💸 This new sport has everyone turning their heads

GM. Welcome to the Work "After" Work trends newsletter, where we bring you the hottest trends no one is talking about and give you ways to make money from them!

It's Friday, let's boogie:

• 🏅 America's fastest growing sport

• 😂 Meme of the day

YOU WOULDN'T GUESS IT

Take a guess at America's fastest growing sport.

You might be thinking...football? Nope. Basketball? Oh maybe, soccer? Nope and nope!

It's pickleball.

Ever heard of it? It's like a mix of tennis, ping-pong, and badminton put together.

It's been absolutely exploding the fast few years with now 5M players and there's also rumors it could even be in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics 👀

Pickleball really gained popularity during the pandemic when people were looking for socially distant group activities and since it requires less stamina (and formal training) than tennis or basketball, it’s easier to pick up.

And this is exactly what the data's showing. Just looking at the Google search interest, you can see more and more people are getting out to the parks and pickleballin it up!

Source: Google Trends

On top of this, MVP's from all sports are getting in on it.

Just this week the MLP (Major League Pickleball) announced Lebron James has joined it's latest group of investors along with the likes of Drew Brees and Draymond Green with goals of turning this into a competitive league.

I guess pickleball is what all the NBA legends will be playing in retirement.

Now, there's so many ways you can go about making money with a growing sport - here's two:

1. Coaching Business

Originally, I was going to say start up a league or tournament to get sponsorships and endorsements but it looks like the MLP may have beaten you there.

They already have 12 teams with plans to grow to 16 and the purse for their next month's tournament is $319k.

This doesn't mean you can't start one but it'll be tough.

It's like competing with the PGA Tour, it's possible but you have to have a lot of money to pay players to come on your side (like LIV is doing).

Instead, I think you could make a solid business out of coaching.

Think about all the parents who want their kids to be good at the sports they're playing. All the travel baseball and basketball leagues out are and the private batting lessons.

You could do the same thing for pickleball by charging a membership fee or hourly rate for lessons.

If pickleball goes mainstream, there will definitely be coaches for it.

2. The pristine brand for pickleball

Every sport has the best one or two brands everyone wants.

For golf it's Callaway or Titleist. For basketball it's Spalding. For baseball it's a Louisville Slugger.

You know all of these brands because they're all one thing: elite. And this is what you can be for the sport of pickleball because you're so early.

When you search on Amazon for "Pickleball Rackets" you'll see there's no clear winner right now.

It honestly just looks like everyone is drop shipping these things. The brands don't seem too legit... or they just have bad names.

You could go after multiple products, take your pick: rackets, balls, or sports wear.

I think a cool service would be allowing people to create custom rackets with personalized colors, words, and numbers on it. More 1 of 1 rackets that you could sell for a premium.

Or uniquely colored balls to spice it up on the courts.

What's nice about this is you don't have to be the biggest player in this space, you just have to be a player.

You'll organically sell more items as pickleball grows and right now, there's not as much competition out there. Everyone is still fighting for brand recognition.

MEME OF THE DAY

That's a real perk nowadays 😂😂

That's all I got today ladies & gents!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.