For years, amateur pickleball players have been playing for the same prize in the vast majority of tournaments: A medal, and usually a pretty cheap one at that.

Pickle Money Ball is on a mission to change that status quo, offering big payouts in several major tournaments this year, with more planned in 2027 and beyond. In Pickle Money Ball events, players ranging from 3.5-5.0+ have the opportunity to earn thousands of dollars by winning or medaling in their division, or at least get their entry fee back with a good showing.

It’s a concept that hits home for players who have been around the sport for several years, says Pickle Money Ball COO and co-founder Clay Deen. If you’ve been playing since the pandemic-fueled boom in the early 2020s, you probably already have a drawer full of medals at home and need more of a carrot to chase in order to stay motivated.

The Kitchen Pickleball Discounts.

“We want amateurs to be able to win money and get a return on their investment for entering the events,” Deen said. “We think that can be something very positive for pickleball as a whole, because we’re rewarding regular people for their success. That’s going to keep them engaged and wanting to play more and practice more.”

While the Pickle Money Ball model might be new to some, it’s plenty familiar to Deen and the rest of his team. For years they’ve organized big-money events in the rodeo industry, and are bringing that experience to pickleball, where there’s a much lower barrier to entry and many more participants.

Find the full Pickle Money Ball schedule and register for events here

How it works

Players can “nominate” any competitive pickleball game beforehand in order to receive Pickle Money Ball points for that event. This includes:

  • Weekly matches
  • League games
  • Local tournaments
  • PPA Tour or APP Tour tournaments
  • Open play

By nominating those events and earning points (for a fee of $25 or $50, depending on the type of event), players will climb the Pickle Money Ball leaderboard, which will determine event seeding and qualification for future major Pickle Money Ball events.

Essentially, players are saying “I want this to count toward my ranking” when they nominate an event.

Pickle Money Ball currently has several events on the calendar for the remainder of 2026 and early 2027.

June 27-29: Carrollton, Texas | $320,000 Payout | Super Series Event
Aug. 8-10: Boston, Massachusetts | $140,000 Payout | Super Series Event
Oct. 22-25: Fort Lauderdale, Florida | $600,000 Payout | Regional Event
Nov. 20-22: Seattle, Washington | Payout TBA | Super Series Event
February 2027: Mesa, Arizona | $600,000 Payout | Regional Event

Read next: The best pickleball paddles with summer vibes

Pickle Money Ball also plans to host a national championship next summer that will have more than $1 million in prize money. Details are expected to be announced this fall.

Each event type ladders up to the next event:

  • Top 4 finishers in each division in the Super Series events automatically qualify for the Regional events.
  • Top 4 in the Regional Events will automatically qualify for the National Championship.

In that sense, the entry fees and nomination fees are more of an investment than a typical tournament entry fee – players are paying a couple hundred dollars now for the chance to win thousands of dollars down the line.

Deen described Pickle Money Ball as being “complementary” – not competitive – to the existing pickleball ecosystem.

“It gets people playing more, and maybe they want to get a local club membership to get better, so they can qualify for one of our upcoming events,” he said. “That’s healthy for the sport and good for the local venues and instructors, as well as the equipment industry. Everybody wins, including the players because now they’re working toward a real reward.”

Building on success of first event

Pickle Money Ball hosted its first tournament this spring at Arizona Athletic Grounds in Mesa, Arizona. The event drew hundreds of players and awarded $600,000 in prize money across 25 competitive brackets.

Divisions were determined by DUPR ratings, and each bracket paid 16 places deep. That means if there were 64 teams in a bracket, players needed to win two matches to finish in the money. The top teams in each division walked away with $4,800, while the winners in the singles brackets earned $2,400.

“There was a barrier we faced going into that first tournament, that this is ‘Too good to be true,’ because there’s no real standard in pickleball for paying out money – especially a large amount of money and paying out a lot of places,” Deen said. “But I think people saw at that first event that we’re serious about this and we are running well-organized events. We’re trying to change peoples’ mindsets and make that shift a little bit, but the concept has been really well received since that first event.”

Read next: The Kitchen’s top 13 pickleball paddles on the market right now + in-depth reviews for each one

Deen said they have since been in conversations with tons of venues across the country about hosting events. They’re planning to add even more Super Series Events in 2027 and beyond that will take the Pickle Money Ball experience to more places.

“I think there’s a lot of eyes on us right now and people are interested in our events because we have a lot of experience in production and we have a good team running things,” he said. “We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, which makes us feel really good about the direction we’re going and what we’re bringing to pickleball. It’s full steam ahead right now.”