Before many touring pickleball professionals earn their first dollar in prize money, they’ve likely already spent close to $50,000 just trying to compete.
That’s the reality behind the sport’s glamorous top-tier headlines. Ben Johns, one of pickleball’s biggest stars, told CNBC he now earns a multi-million dollar salary. Stories like his shape how the public sees professional pickleball as a fast track to riches. But that picture only holds for a small handful of players at the very top.
For everyone else, the numbers tell a very different story.
The reality looks very different further down the rankings. According to Pickleball.com, registration fees alone total around $11,000 for a player who enters every event on a full PPA Tour schedule. That’s before a single flight is booked.
Tournaments typically run five days each, and the tour’s calendar is packed tightly throughout the season, with stops in different states just days apart. Pro player Tanner Wallace, sharing his own experience publicly, estimated that travel, hotels, and food for a full tour season could add up to roughly $40,700 on their own.
Put those figures together, and a touring player is already close to $50,000 out of pocket before results even matter.
Here’s the part that makes the picture even tougher. Many of the players absorbing these costs are not yet established enough to have sponsorship deals covering their gear or travel. That support usually comes after a player has already proven themselves, not before. So the players who need financial help the most are often the ones without it.
It also means players with full-time jobs face a difficult choice: use their annual leave to chase qualifying rounds, or skip events entirely and fall behind in rankings.
None of this even accounts for the skill, strategy, and simple luck it takes to actually climb the bracket and start earning prize money that offsets these costs.
Professional pickleball is growing fast, and the money at the very top is real. But for most players trying to break in, going pro isn’t a payday. It’s an expensive investment in yourself, one most players are still waiting to see pay off.
Written By Harsh Ahlawat
