The Spokane Badgers: City's new semi-pro league ready for weekend tournament

Apr. 15—Spokane's semipro pickleball team is readying for its first official tournament this Saturday, competing against the Bellevue Ballers at the Press Pickleball Club.

The 10 players for the Spokane Badgers, as they are called, have been hitting the courts in preparation.

"We're feeling really excited," said player James Story. "People were playing really well last Saturday, so I think it's going to be a good showing for us in Spokane."

The Badgers are one of nearly 100 teams in the Ultimate Pickleball League — the country's first year-round, team-based semipro league, which kicked off last May. The league is mostly centered in the United States, but there are a handful of teams in Costa Rica and the Philippines. Founder Charles Farr said he intends to next expand into Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, England and Ireland.

The league was intended to address the gap in play opportunities at a level of a "4.0" and a "5.49" on the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating System, Farr said, which ranks amateurs at a level of 2.0 and sees the top players score in at around 7.0.

"You find a lot of players that are kind of ... stuck in a rut, if you will. But they're so competitive. They're grinding day in and day out and playing the same group of people, but not ever getting the opportunity to get to the next level, right?" Farr said. "What I've done is I've created a true grassroots-to-pro pathway, if you will."

Badgers co-founder Chris Allen has seen the same problem in Spokane in his role as the Press Pickleball Club director.

"Anyone above 5.0 is kind of not going to have fun going and playing recreationally, but they're not quite there for professional play," he said. "So this semipro league is designed for those players in that 4.5 to 5.5 range to give them something to be ultra-competitive at. Play against better players, get a chance to be seen by the companies so they can get sponsorships to hopefully make that transition into the professional level."

Pickleball was invented on Washington's Bainbridge Island in 1965, but has gained in popularity. It has ranked as the fastest-growing sport in the country since 2021. In 2022, then-Gov. Jay Inslee declared pickleball the state sport in Washington. Allen describes play as a mix between tennis and ping pong.

"Anything that's easy to learn and get good enough to have fun at is something that can catch on for everybody," Allen said. "Like, literally anyone can come out and get good enough at pickleball to have fun, but then it's really hard to master it."

When Allen and Tanner Ritchie decided they wanted to bring a league to Spokane, the pair were looking to find a mascot that was both local and fierce. Ritchie suggested a marmot. Allen pitched the Spokane Grim Reapers. They settled on the badger — which do, reportedly, live in Eastern Washington — as a happy middle ground.

Story, like many others, began playing about three years ago. Also like many others, he initially thought "That's not a real sport. People don't play that. Like, that's someone's grandma's sport." He began dabbling in secret with some tennis buddies of his.

"We were very fresh to pickleball, and it was messy, it was chaotic. You never knew who is going to win," he said, recounting the early days. "The cold early mornings at Comstock, where you get out there at 6 a.m., it's 40 degrees, and within 20 minutes we're all shirtless and sweating in 40 degrees. So it was a good start."

When Allen told him he was planning to bring a team to Spokane, Story saw it as an opportunity to play more people. There are many talented pickleball players in Spokane, he said, but at a certain point the same people wind up playing one another over and over.

"There's gonna be consistent competition. Like, there's a team atmosphere," he said. "So you kind of feel like high school, college sports all over again where you're rallying behind a cause, which is a blast."

That competitive opportunity is part of what makes pickleball so attractive, Allen said. Prior to pickleball, Allen played college basketball and other competitive sports. He has been competitive his whole life, he said.

"At some point as you get older, those harder sports like tennis where you've got to run around, basketball, that kind of thing — you reach a point where your skill level, it doesn't matter how good you are, you're just not going to be able to compete like you used to," he said. "And I feel like pickleball is one of those things where you can consistently get better. If you don't have the athleticism to run all over, you can do shot placement. You can have better strategy."

The Ultimate Pickleball League boasts a grand prize of $75,000 for the top team. But players don't join leagues to make money — they in fact are currently in a place of needing to pay to play (though Allen hopes to eventually reach the point of playing being financial neutral). The end goal, Allen said, is to give players an opportunity to grow and build a pickleball community.

Outside of play, the Spokane Badgers plan to host youth development programs and free pickleball clinics taught by the Badgers themselves. They are looking to build partnerships with local businesses, Allen said, and have a presence at community events.

Story has already been coaching kids in pickleball through his youth ministry group at True Hope Church, and says that his own 2-year-old son often wakes up his 4-month-old sister hitting a ceiling-hung pickleball in their room. Story is "coaching the next generation of pickleball," he said proudly, recounting how his son can currently hit the ball about 20 times in a row.

"It's just not about just competing," he said, "but how can we better pickleball in Spokane and make it more fun for everybody involved."