ESPN’s Pickleball Slam 2 Adds Twist to McEnroe v. Agassi
ESPN’s first televised Pickleball Slam event was so successful this past April, the Worldwide Leader is coming back with Slam 2 in February.
John McEnroe and Andre Agassi return for the second edition, and they’ll be joined by Steffi Graf and Maria Sharapova, so that four tennis icons will be once again competing for a prize purse of $1 million.
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The original Pickleball Slam competition saw McEnroe and Andy Roddick face off against Agassi and Michael Chang; Agassi and Chang squeezed out a doubles victory and won the coveted cash. That match-up averaged 237,000 viewers among adults under 50. In doing so, it tied a Sunday NHL game on TNT between the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues as the day’s fifth-highest watched sporting event.
When viewed within the context of that entire programming week (March 27-April 2), the Slam out-delivered 13 nationally televised MLB games, seven NBA matchups and five NHL games.
David Levy, the former longtime head of Turner Broadcasting, concocted the Pickleball Slam via his Horizon Sports & Experiences, which he launched in November 2022 with former Momentum Worldwide CEO Chris Weil.
While at Turner, Levy was behind the inaugural The Match, a golf tournament that originally pitted Tiger Woods against Phil Mickelson in a winner-take-all showdown, and continues today with new players participating in each iteration.
“We took that same concept with the best racket players in sports—McEnroe, Agassi, Roddick and Chang—and put them in the fastest growing sport in America right now with great brand names, and I think we have a magic formula there as well,” Levy said.
The latest Slam will provide a new wrinkle by adding two of the greatest women tennis players in history to the mix. Slam 2 will have a doubles match featuring the duo of McEnroe and Sharapova, who have won a total of 12 Grand Slam singles titles between them, playing against Agassi and Graf, who earned a combined 30 Grand Slam singles titles during their respective careers and have been married since 2001.
The event is slated for live broadcast on Feb. 4 at 8:30 p.m. ET from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. Tickets for the event go on sale Tuesday and start at $46 each.
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