Topnotch Management pickleball agent Sam Flaxman represents some of the best players in professional pickleball, including Tyson McGuffin, Zane Navratil, Jessie Irvine, Federico Staksrud, Altaf Merchant, Irina Tereschenko, and Allyce Wilson-Jones.
Altogether, the Topnotch client roster spans more than 20 pro pickleball players. Flaxman, a former college tennis player at Wagner College in New York, is responsible for helping negotiate sponsorships and other business deals on behalf of his pickleball clients.
Among the sponsorships that Flaxman and his team at Topnotch helped facilitate include McGuffin’s paddle deal with JOOLA, Wilson-Jones’s paddle deal with CBRN, Irvine’s paddle deal with Engage, Federico Staksrud’s equipment sponsorship with Pickleball Scoreboard, and Jaume Martinez Vich’s grip deal with Hesacore Pickleball.
Before joining Topnotch in April 2023, Flaxman worked as the Pro Player Director for the PPA Tour where he was the liaison between players and the league. Flaxman is also an investor in pickleball training app TopCourt, indoor facility operator The Picklr, and Pickleball.com.
Flaxman spoke with NoVolleys about the state of pickleball sponsorships, how to make the game more entertaining for fans, and more.
On the sponsorship market for pickleball pros …
“For sponsorships, the biggest market is obviously your paddle deals. We’re seeing a lot in the shoe space, at least starting to emerge this year. You have your consumer product goods—hard seltzer, beer. Some non-endemic brands that we work closely with like Molson Coors, we have a partnership with Tyson McGuffin and Jessie Irvine. Tyson’s with Miller Lite and Jessie is with Vizzy [hard seltzer].
“I’d probably say it goes paddles first, second will be shoes, three would be consumer product goods (CPG), fourth would be sock and compression, then five is club operators. Those are newly popping up as the club market starts to grow, they want brand ambassadors and use athletes’ clout and visibility for marketing.”
On broadcast viewership expectations and international markets
“It has to come from a global perspective, it just can’t be from the U.S. only.
“We’ve been in India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia. I’m not as bullish on Europe as other people are, just because Padel has taken such a huge market share. And then South America. Also it’s tough in Europe because they go through the same weather patterns that we do here in the Northeast.”
On how the style of play in pickleball can evolve to appeal to a wider audience
I’m a pickleball die-hard, I love the sport. But I have to take that lens away. You have to make the game I think faster, stronger and more exciting. I think people get drawn out by the dink rallies. There’s been discussion about limiting how many dinks can be done in a rally and then you gotta pull the trigger, something along the lines of a “dink” shot clock—I don’t have the perfect answer.
I love the game the way it is, I think it just takes time for people to understand. I think the difficulty is we need to educate them on why players are making certain shot decisions, and I think that’s a difficult thing for [fans] to understand. Especially when coming from tennis, I think it’s difficult for people to understand the pattern play [of pickleball]. It’s chess, not checkers.”
On how tennis players fit into pro pickleball…
“At the end of the day, I think tennis players are going to take up a huge part of the market share. They have the athletic ability and the hands. I think it’s more just processing the game and understanding patterns [to succeed in pickleball].”
On the dilemma of celebrity events such as the Pickleball Slam
“Unfortunately viewership went down [for Pickleball Slam 2], but that was also because the Grammy’s was on that weekend. I like the Pickleball Slam, [but] I don’t think it’s the right approach. Sometimes people look at that and they’re like, it’s a bunch of old dudes playing, I don’t want to really watch that. They’re legends in the tennis game, but are they the best pickleball players? No. So I don’t know if it makes the best case for helping the pro game grow, but it does help for the visibility of pickleball.”
