pickleball
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How a Ski Store Thrives in a City That Barely Freezes
Sun & Ski Sports started as a Midwest ski warehouse, moved to Houston in 1980, and built a four-decade business on one bet: the customer buying a snowboard in December wants a paddleboard in June.
Wilson Sporting Goods Co.
Wilson Sporting Goods is a Chicago-based, 113-year-old maker of sports equipment and apparel and one of the most recognized names in athletics. Owned by Amer Sports, Wilson designs and manufactures gear across tennis, basketball, football, baseball, golf, pickleball, padel, volleyball and soft goods, supplying professional leagues, elite athletes and everyday players. It is the official ball supplier to the NBA and NFL, backs a portfolio that includes Louisville Slugger, DeMarini and EvoShield, and has spent recent years pushing into apparel, direct-to-consumer retail and manufacturing innovation such as its 3D-printed Airless basketball.
Rec Technologies
Rec Technologies builds the software that runs local Parks & Recreation - a modern operating system that lets residents discover, book, and pay for courts, classes, clinics, and community programs, while giving recreation departments the tools to schedule staff, manage facilities, and grow revenue. Founded in 2022 by former Uber and The Athletic operators Birju Kadakia and Rachel Williams, Rec is used by 100+ cities and communities and raised an $11M Series A in 2025 led by Crosslink Capital with backing from athletes including Kevin Durant, Larry Fitzgerald, Joe Montana, and Kelvin Beachum.
The Bay Club Company
The Bay Club Company is a membership-based active lifestyle and hospitality company headquartered in San Francisco. Founded in 1977 with the nation's first co-ed fitness club, it now operates a growing collection of resort-inspired clubs organized into regional campuses across the West Coast - the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Pacific Northwest. Built on four points of focus - fitness, sports, family, and hospitality - the company serves a community of 135,000-plus members with tennis, swimming, squash, golf, pickleball, group exercise, family programs, dining, and spa services. Backed by KKR, Bay Club is in an aggressive expansion phase, acquiring regional operators to scale toward 50-plus clubs and over 200,000 members.
TeachMe.To
TeachMe.To is a marketplace for booking in-person private lessons - golf, tennis, pickleball, music, yoga, and more - that matches beginners with vetted local coaches and handles scheduling, payments, and reviews in one place.
Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson is a British-American entrepreneur, author, CEO coach, and General Partner at Flex Capital — a $200M+ venture fund backing 200+ category-defining companies including Perplexity, Vercel, Rippling, and Supabase. He founded Lemonaid Health in San Francisco in 2013, pioneering nationwide digital telehealth and prescription delivery, raised $60M+, scaled to nearly 200 employees, and sold the company to 23andMe for $400 million in 2021. Since then, he has written two Nobel laureate biographies, coaches high-growth CEOs, and invests in early-stage AI and fintech startups — while competing in professional-level pickleball tournaments.