Major League Pickleball Dallas: Pools, schedule and viewing guide

By Alex Lantz | May 18, 2026

Major League Pickleball will hold its season-opening event this weekend outside of Dallas.

There are 11 teams in action, and the event will mark the debut of a new format this year, with pool play Friday-Sunday, followed by single matches for Event Standings Points to be played on Monday.

Note: MLP matches will mostly be held Thursday-Sunday this season, but there’s a Monday finish this week to coincide with Memorial Day.

Here are the teams in the field this week:

Group A: Columbus Sliders, Dallas Flash, New Jersey 5s, Orlando Squeeze, Phoenix Flames.

Group B: Bay Area Breakers, Carolina Hogs, LA Mad Drops, St. Louis Shock, Texas Ranchers, Utah Black Diamonds.

Looking to attend MLP Dallas? Get tickets here.

Saturday’s slate will feature multiple intriguing matchups, highlighted by a 2025 MLP Finals rematch (New Jersey vs. Columbus) and Jorja Johnson playing her former team — the Dallas Flash — for the first time (New Jersey vs. Dallas).

Note: Columbus’ Parris Todd will be suspended for the team’s first event, which is a big loss considering one event makes up 20% of a team’s season. As a result, Alix Truong and Danni-Elle Townsend (making her MLP debut) will be the women’s starters for the Sliders.

Read next: Major League Pickleball 2026 preseason power rankings

Major League Pickleball 2026 season format

One of the complaints from fans last year was that it was hard to identify an “event winner” for each stop on the MLP schedule given that each event was just a collection of regular-season matches.

The league has since made some changes to try to make each individual event carry more weight. Here’s how the 2026 MLP season will work:

▪️All 20 teams participating in 2026 will play at one level (no more Premier and Challenger designations).

▪️All teams will participate in a collection of five of the nine regular-season events. Find the full schedule here.

▪️All events will have 11 participating teams with the exception of Orlando, which will have 12 teams.

▪️There will be one group of 5 and one group of 6 at each event; Orlando will have two groups of 6.

▪️All teams will play a total of 23 group play matches during the season (2x in a group of five; 3x in a group of six).

▪️Group play results will determine seeds based on Total Wins, with Head-to-Head and Net Games as tiebreakers.

▪️On the event’s final day, a team will play the same seed from the other group for Event Standings Points (No. 1 from Pool A vs. No. 1 from Pool B, etc.).

▪️Event Standings Points: 1st: 25 / 2nd: 18 / 3rd: 15 / 4th: 12 / 5th: 10 / 6th: 8 / 7th: 6 / 8th: 4 / 9th & 10th: 1 / 11th: 0

▪️Expanded Playoffs: Three weeks and 12 qualifying teams, based on total Event Standings Points earned.