Utah
Utah company turning big-big box spaces into pickleball hubs
The recent explosion in pickleball’s popularity belies the game’s surprisingly long history, having sprang to life some 59 years ago when three dads living on Bainbridge Island, a short ferry ride from Seattle, concocted the activity to stave off their kids’ summer boredom.
And while interest in the game simmered on a low burner for decades, it has since erupted into a full-fledged inferno, topping the annual list of fastest growing sports in the U.S. for the past three years.
According to a report this year by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, the sport experienced 51.8% growth from 2022 to 2023 and an incredible 223.5% surge in players since 2021. In just the last year, 10 million new players have jumped on the court for a game that’s a sort of hybrid between tennis and ping pong, played with a smooth, hard paddle and perforated plastic ball on a court about half the size used for tennis and a slightly lower net.
Pickleball’s horde of new devotees is also driving the need for more playing surfaces and while there were around 50,000 known courts at the end of 2023, according to USA Pickleball, industry watchers say the current inventory is at least 25,000 courts shy of demand.
And that’s where Ogden resident Jorge Barragan comes in.
Long wait led to a great idea
Barragan discovered the game in 2015 and quickly became a big fan and regular player. At the time, he was working in the software industry and finding time to play on weekends, evenings and even lunch breaks at work. Trying to sneak games in during the work day proved to be an increasingly challenging task, he said, as the wait times to get on a court got longer and longer.
“One day during the winter we were trying to get a lunch game in at the Farmington rec center,” Barragan recalled. “We got there and there were like 50 people waiting to get on a court. I thought, I really wouldn’t do this for anything else.”
Seeds sown by the frustration of the crowded courts would blossom into a business idea for Barragan, who is a first generation Mexican-American and the son of immigrants who embraced their own entrepreneurial spirit in opening a tortilla factory, which also formed his introduction to the work world.
Barragan partnered with his longtime friend and fellow pickleball fanatic Austin Wood to launch The Picklr, a business aiming to bring high-quality indoor pickleball facilities to players in Utah and across the country.
The early vision for Picklr was focused on filling the unmet need for courts by either building them from the ground up, like the multi-court facility in Kaysville or refurbishing existing buildings that met the right combination of square footage and layout to efficiently accommodate the 20-foot by 44-foot playing surfaces.
Thinking out of — and into — the box
Barragan and Wood discovered there’s a particular variety of commercial space that typically fits Picklr’s needs and can be found in thousands of communities across the country, thanks to the demise of some major retailers in the last few years — former big-box stores.
“In just about any community you can think of, there are big-box properties that have been sitting empty, sometimes for years,” Barragan said. “Former Bed, Bath and Beyond stores, old Staples, old Sears outlets … they are perfect for pickleball.”
While not all floor plans of vacated retailers hit the mark for reuse as pickleball facilities, many of them do and Barragan said the time and cost reductions for refurbishment versus new construction are significant.
“It’s a big-time savings over building from scratch which can take two years,” Barragan said. “Beside reducing construction time, it’s a lot cheaper, you can just lease the building and save the added big costs of HVAC, plumbing and other necessities. It just makes sense to go after big-box spaces.”
On top of the cost and efficiency advantages, Barragan said local governments are eager to partner with businesses that are interested in making investments in those dead and vacant spaces.
“Every city we’ve worked with are excited to do what they can to help reactivate these properties,” Barragan said. “Picklr renovations bring foot traffic, and new life, back to these old big-box locations.”
Discovering the magic of renovation helped propel Picklr’s growth and Barragan said he and his partner were in the process of developing seven Picklr outlets, mostly in Utah and one in Colorado, when they realized that to really accelerate Picklr’s expansion they might need to revamp their business model.
Turning to a franchising model, it turns out, was Picklr’s best track forward to meet the founders’ goal of building out a national presence.
Scaling the business
“Going the franchise route was the biggest decision we’ve made,” Barragan said. “Opening seven owner-operated locations was a lesson in understanding the challenges to scaling our business. From an operations standpoint, brand standpoint and capital standpoint it just made sense. And thinking about how to replicate myself and Austin and our passion to build this business, be a part of the community and grow pickleball.”
The pivot to a franchise approach didn’t relieve Picklr of its capital needs, however, and the company has been successful in drawing outside funding, some $16 million to date with a friends and family round followed by Series A and Series B efforts.
The backing has helped Picklr bring on a brand specialist and the company has added over 70 staff members to support its growing franchise operations, which, much like the sport itself, has been in turbo mode over the past year-and-a-half with 350 facilities in the pipeline.
For the love of the sport
Indiana resident and pickleballer Aaron Scholl is a veteran of the franchise business space, having worked as chief information officer for a national brand before joining the Picklr network as a regional developer. Scholl and a small group of investors, all Purdue University grads including former NFL superstar Drew Brees, own the Picklr development rights in three Midwestern states — Indiana, Ohio and Michigan.
Scholl said he and his family started playing pickleball during the pandemic and fell in love with the sport. When the hunt for a franchise opportunity began, Scholl said he and his partners were looking at a few opportunities related to pickleball court development but Picklr stood out among its competitors.
“Our interest was fueled by the sport itself and the lack of courts across the country, inside or out, to play on,” Scholl said. “Jorge and Austin got things going early, and actually had the concept before anyone really thought of it with pickleball dedicated facilities. Their updated brand look really sets Picklr apart. They’ve focused on creating a professional feel and professional experience. The sound baffles, lighting structures, Staples Center-like visuals. It’s a different, elevated feel.”
Scholl was also impressed by the network connections Picklr has established with national pickleball groups, relationships he noted set the table for bringing professional events to the facilities. Scholl and his partners expect to have 30 new Picklr locations in process by the end of the month and are scouting dozens of cities within their three-state territory for further expansion. Those plans include a ground-up build in Indianapolis that includes pro-level “show” courts and room for fans to watch top-tier players compete.
He also sees a huge upside potential for pickleball growth through sanctioning at the high school and college levels. Scholl noted that his group’s premier facility in Indianapolis shares the same home as the headquarters of the NCAA, a convergence that could raise awareness of the sport for the nation’s biggest college sports governing body.
“We’ve got 30 million people playing the sport,” Scholl said. “It’s gone far beyond fad status. We’re seeing high school state championship competitions and colleges giving away pickleball scholarships and a longer term goal of getting it into the Olympics. We love that whole junior aspect of the sport and the pipeline to professional play is only going to grow.”
That pipeline idea is baked into Picklr’s approach and embraced in the company’s motto, “Where Pros Are Made.” Those interested in trying out the game at a Picklr facility can get a 30-day pass for $30. Full adult memberships, available for $109 per month, give members unlimited court access at all Picklr facilities, unlimited league and competitive play, access to four pickleball clinics each month and four passes for guests.
During a Zoom interview, Barragan noted his own sunny countenance throughout the conversation about his company and the game that led to it.
“This is what my face looks like when I play,” Barragan said. “There’s always a smile. I love this game for the same reason everyone who plays it does. Because it’s fun.”
SANDY — Vibes were as high as the temperature in some cases as thousands gathered at Real Salt Lake’s home stadium to cheer on the United States’ 2-0 win over Australia in the second match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Fernando Sanchez took it all in, between belts of his drum standing in front of more than 4,000 people at the Sandy stadium.
“I was born and raised in Mexico City,” said Sanchez, who hosts a podcast called the “Fercho Show” from his current home in Utah. “But I’m from the U.S. now.”
Four years after scoring just two goals in three group games before a 3-1 exit to the Netherlands in the Round of 16, the United States is flying under Mauricio Pochettino, exciting fans across the country — from the sellout crowd at 69,000-seat Lumen Field in Seattle to watch parties around the world, including Friday in Sandy.
“The vibe is amazing,” Sanchez told KSL.com. “You can see all of the people who came out, everybody is happy because this World Cup means so much for Utah, for everybody. It’s the best of the best from each country fighting on the field. That’s what it feels like, and it’s so good to be part of this game.”
Less than 24 hours after some 9,200 fans showed up at America First Field for Mexico’s 1-0 win over South Korea, Real Salt Lake employees braced to host as many as 6,000 American fans who submitted an RSVP to spend a portion of the Juneteenth holiday in 94-degree weather.
In-game hydration breaks became as much of a necessity for fans as the players in Seattle, with hundreds flooding the open hydration stations, concessions area, and a few food trucks at each “quarter break” installed by FIFA for the first time at a men’s World Cup.
While final attendance dropped to around 4,500 fans in Sandy, the spirits remained high as Folarin Balogun, who scored two goals in a 4-1 win over Paraguay in the World Cup opener, forced the opening goal off Australia’s Cameron Burgess.
Alex Freeman, the son of former Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman who at 21 is the youngest player on the roster, doubled the advantage in the 43rd minute off a set piece that was initially ruled offside.
But after a lengthy video review where fans refused to sit down, pandemonium ensued as the U.S. fans in Sandy recognized their national team was moments away from clinching passage out of the group in the first men’s World Cup on home soil since 1994.
It’s the first time the United States men’s national team has won consecutive games at a World Cup tournament since 1930.
Yet it’s not just the wins, but how the Yanks are winning that has Americans excited about a sport that has made significant strides domestically in three decades since the founding of Major League Soccer.
The U.S. is winning with an exciting brand of attacking soccer led by Balogun, who grew up in England but chose to represent the country of his birth over his parents’ native Nigeria in 2023, and Christian Pulisic, the AC Milan winger with 33 goals in 87 international appearances from Pennsylvania who did not play Friday due to a calf injury.
“There’s a lot of American pride,” said St. George youth soccer player Tate Hurst, who showed up to the watch party with a half-dozen club teammates at Fire SC during Western Presidents Cup regional this weekend. “The American dream.”
Sunburn, heat and hydration aside, the moment created a memory for thousands of soccer fans and casuals alike. That included RSL season ticket holders, waiting until the end of the month-long international break for the club’s MLS season to resume in July.
But for one afternoon — and perhaps another, as the club plans to host a similar watch party next Thursday when the United States hosts Türkiye in Los Angeles (8 p.m. MT, FS1) — each soccer fan was pulling for the same team.
Except, perhaps, for the dozen or so Australia fans in the corner of the east lawn who represented their own Socceroos for the entire 90 minutes.
“Soccer brings everybody together,” one RSL staff member said over the public-address system as fans headed for the parking lot while James Brown’s “Living in America” blasted over the sound system after the full-time whistle. “That’s what today was all about.”
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah athletics is making a notable change to the Huntsman Center gameday setup, but the move is about more than where the team sits.
The Runnin’ Utes are moving the team bench from the east side of the Jon M. Huntsman Center to the west side, returning the bench to the side it occupied during the Rick Majerus era. The change will also move the MUSS and band from the west side to the east side.
The shift is part of a larger effort by Utah Athletics to improve the student-section experience, create a more consistent setup inside the Huntsman Center and better connect the arena to the university’s growing College Town Magic initiative.
Enhancing The MUSS And Fan Experience
Nowlin said the primary motivation behind the change is improving the MUSS and the overall fan experience.
“The reason we’re doing this is we want to enhance the MUSS,” Utah’s Deputy Athletics Director & Chief Revenue Officer, Patrick Nowlin said. “As an ongoing effort, we’ve been working on for the past two years, how do we enhance the fan experience?”
One issue Utah identified was that the MUSS had been located in different areas for different events. Moving the student section and band to the east side gives the department a more consistent location to build around.
“We wanted to create a better fan experience,” Nowlin said. “We wanted to be able to have one spot that we can build on, which means we can brand. We can enhance everything about it.”
The move also ties directly into College Town Magic. Nowlin said the area around the Huntsman Center will include more than 2,900 total beds, including more than 1,400 new beds, giving students a direct path from nearby housing to the student-section entrance.
“There’s over 2,900 new beds that are right there, which will be right at the branded entrance, right where the student section is,” Nowlin said. “They don’t have to go far at all. So it’s just a walk straight down from the dorm, right in the door.”
And according to Utah’s Patrick Nowlin, the move is not limited to men’s basketball.
“It’s not just men’s basketball. It’s all Huntsman Center events,” Nowlin said.
A Nod To Utah Basketball History
While the move is primarily about fan experience, there is also a clear basketball-history component.
The west-side bench location is where Utah sat during the Majerus era, when the Runnin’ Utes were one of the top programs in the country and the Huntsman Center had a different level of edge. Alex Jensen was part of that era as a player, and now, as Utah’s head coach, the move reconnects the current program with one of its most successful periods.
Nowlin said the historical connection was part of the conversation, even if it was not solely Jensen’s decision.
“Yeah, it’s a nod to history,” Nowlin said. “I think Alex, him being here, he’s a steward of the program. There’s a lot of history to having it on that side.”
Still, Nowlin made clear the change was not simply pushed through by Jensen.
“It wasn’t a push from him,” Nowlin said. “It was a concerted effort from everybody to where, how do we create an area that the MUSS can have, but also how do we lean into our history, but still move forward in a way that we can honor that, but create an unbelievable environment.”
That is the heart of the move. Utah is trying to bring back a piece of its basketball identity while also reworking the building for the future.
How Fans Will Be Impacted
The change will affect some season-ticket holders, donors and fans seated near the current bench, MUSS and band areas, but Utah tried to limit the disruption.
Nowlin said the department spent months working through the seating impact and expects fewer than 200 accounts to be directly affected. Those accounts are in sections T, U and V.
“This wasn’t something that just came about,” Nowlin said. “We’ve been working on this for a few months now, and we wanted to find a way that we could minimize the accounts that were directly impacted, but still create the fan experience change we were after.”
Utah’s plan is to work individually with affected fans and mirror their seat location as closely as possible on the other end of the court.
“If you’re on one end and now you’re going on the other end, we will work with you to get you in the seat that is similar to where you were and allow you to have the same experience you’ve had, just on the other end of the court,” Nowlin said.
Utah will also hold a virtual seat-selection process from July 7-17, allowing fans who want to move to choose from available options.
“We’re going to take care of everybody, but we’re also going to allow people the choice and the freedom to be able to make the changes they want to make,” Nowlin said. “We want to create every opportunity we can to give our fans opportunities to choose their own experience.”
Not Part Of The Huntsman Renovation
The bench and MUSS move is not directly tied to the larger Huntsman Center renovation discussions. Nowlin said the change is instead connected to College Town Magic and Utah’s effort to improve the student and fan experience inside the building.
“It does not have to do with the renovation, but it does have to do with College Town Magic,” Nowlin said.
The move could create some new seating and premium opportunities, particularly around courtside and floor seating. Nowlin said Utah is still evaluating those possibilities.
“By doing this, this will create additional opportunities for us on courtside and floor,” Nowlin said. “We’re also looking to how do we enhance our premium experience across the board. So this is a step in a process that will continue.”
The Bottom Line
Utah’s bench move is not just a nostalgic callback to the Rick Majerus era, and it is not just a seating chart adjustment. It is part of a broader effort to reshape the Huntsman Center experience.
The team bench is moving back to the west side, where Utah sat during some of the program’s most successful years. The MUSS and band are moving to the east side, where Utah believes it can build a stronger, more consistent student-section identity tied to College Town Magic.
For Utah Athletics, it is another step toward rethinking how the Huntsman Center looks, sounds and feels on game day. For Jensen, the move reconnects the program to its winning past.
The symbolism will matter to longtime Utah basketball fans. The logistics will matter to students, band members and season-ticket holders. But the larger goal is simple: make the building feel more intentional, more connected and more like home again.
Steve Bartle is the Utah insider for KSL Sports. He hosts The Utah Blockcast (SUBSCRIBE) and appears on KSL Sports Zone to break down the Utes. You can follow him on X for the latest Utah updates and game analysis.
Take us with you, wherever you go. Download the new & improved KSL Sports app from Utah’s sports leader. You can stream live radio, video and stay up to date on all of your favorite teams.
SALT LAKE CITY – The San Juan County assessor has resigned partway through his second term, following a recommendation that he be removed from office.
Rick Meyer’s resignation became effective on Monday, according to San Juan County Commissioner Lori Maughan. A copy of Meyer’s resignation letter was not immediately available.
This comes after the Utah State Tax Commission determined that Meyer had failed to follow the law and was “unfit to perform his duties.” In a letter last week to San Juan County commissioners, the tax commission recommended “the immediate removal of the San Juan County assessor from office to protect the public interest and restore the integrity of the property tax system in San Juan County.”
Among other things, Meyer was accused of failing to tax agricultural buildings, misclassifying property, and giving property tax exemptions to certain parcels, including vacant land, when he shouldn’t have.
The recommendation to remove Meyer from office was the first under a recent state law giving the Utah State Tax Commission more power to take corrective action against county assessors who aren’t doing their jobs properly. Assessors play a major role in the property tax process by determining the value of property throughout their counties.
Yet, it was unclear whether the San Juan County Commission could have actually removed Meyer from office had he not stepped down.
With Meyer’s resignation, the San Juan County Assessor’s Office has just one employee left. Deputy assessor Nathan Pitts will run the office until the San Juan County Republican Party recommends a replacement and the County Commission appoints one.
“It’s me holding down the fort here,” Pitts told KSL on Thursday, noting that he has spoken with the Utah Association of Counties and the state tax commission about plans for this interim period. “Everybody’s on board to assist and try to make it the best as we can, (but) I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me.”
Pitts said he does not plan to run for county assessor to replace his old boss.
“That is not my intention at all,” he said. “I’m quite content as a deputy assessor.”
Meyer was first elected as San Juan County assessor in 2020 and won reelection in 2024. His current term was set to conclude in 2029.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
-
Detroit, MI3 minutes agoToday in History: June 20, race-related rioting erupts in Detroit
-
San Francisco, CA12 minutes agoSan Francisco hotels see steady World Cup business, but fall short of Super Bowl surge
-
Dallas, TX18 minutes agoDallas International Piano Competition brings finalists June 23
-
Miami, FL25 minutes agoWhere to watch San Francisco Giants vs Miami Marlins: TV channel, start time, streaming for June 20
-
Boston, MA28 minutes agoDuck parades, outdoor drinking, and Gronk in a kilt. Here’s how Friday’s World Cup festivities unfolded. – The Boston Globe
-
Denver, CO33 minutes agoRockies ride Kyle Freeland’s gem, Braxton Fulford’s double to 4-3 win over Pirates
-
Seattle, WA40 minutes agoSuarez’s no-hit try ends on Naylor double in seventh, but Boston still tops Seattle
-
San Diego, CA43 minutes agoNeymar expected to return from right calf injury and play for Brazil in World Cup against Scotland
