Apollo Sports Capital’s Tom Dundon invests $225 million in baseball

Pickleball Inc., the new parent company of Major League Pickleball and the PPA Tour, said Friday it has raised a record $225 million in new investment, as the sport of paddleboarding continues its rapid growth trajectory.

The latest investment comes from Apollo Global Management’s newly formed sports fund, Apollo Sports Capital, and Dundon Capital Partners, owned by billionaire Tom Dundon. Dundon is the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team and the Carolina Hurricanes NHL team and was an early investor in pickleball.

This new money brings the total investment in Pickleball Inc. to $315 million, as investors continue to look to emerging sports as a place to park their money. The increase is estimated by Pickleball Inc. At $750 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the company’s valuation.

The deal also includes bringing together several pickleball assets under the Pickleball Inc. umbrella, creating what the company called its largest pickleball ecosystem to date.

Pickleball Inc. will acquire On a portfolio of pickleball assets previously owned by Dundon, including Pickleball Central, a leading pickleball equipment site founded in 2006. The portfolio also includes PickleballTournaments.com, software that runs thousands of tournaments across all levels of play, as well as Just Courts, a pickleball court installer.

Pickleball Inc.’s newly combined business segments, the company said. Combined, they generated more than $140 million in 2025 revenue.

In a statement, MLP and PPA Tour CEO Conor Pardue called the new investment a “seismic day” for the fast-growing baseball business at all levels.

“This investment allows us to fully integrate sports into one cohesive ecosystem – uniting professional baseball, consumer goods, technology and media under one unified platform,” Pardue said.

Dundon and the Pardoe family will remain majority shareholders in the company following the investment.

Pickleball has grown in popularity in recent years, with more than 24 million American players participating in 2025, making it the fastest-growing sport in the country over the past three years, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association’s annual report.

At the professional level, the MLP and PPA Tour have seen significant growth with a combined sponsorship revenue of $30 million in 2025 and $60 million in total sponsorship revenue for 2025, according to the United Pickleball Association, which runs both leagues. The MLP and PPA round expects combined revenues of $74 million in 2026.

The company said the new capital for Pickleball Inc. It will be used to further integrate the pickleball business at all levels of play and create a streamlined pickleball ecosystem.

“This capital increase will allow us to expand our focus into new and scalable opportunities such as content, media and infrastructure development to support our rapidly growing events,” MLP Commissioner Samin Udhwani said in a statement. “Our continued and dynamic year-over-year growth data has proven beyond a doubt that pickleball is no longer an emerging sport, and instead is quickly becoming the next top tier sport in America.”