MLP Owners Meetings Should Help Shape the Season

The Major League Pickleball 2025 Season is right around the corner!

MLP owners meetings are taking place Monday and Tuesday in Dallas, at UPA headquarters. The final details of the 2025 season should be ironed out. MLP Owners, GMs, important personnel, and UPA personnel are all going to be in attendance. This article covers the things we should learn after the owners meetings are done.

I have divided the topics into three different categories:

• Things we DO know
• Things we kinda/sorta know
• Things we DON'T know

There should be no items in the “Things we DO NOT know” category by the end of next week.

Let's get into it!

Things we DO know

Each team HAS to drop at least one player

More than one player can be dropped, but every team has to drop one. 

Example: The Dallas Flash won the 2024 Championship and kept the team the same the entire time - JW Johnson, Jorja Johnson, Hurricane Tyra Black, and Augie Ge. The Flash have to drop one of these players.

If a player was acquired after the initial 2024 draft, he/she is unable to be kept by that team

Example: The Texas Ranchers picked up Quang Duong in the first Waiver Period of 2024, after trading Pablo Tellez to Brooklyn. Quang is not allowed to be retained by Texas and will be entered into a free agent pool.

Players who were initially drafted and then traded and ended the season on an MLP team are eligible to be kept by that team

Example: Jay Devilliers was traded twice in MLP 2024. He was drafted by Orlando and within a few days traded to Utah. Midway through the season, he was then traded to Columbus. Even though he was injured at the end of the season, he was on IR and is eligible to be kept by The Columbus Sliders.

Player costs for each team for 2025 are based on the 2024 Draft Points used to acquire them

Teams do not pay the players salaries - the UPA pays the players’ contracts. Instead, in order to keep a player, the team must pay half of their 2024 Draft Points as dollars, to MLP. 

Example: Ben Johns was drafted for 840,000 Draft Points in 2024. In order for the Carolina Pickleball Club to keep him, Carolina needs to pay $420,000 to MLP (half his Draft Points in dollars).

Things we kinda/sorta know

There is going to be an open trade window, followed by a keep/drop deadline, and then a bidding waiver event

Before teams determine their keepers and the players they are dropping, there will be an open trading window. This makes sense because there are multiple teams that could keep all four of their players right now. Instead of just dropping a player, teams may look to offload a player for cash, since they have to drop a player anyway. I assume this period will be a few weeks to a month, but dates are not published yet.

Shortly after the trade window, there will be a deadline for all teams to either declare they are keeping or dropping players. Again, no dates are published yet, but I assume this would be a week or two after the trade window expires.

Lastly, there will be a bidding waiver event after that keeper/drop deadline. Since the first event is April 24-27, I would assume this would take place in the middle of March, giving teams at least a month to get together and gel before starting the season.

If a team drops a player, I assume they will be allowed to pick that player back up during the waiver event

This is an assumption I am making. For example: The St. Louis Shock have four fantastic players - Anna Bright, Hayden Patriquin, Gabe Tardio, and Kate Fahey. They don’t want to drop anyone, but have to. If they drop Kate, for example, I am assuming they can bid for a waiver slot, win it, and then pick Kate up again.

Things we DO NOT know

We don’t know roster sizes for the 2025 season

Rumors have it that rosters may be moving from four to six. If roster sizes move to six, it will greatly change the complexities of the decisions made by MLP GMs.

We don’t know the financials of each of the teams 

This is not an even playing field. Some team owners have tons of cash to burn and want to win. Some want to play the long game and not spend a lot in 2025, hoping to save money for the time when all teams are in the Premier Level (2026) and/or when revenues are coming for a media rights deal. And plenty of teams are somewhere in the middle.

We don’t know if unsigned UPA players will be allowed to play

Rumors are that MLP is not going to allow unsigned players to play. In 2024, if team a team drafted or acquired an unsigned UPA player, it cost them $20,000. $10,000 went to the league and $10,000 went to the player as a salary. Players acquired in the middle of the season had this dollar amount prorated based on how many events were left in the season.

While not specifically published, the rumors are that MLP is not going to allow unsigned players to play at all in 2025. This is one of the biggest decisions that will need to be finalized in Dallas.

We don’t know if there are any UPA signed players that opted out of playing MLP in 2024, who want to play MLP in 2025.

The following six players are signed UPA players, but opted to not play MLP in 2024:

• Julian Arnold
• Lauren Stratman
• Mary Brascia
• Maggie Brascia
• Matt Wright
• Lucy Kovalova

If any of these players decided they wanted to play in 2025, that would certainly change the strategies of some of the teams. 

Additionally, we need to know if any players who "opt out" of MLP 2025 will be allowed to "opt in" part way through the season. In 2024, "the fab 5" opted out before the season started, but then decided they wanted to play right before the first Waiver Period. That can't happen again in 2025.

We don’t know if there is a salary cap for 2025

In 2024, teams got 500,000 PPA Draft Points to use from the league and could use up to $500,000 in actual dollars. In 2025, since there is no “draft”, and teams are paying their “salaries” to the league, I doubt there will be a salary cap. However, nothing has been published about this.

Conclusion

The MLP Owners meetings will help provide some clarity on how the 2025 MLP season will operate. There are so many things up in the air! As MLP evolves, it is so much fun to cover the possibilities!

Be on the lookout either Thursday or Friday for an update on what exactly transpires in Dallas. We will provide a ton of updates this week and next, as it relates to MLP.