Selkirk Sport acquires Bread & Butter Pickleball Company to broaden reach

Selkirk Sport is folding Bread & Butter Pickleball Company into its lineup without flattening the brand’s edge. The deal brings together one of pickleball’s most recognizable equipment names and a fast-growing label known for bold design, irreverent branding, and a community-first following, with Selkirk saying the move is meant to broaden access while serving more players through distinct brands.

Bread & Butter, founded in 2022, built its reputation through a direct-to-consumer model and a tight identity around the Loco paddle, which Selkirk said won Paddle of the Year honors in 2025. Under the agreement, the Sapusek family and existing leadership will stay in place, and Bread & Butter will keep its own website, marketing channels, and product strategy. That matters in a sport where players often choose paddles by feel, grit, power, spin, and style as much as by the name stamped on the face.

The acquisition also fits a larger run of expansion at Selkirk. In January 2026, Bluestone Equity Partners invested $30 million in the company and valued it at about $200 million, saying it wanted to back both organic growth and opportunistic M&A in a fragmented U.S. equipment market. Selkirk said its revenue rose about 1,900% from 2019 through the end of 2025, while Bluestone pointed to a sixfold increase in U.S. adult pickleball participation from 2019 to 2024, a 55% jump in dedicated facilities year over year and a 23% increase in total courts in 2024.

For retreat players, the signal is bigger than one brand changing hands. Selkirk, founded in 2014 by Rob Barnes, Mike Barnes and Jim Barnes, has already pushed beyond its core paddles business with SLK by Selkirk in 2020, a more accessible performance line, plus retail and media efforts that include a long-term Costco partnership and Selkirk Pickleball TV. The company has also leaned on milestones like the first limited lifetime warranty in the category and the 16 mm paddle core to reinforce its place at the top end of the market.

Bread & Butter’s future now looks like a test case for where pickleball gear is heading. Selkirk is betting that growth does not require erasing a brand’s personality, and the bigger question for players and pro shops is whether more of the sport’s best-known labels will start looking less like isolated paddle makers and more like carefully managed lifestyle platforms.