Revamped ‘Engage 2.0’ building momentum, eying a big 2026

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Jan 14 2026

Category

News

Robert Elliott has seen it all in the pickleball paddle manufacturing industry.

The founder and CEO of Engage Pickleball was one of the first to experiment with adding grit to the paddle face back in the mid-2010s, when he and his wife were among the top players in the U.S. and competing in tournaments throughout the country.

He used his engineering background to build custom paddles that generate more spin, and before long other pro players wanted to use them, too. One of the first pros Engage signed was a young Ben Johns, and the company’s gritty paddles put the brand on the map as one of the leaders in the industry – and created a bit of controversy at the time over the legality of the new concept.

In the years since, paddle controversies have popped up involving too much grit, too much power, too little attention to quality control and a slew of issues regarding paddle durability.

Through it all, Engage has remained one of the most trusted manufacturers in the sport, with a loyal customer base and a reputation for making quality paddles backed by a limited lifetime warranty.

But something happened over the past 2 years that Elliott admits left Engage struggling to keep up with modern paddle technology. As other companies took advantage of mass production capabilities and thermoforming tech available through Chinese manufacturers and factories throughout Asia, Elliott continued to make all of Engage’s paddles in the United States.

That meant better quality control and more direct oversight of the production process, but it also meant that he was trying to keep up while offering “Gen 1” paddles in a “Gen 3” world. He was bringing a knife to a gun fight, essentially.

“The long story short is that China caught up, and they started making good paddles overseas using technology that you can’t do in the U.S.,” Elliott said. “If I could do it over, I would have switched over to thermoform technology about a year earlier. We were really committed to being made in the USA, and we stretched it as long as we could, but we had to adapt. Investing millions into U.S.-based equipment that could be outdated within a year simply wasn’t feasible as the pace of innovation continued to accelerate.”

So Elliott made the decision in 2025 to shift Engage’s manufacturing overseas and soon after released the brand’s first “Gen 3” model (the Alpha Pro) as well as a 100% foam core option (the Profoam).

Elliott is now looking at the company as Engage 2.0, complete with a new sales and marketing team – which they never had before – and more of a focus on innovation moving forward.

“We’ve really transformed the company in the last 6-8 months,” Elliott said. “While we’ve maintained our place among the main brands in the sport, this new team and renewed focus on overseas R&D and technology puts us in position to work our way back into the top three to four brands globally in 2026.”

Making waves in the pro game

Engage has already made its first big move of the year, signing pro player Eric Oncins to an equipment deal (he was previously with JOOLA). Oncins finished 2025 ranked No. 11 in both men’s doubles and mixed doubles on the PPA Tour, and seemed to still be getting better toward the end of the season.

Engage had scaled back the number of pros on its roster in recent years, as the brand ended 2025 with longtime Engage player Jessie Irvine as its only sponsored PPA Tour pro. But Elliott hopes signing Oncins is the first step toward getting Engage back to being one of the major paddle brands associated with pro pickleball.

“Getting back into the professional scene this year was a very intentional move for us,” Elliott said. “Bringing on Eric Oncins, a top PPA and MLP player, and having him compete with our Alpha Pro 14mm in upcoming events is a strong signal of where Engage is headed. Combined with our return as an official sponsor of the PPA Tour in 2026, this marks the next chapter of Engage re-establishing itself at the highest level of the sport.”

Oncins said he was excited to be joining Engage, which was the company he started out with when he began playing pro pickleball. Engage also sponsors his dad, senior pro Jamie Oncins.

“I’m super excited to be back where I started,” Oncins said. “My relationship with Engage is more than just a paddle sponsorship, it’s a family thing! I’m pumped to have a great paddle and team to help me reach my goals for 2026-27. Vamos Engage!”

Engage making big push internationally

Elliott isn’t just moving his R&D efforts and manufacturing overseas – he himself will be traveling to Asia frequently in 2026 to oversee design and testing on new prototypes. That eliminates the need for costly and time-consuming shipping efforts, and also ensures that the build quality is up to Engage’s standards.

“Being over there makes everything a little easier, with communication and seeing the process first hand,” he said. “You can get a new prototype built and tested in a couple days instead of a couple weeks. We were losing too many days with shipping things back and forth, so traveling there for a month or two at a time will help that process, and I’m excited about what we have in the works right now.”

The company has also made a big push in marketing and sales internationally in countries where pickleball is seeing huge growth right now.

Engage now has local distribution and warranty support in India, Vietnam, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Australia and all of Europe, with Canada coming on board over the next couple weeks. Elliott also recently opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has a full-time regional director, a senior marketing director and other employees there as well as employees in the Philippines and India.

“In order to be an elite player in the industry, you have to be global now,” Elliott said. “You’ve got to have local distributors, local warranty support, your customer service team has to be available around the clock. It’s a completely different business now from what it was even two years ago.”

And the recent growth doesn’t just include pickleball. Elliott has been developing a padel racket and expects to launch Engage’s padel line in early 2026. He said he has several sponsored players already signed domestically and in Europe and will be leaning heavily into padel as it continues to see rapid growth internationally and steady growth in the U.S.

“Having a global sales and marketing team and those regional directors in place will allow us to replicate what we did in the U.S. with pickleball in other racket and paddle sports all over the world,” Elliot said. “I’m very excited about what we can do this year.”

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