In March 2022, the World Pickleball Tour launched its 2022 Amateur Series, touting 26 domestic competitions and possible international events in 2023. Your Dinkheads.com editors considered entering the WPT’s $5000 purse Colorado Springs Classic scheduled on 9/16-9/18, until that is, we took a gander at the steep registration fee of $70 plus $30 per event!
Scrolling through PickleballTournaments.com, we noticed that quite a few of the WPT events have been canceled, including:
Meanwhile, the number of registrants in several high-profile WPT events that took place or haven’t been canceled yet seems remarkably low:
- Cleveland Pickleball Classic had only 85 registrants;
- Dallas Pickleball Classic has only 132 registrants so far;
- Charlotte Pickleball Classic has only 109 registrants so far;
- Cincinnati Pickleball Classic had only 166 registrants; and
- Las Vegas Pickleball Classic has only 66 registrants so far. (This one is in November, so maybe people are likely holding off. But still.)
What’s going on? We reached out to WPT for comment on the cancellations and will report back on any response. Let us know in comments if you are experiencing pickleball tournament fatigue or have observed the phenomenon in your area!