Prize money is distributed in the following way between 1st to 8th - ensuring all finalists at least receive their entry fee and the final two teams remaning battle it out for the massive $50,000 1st Prize. 1st - $50,000 2nd - $20,000 3rd - $10,000 4th - $5,000 5th - $4,500 6th- $4,000 7th - $3,500 8th - $3,000

This will be agreed by each team prior to the season starting. Each team will be required to submit a clear contract (template provided by NPL) that states the agreed % splits between team members based on games played, etc. Restrictions: All team members must receive the higher of at least 10% of the prize money earned or their entry fee. Splits outside of the above stipulation are up to the individual teams.

There will be a disputes process stipulated by our League T+C's (That will be finalised by November) whereby NPL will act as arbitrar for all disputes. We expect that the signed documentation prior to league commencement should cover off the majority of scenarios.

Major Sponsors Squealing Pig Wines & Six Zero Pickleball Both are large brands that will provide fantastic support & credibility to the National Pickleball League and provide more coverage and exposure to all athletes. We are also excited to partner with Aqualove Water as our official water sponsor. Press Releases & News We have another Major Sponsor of all NPL Leagues & Championships to be announced in February - providing national reach and coverage to the NPL - Season 1

The NPL only partners with brands that provide the ability for a true partnership that benefits all its members and players and also provide exposure to a wider demographic of individuals and businesses. League sponsors will provide brand collaborations, product, prizes, social media amplification, events, PR & more.

As this is the first true professional Pickleball league in Australia - significant marketing is required to elevate pickleball into the homes of the masses. We will be working a number of pathways to shift pickleballs standing as a sport in Australia today, to ensure all players can share in the success this brings.

Yes - all 247 matches in Season 1 will be streamed and available LIVE online! More details to come.

Yes - all 240 matches in Season 1 will be streamed and available LIVE online! More details to come.

Yes - all games will have replays available and you will be able to download them for match highlights & match reviews! More details to come.

$50 Entry fee is required to nominate for the draft. This will be refunded in full, if you do not get drafted.

Without an entry free, we expect 1000's of people to register who are not ultimately 100% committed to the season. With an up-front entry fee for draft nomination, we expect the large majority of nominators to be serious about playing in NPL Season 1. This will ensure the success of the draft.

You will receive a full refund of your entry fee - no questions asked. Please make sure to pull out prior to draft nominations closing on Jan 31st 2024.

Yes you can, you are welcome to nominate to play in all 3 states, 2 or just 1. If you nominate to be available to play in multiple states you will have to play in the team that you are selected for. This may mean that you are selected to play for a team outside of your home state. If this occurs you are responsible for all travel, accomodation costs to participate in the 5 rounds.

Total Competition Points (3 points for win, 0 for loss, 4 points for clean sweep), followed by Total Matches Won, followed by Total Sets Won, followed by Total Games Won, followed by Total Points Won.

Timeouts and Medical Rules will be confirmed prior to the season start

$3000 per team, which equates to $500 per 6 team members (if split evenly) this may be split alternatively if preferred (examples below). Team entry is to cover the cost of running a large, national 6 week competition. With a guaranteed 5 weeks and 10 matches of competition - this works out to $100 per week. More information on Player Benefits in Player Benefits section.

We will allow all teams to make this decision for themselves but our reccomendation as a starting point is: This can be split differently based on expected playing time or adjusted upon season results.

Yes. There will be a Silver NPL Sponsor package available for companies wishing to sponsor teams. For $5,000 (covering $3,000 team fees + $2,000 extra cost) - a Sponsor will receive benefits for the duration of the NPL Season 1(PDF to come).

NPL will select the 18 team captains based on their overall skill rating & results within the Australian Pickleball landscape to date. There will be no singular source of truth for this decision and ultimately NPL will apply discretion on these calls. These decisions are not made lightly and we understand there will be some disappointment but we will be using all the publicly available data to make these decisions. There will be opportunity for new team captains Season 2 and beyond as the league & the sport grows in Australia.

There are already over 50 requests to captain and we expect over 200 by the end of the process. There can only be 24 captains and we have to make decisions based on all publicly available information on players results, commitment/dedication to the sport & future potential. Each member of the team will be just as important to the success of the team.

The main extra responsibility of a captain is to draft their team on the NPL Season 1 Draft Day. Captain will be responsible for any additional player requests for injuries/absences/other reasons. They will also be required for some minor additional interviews/media work.

Not at this stage. We aim to build on learnings of Season 1 for a similar (but new and improved) Season 2 in August 2024.

Club captains will be provided a suggested list of 50+ team names to choose from. They are also be able to submit team names for approval.

The draft will be an online draft, where captains will take turns in selecting players from the available pool in their state. The order will be determined by Captains DUPR Rating. The captain with the lowest DUPR rating will have the first pick. The draft is a snake draft, meaning that the player with pick 24 will also then have pick 25 etc. Players are reminded that they must select 3 men and 3 women for their teams. The order in which captains select male v female players is up to them.

That is completely fine! Your draft biography will include all possible sets of data points - DUPR, Pickleball Brackets, Tournament Results, Self Rating, etc. Having a DUPR rating helps but we understand the current state of Pickleball in Australia and will ensure that players with a short/non existent DUPR background are still eligible for the draft.

The beauty of the reverse snake draft means that the highest rated captains will have the LAST 1st round pick in their respective states and then the 1st 2nd round pick and so on. This is the same format used in all drafts seeking parity and ensure you don't have "super teams".

This is a great question but luckily the #1 vision of the NPL is - to grow the "pool" of professional and semi professional players in Australia. This is not an easy task but it is absolutely achievable with our key pillars & monetary investments - venues, marketing and pathways from grassroots through to THE National Pickleball League. We plan to introduce 1000's of new players to the sport via our Melbourne venue, our investment in exciting marketing & the number of tournaments, social leagues & pop-up events we are going to run in the next 6 months. We are already seeing many ex tennis players & other athletes start to take up Pickleball and we expect a huge injection of talent into the sport that will also have the added incentive of training to share in a prize pool of $100,000 - Who's up for the challenge?

No! We made sure that QLD teams were broken into two seperate brackets with 2 teams from each bracket being eligible for finals. Our next NPL Championships and investment (money/time) is to grow VIC/NSW markets in the back half of 2023 so you will start to see an influx of new players from those states, with QLD and its strong pool having no disadvantage due to 4 of the 8 spots in the finals guaranteed.

Our vision & strategy (mentioned above) tries to solve this situation. There are 100's of strong Pickleball players out there who don't have ratings and have not yet committed full-time to the sport. We believe with high profile and high prize money competitions, dedicated venues, more opportunities to play all over the country provided by NPL & our open, transparent relationship with Pickleball - this problem is solved in the next 6 months.

Nominating to play in multiple states will increase the likelihood of being drafted.

In the event you are not drafted you will have the opportunity to be added as a reserve. Reserve players may be called upon by captains in the event of injury or absence. Whilst we hope that teams will not require the use of the reserve list, we expect it to be a likely scenario, thus encourage players to be available for subsequent selection.

Held on Saturday Feb 3rd - this will be an online zoom draft!

That is fine! As long as you are nominated, you will be eligible to be picked even if not available on the day!

You will know! But you will also be directly notified via email & text.

That is against the spirit of the great game of Pickleball BUT if you have a unique reason - please let us know and we will consider on an ad-hoc, case-by-case basis. It will need to be a ludicrously strong unique reason! It is unlikely that you will be eligible to play in another team if you decline.

You will be notified via your contact details & there will be a follow-up webinar with all drafted players. More details to come.

All players are required each week so the 5th/6th player can be as important as player #1 and Player #2 in the NPLeague Format. Moreover, it is likely teams will benefit from rotating players to ensure they are fresh and performing at their optimum level. We expect all 6 players from each team to be playing each week.

This will be discussed & finalised by each team differently prior to the season based on team strategy, scheduling, absences & general agreements.

Tentatively yes - please refer to the NPL Season 1 portion of our website for our tentative dates. These are locked in from an NPL perspective but we are waiting for final confiratmion from Pickleball Australia around any clashes before announcing these as official!

This is why there are 6 members in the team, not 4 members. We will aim to have all games covered by the original drafted 6.

The NPL is proud to have released its schedule well ahead of any other Pickleball organisation with the aim to avoid any 2024 clashes. We want to ensure all NPL players are free to play in all Major Pickleball Tournaments in Australia.

There will be a full policy to follow for Injuries based on short term v long term & other considerations. This will be part of our T+C's released in soon. The current answer is that there are teams of 6 to cover for most short term injuries but any long term injuries will allow for drafting from the pool of approved/nominated players that did not get drafted originally and have agreed to be part of a reserve draft pool. We will work through policy to begin and for any unique circumstances - there will be a procedure to follow to achieve the best outcome.

Similar to our injury policy - there will be a policy for all types of forced absences. Stay tuned for more information from our T+Cs.

2 teams will be selected from each bracket - 2 brackets from QLD, 1 bracket from NSW and VIC.

2 from VIC, 2 from NSW and 4 from QLD (2 from each 6 team bracket)

This will be decided by Total Competition Points (3 points for win, 0 for loss, 4 points for clean sweep), followed by Total Matches Won, followed by Total Sets Won, followed by Total Games Won, followed by Total Points Won.

Each round teams will play 2 matches against different teams from your bracket. You will play your first match, have a break for lunch/dinner and play a second match after. Each round will be played in a singular day. We anticiapte most matches to be played between 9 and 5pm on a saturday. There is the possibility that we may have some twilight/evening rounds scheduled.

Each team plays every team twice in their bracket. This ensures evenness of the competition as well as ensuring teams have the opportunity for redemption later in the season. The order of who plays who in each round will be predetermined by the NPL.

The answer is yes - all 6 players might be required in the Singles Sets.

Announcing the brand new, revolutionary NPLeague Format. Each team will play 2 matches per round (against two seperate teams). Each match consist of a minimum of 4 Sets & 1 Dill Breaker ( as required) 1st Set = Female Singles Best of 3 Games 3 Seperate Singles Games played by 3 individual players Teams will nominate Player #1, Player #2 and Player #3 prior to the set Game 3 only played as required First to 11, Traditional Scoring, Win by 2 Best of 3 Game winner receives 1 Point for Winning the Set *Minimum of 2 females playing single, maximum of 3 2nd Set = Mixed Doubles Pair #1 1 Single Game Pair nominated prior to match First to 21, Rally Scoring 3rd Set = Male Singles Same format as Female singles 4th Set = Mixed Doubles #2 Same format as Mixed Doubles #1 Dill Breaker (as required - if set score is 2-2) 1 Single Game First to 21 (As a Team), Rally Scoring More details to be released soon

Singles Sets - Best of 3 Games, with 3 Individual Players playing in each individual game - First to 11, Win by 2, Traditional Scoring Mixed Doubles Sets - Best of 1 Game, with one mixed pair - First to 21, Win by 2, Rally Scoring

Details to be announced closer to the date.

Winning a match secures your team 3 points. A win may be a 4-0 clean sweep, a 3-1 victory or a 3-2 victory following a tiebreaker.

Winning a match 4-0 will secure your team a bonus point, encouraging teams to fight for every set.

Every match will have a referee.

Of course! We plan there for to be unlimited NPL Seasons - Season 1 is just the beginning. Season 2 will start approximately in August 2024 and will be build on the all the success, learnings & feedback of Season 1 to be an even better & more exciting product.

Expect more details about halfway through Season 1 as we want to gather data, learnings & experience from Season 1 to shape Season 2. There will be no drastic changes - simply a more refined product.

Pickleball Australia has sanctioned all our championships to date and we are in the process of working with them to sanction our NPL Season 1 for 2024. They are waiting to gather dates from all sources in Australian Pickleball to ensure there are no major clashes and aim to provide 2024 guidance/sanctioning by October/November.

We have always been open with our unwavering desire to grow the sport of Pickleball in Australia. To do this - there needs to be as many leagues, competitions and events as possible so that all potential Pickleball players view Pickleball as a viable sport with clear pathways from grassroots through to professional. At this stage our commitment is to work with other Australian leagues to avoid date clashes ensuring Pickleball players can play in all leagues & tournaments they choose. We are open to future further partnerships as the sport of Pickleball progresses in Australia.