LeBron James Expands Sports Portfolio to Include Pickleball…You Know, That Game Your Grandma Plays

LeBron James’ love of sports isn’t limited to just basketball. He is a minority investor in the Italian soccer club AC Milan, and through his partnership with Fenway Sports Group, he has a stake in the Boston Red Sox, Premier League powerhouse Liverpool FC and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. Now, the four-time NBA champion has turned his attention to pickleball.

According to The Washington Post, on Wednesday, Major League Pickleball (MLP) announced that it is expanding from 12 teams to 16 with investors that include James, the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green, former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry and former world No. 4 tennis player James Blake.

LeBron, along with his business partner and longtime friend Maverick Carter, is investing in MLP through their family office LRMR Ventures.

“When I started playing pickleball, I immediately connected with the sport’s community and its capacity to be both fun and competitive,” Carter told CNBC. “To see the sport growing in communities all over is really exciting, and we’re looking forward to bringing our expertise together to try and build a championship team.”

In case you don’t live in a housing complex obsessed with pickleball, the sport is a combination of tennis and badminton that can be played indoors and outdoors. It features singles or doubles players hitting the ball back and forth across the net and doesn’t require a lot of running, so it’s very popular in senior communities. Because it’s a socially distanced activity, it increased in popularity during the pandemic. Per CNN, portable pickleball nets sold out during lockdown, with “the fastest rate of increase among players under 24 [coming] from 2020 to 2021.”

While I’ve never played pickleball, I’ve watched it on TV from time to time and it does seem incredibly fun. I’m not ready to invest in following a professional league, but I can see why LeBron—who is definitely in his old man phase—sees it as an interesting place to put a few bucks. I can’t imagine his investment stake in Major League Pickleball is anywhere near what he had to put up for global brands like the Red Sox or Liverpool FC.

The real question is, will we see LeBron sitting courtside at pickleball matches and what kind of hard candy will he be eating?