Rally scoring GONE: and other MLP changes

Owners’ meetings held in Dallas to make decisions for 2025

Over the last 2 days, MLP had their first big owners’ meeting of the year, at UPA offices in Dallas.  Everything from finances, schedule, rules, strategic partnerships, and rosters were discussed.  Obviously when you get this many passionate people in a room, discussions can get heated, but details are starting to emerge on how the 2025 season will shape up. 

Key changes:

• Season runs April - August, hosted by the teams in their home towns/regions

• Premier teams will now have a 6-person roster

• Rally scoring replaced by traditional side-out scoring

• Mid-Season Tournament will have extra points awarded to the overall season standings for the top 3 finishers

As opposed to a year-long schedule interlaced with PPA tour events, MLP’s season will run from April-August, operating more like a traditional sports league. Teams hosting events at their own venues will give them the opportunity to build a local fanbase and connect with their communities.

Six-person rosters mean that teams will have to provide their own subs when their top players aren’t available (like a real sports team). These subs (and ALL players) must be signed with the UPA. The league is no longer allowing unsigned players, even for a fee. (Challenger teams will continue with 4-person rosters)

Perhaps the biggest shift is to traditional side out scoring to 11 for all games except the DreamBreaker (if it occurs). DreamBreaker scoring will stay the same as 2024 (rally scoring to 21 points, game point must be won on serve). This is quite a departure, but should help eliminate some confusion for casual fans switching between PPA and MLP.  The lack of a scoring freeze should also help set more accurate betting lines. 

Schedule/Venues

MLP will have a similar setup as 2024. There will be 10 events but teams will only participate in 5 of the 10 events. All teams will play 25 total matches (not including the Mid-Season Tournament) across those 5 events. The biggest change is a local team will now be hosting each event. This is an amazing change that will give teams the opportunity to grow a local fanbase and sponsorships.  We’ve already seen teams like the Orlando Squeeze, DC Pickleball Club, Dallas Flash, and St. Louis Shock embrace their areas and grow a fanbase through local events. This should ramp that up even more.  We already know the shock are hosting their event at the Chaifetz Arena (named after their owner). It will be interesting to see how the teams will energize and personalize their “home” events.

Rosters

A lot has changed here. Most notably, Premier teams will now have a 6-person roster (3 men 3 women).  While only 4 will play in a given match, the extra two spots allows for more player development and subs for injuries or other reasons (suspensions?). Lineups must be set the day prior to each matchup, and if an injured player is subbed in for their bench player, that player must compete for the remainder of the day’s matches, PLUS the next day. The injured player could return to the roster on the 3rd or 4th day.

The rules on keeping players have been further detailed and only players originally drafted in 2024 can be kept on a roster. This means the bidding for QD will be heavy. (Sorry Ranchers!).  Every team can keep at most 3 of their 4 for this year. With the expanded roster, that means every team will be drafting at least 3 more players. Add in the promoted Challenger teams and that means a LOT of player movement.  The players will be acquired through a free agency draft described below. 

Free Agency

Free agency will follow a dynamic bidding process for both Premier and Challenger, very similar to the original draft in 2024. Selection slots will be auctioned off in order, and teams can continue bidding until no one bids higher. A couple important differences:

• Teams don’t get a free 500k “points” to bid with.

• There is no cap on spending (previous there was a 1m point cap)

Any player you draft through this free agency you can keep a full 3 years, however each year you must pay the original bid amount (rather than 50%) to MLP to keep them. 

Playoffs

• Top 10 Premier teams will make playoffs (seeded by total season points)

• ALL Challenger teams will compete in the playoffs

• Round 1 will be played for seeds 7-10 will be a single-elimination match

• Round 2 will be played for seeds 1-6, plus the 2 winners from Round 1. These teams will play best-of-three series of matches

• Semi-finals: Top 4 teams from Round 2; will play best-of-three series of matches

• Finals: Top 2 teams will play best-of-three series of matches

• Rounds 1 & 2 will be held in San Diego. Semis and Finals will take place in NYC.

Key Dates

• February 16th: “Keeper” cutoff date. Teams may trade until this date, declaring which player(s) they will be keeping for 2025.

• March 3rd: Premier Draft

• March 4th: Challenger Draft

• March 4th: Trade window opens post-draft

• April 24th: Season kick-off in Orlando

Overall, there’s a lot of positive movement in the MLP league, taking learnings from 2024 to make things bigger and better in 2025. It leaves us wondering: which teams with deep pockets are willing to drop big money for Quang Duong or other top players to fill out their roster?  What currently unsigned players will join the UPA ranks in order to play MLP? What’s bigger: the owners’ drive to win, or their checkbooks? It’ll be riveting to watch how this unfolds between now and season-kickoff in April.

NEW EPISODE released today!