is 330,000: Pickleball One’s estimate of how many people in Japan have now experienced the sport at least once.
That figure needs qualification. It does not mean Japan suddenly has 330,000 committed weekly players, and the previous estimate of 45,000 was produced using different methodology, so this is not a clean sevenfold year-on-year comparison.
The more revealing story is what is being built around those first experiences. Sansan is using pickleball for 7am business sessions and has opened seven dedicated courts in Ikebukuro. Mizuno has entered the market with paddles, footwear and a first-year domestic sales target of ¥100 million. Japan’s two major governing organisations have also unified under Pickleball Japan.
Japan’s challenge may no longer be getting people to try pickleball. It is giving enough of them a reason, and somewhere, to come back.
Read our analysis of Japan’s pickleball boomVietnam is becoming pickleball’s technology test bed
Stupa Sports has expanded its relationship with D-Joy in Vietnam, with technology scheduled across D-Joy Tour Leg 3 this week, the Vietnam Masters in November and further events under a partnership extending into 2027.
The tools include decision review, live and post-match analytics, broadcast data and 2D and 3D graphics. D-Joy has already used Stupa technology at earlier events, while the company has also deployed its systems at the English Open and World Pickleball League in India.
The interesting part is not another announcement containing the letters AI. It is where this infrastructure is being tested.
Vietnam is building major facilities, deeper competition and increasingly sophisticated event production at the same time. Instead of inheriting decades of old pickleball infrastructure and retrofitting technology later, it may have the opportunity to build the two together.
Read why Vietnam is becoming a technology test bedAsia is building systems, not simply staging tournaments
Today’s stories are really three versions of the same question: what has to exist around pickleball before a participation boom becomes a sporting market?
MLP Asia is trying to create local team identity before importing star power. Japan is building courts, products, corporate participation and governance around hundreds of thousands of first-time experiences. Vietnam is integrating technology while its facilities and competitive depth are still expanding. None of those models is finished, and none guarantees success. But the Asian story is increasingly about infrastructure, institutions and identity rather than simply counting new players and tournaments.
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