into us then is crucial to us now and we bring everyone
that we work with into that process and culture. It’s not
just signing up for a tournament; it’s refining, training,
teaching everyone the pickleballtournaments.com way that
has been tested and proven to run very efficient events. It
really is a package deal—when you work with our site, you
work with all of us.”
And the number of people working with
pickleballtournaments.com is going to be growing
exponentially in the near future. The online portion of
the business is scalable to tournaments of any size and
user base. McCurley is partnering with other companies
in the southeast and northwest United States to teach
them how to organize and run successful tournaments.
The team has a dozen independent contractors working on
the business, but Thompson said the volunteers who have
learned how to run tournaments and have become power
users of the site are the true backbone of the company’s
success. Internationally, pickleballtournaments.com’s
administration of tournaments in Madrid for the past
three years has laid the groundwork for global expansion,
bridging the gaps between languages and culture that are
necessary to grow their business and the sport.
They’ve already received glowing accolades from a
delegation of tournament organizers from the UK who
came to see the pickleballtournaments.com team in action
firsthand.
“The tool of pickleballtournaments.com isn’t useful
without the processes behind it that the original team
developed 12-15 years ago,” McCurley said. “The UK team
watched us in action at the US Open, keeping up with
1,300 players, 3,000 matches over 7 days. They were blown
away and said that it ‘looked like we were inside a surgery
room executing the tournament with clinical precision.’ It’s
a nice compliment to get from another country.”
For now, pickleballtournaments.com will remain the
reliable, indispensable service that tournament organizers
have always known, but the day may come when players
will recognize their system and processes no matter where
they play in the world.
“We’ll be doing work with the UK, in Europe and we’re
in early discussions with organizers in India as well as
other countries,” Thompson said. “We have five countries
coming in for a host training session to help them run
tournaments. We’re taking tiny steps, but we’re getting
there.” •
MAY/JUNE 2017 |
MAGAZINE
11