Soul City Classic pickleball tournament benefits Otis Redding Foundation

Macon’s Soul City Classic turned a weekend bracket into a fundraiser with a clear local payoff: every match at Rhythm & Rally Sports & Events fed support for the Otis Redding Foundation, giving amateur pickleball players a chance to compete while backing a youth arts nonprofit rooted in the city’s cultural identity. The tournament ran June 13-14, with men’s and women’s doubles on Saturday and mixed doubles on Sunday, and play started as early as 8:00 a.m. each day.

The setting mattered as much as the cause. Rhythm & Rally’s 32 indoor, climate-controlled courts gave the event the capacity to handle all-day competition without worrying about weather, and the 150,000-square-foot complex added lockers, showers and a pro shop to keep the weekend moving. In a sport where many events are squeezed into a handful of outdoor courts, that scale made the Soul City Classic feel built for volume, not just convenience.

The tournament also fit into a bigger structure. Soul City Classic was part of the Rally for Good Tournament Series, a year-long Middle Georgia initiative made up of six tournaments running from January through September 2026. Each stop paired with a different local nonprofit, while players chose clubs to represent and earned points through medals and donations toward season-long Champions Cup and Community Cup honors. That format pushed the event beyond a single Saturday bracket and tied the on-court results to a broader competition across the region.

For Macon, the beneficiary gave the weekend a sharp identity. The Otis Redding Foundation, founded in 2007, says its mission is to empower, enrich and motivate young people through music, writing and instrumentation, and it says it has served more than 5,000 students ages 5 to 18 through in-person and virtual learning opportunities. That mission made the partnership feel especially fitting in a city long connected to Otis Redding’s legacy, and it gave the tournament a purpose that extended well beyond medals.

Rhythm & Rally has already proven it can draw outside attention. The venue previously hosted the Southern Pickleball Championships, which brought players from 27 states, and the Soul City Classic reinforced Macon’s place as a regional pickleball destination. With the Rally for Good series, the sport is being used not just to fill courts, but to build a recurring model for competition, charity and community impact.