Major League Pickleball sets 2026 kickoff in Dallas, 20-team field
Major League Pickleball opens May 22 in Dallas with 20 teams and 12 playoff spots, while Columbus defends after a title run through Dallas, St. Louis and New Jersey.
Major League Pickleball is set to open its 2026 regular season in Dallas on May 22 with a 20-team field and 12 playoff berths, a structure that gives the first weekends real weight from the start. The league’s calendar also stretches the race well beyond spring, with the regular season ending July 30-Aug. 2 at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando for the first time before the playoffs return to Dallas Aug. 6-9.
The biggest early storyline is the Columbus Sliders, who begin the year as the defending champions after a No. 5 seed run that knocked out the No. 2 Dallas Flash, No. 1 St. Louis Shock and No. 3 New Jersey 5s on the way to the 2025 title. Columbus is bringing back Andrei Daescu, CJ Klinger and Parris Todd, but Danni-Elle Townsend replaces Lea Jansen, a change that gives the reigning champs a new look even after last year’s breakthrough.
That roster move sits inside a busy offseason across the league. Major League Pickleball announced 2026 player keepers on Feb. 16 and said 54 players were retained across the 20 teams, leaving 66 open roster spots for the free-agency draft on Feb. 27 at 10 a.m. ET. In a team league built around chemistry as much as individual talent, those keepers set the tone for how aggressive clubs could be when the market opened.
The first-tier contenders still look familiar. St. Louis and New Jersey were identified as the early favorites, and the Shock remain loaded with Anna Bright, Hayden Patriquin, Gabe Tardio, Kate Fahey and John Lucian Goins. New Jersey also stays in the title conversation after pushing Columbus deep in last year’s bracket. Dallas, meanwhile, gets an immediate chance to use home court and its own high-profile roster to chase back the trophy it missed in 2025.
The schedule is spread across Columbus, St. Louis, Austin, Dallas, Salt Lake City, San Diego and New York City, giving the league more market stops and more chances to build a weekly following. That matters commercially as much as competitively: MLP said its 2025 event format produced a 52% year-over-year increase in attendance and more than doubled sponsorship revenue.
For fans tracking the sport’s professional ladder, the season now has a clear roadmap. Dallas opens it, Orlando closes the regular season, and the championship picture runs through a crowded field where one roster swap, one keeper decision or one hot playoff weekend can still change everything.
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