Pickleball Slam will return to ESPN in a new round.
Pickleball Slam 2, the follow-up to last year’s first Pickleball Slam competition, will premiere on ESPN on Sunday night.
On Sunday, Feb. 4, at 8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN will broadcast live and exclusively Pickleball Slam 2, the exciting sequel to last year’s inaugural Pickleball Slam tournament.
Doubles Drama: McEnroe and Blake vs. Agassi and Sock
The exhibition event consists of three marquee matchups. Kicking off the event will be a doubles match with John McEnroe and James Blake facing off against Andre Agassi and Jack Sock. The second match will have Maria Sharapova partnering with Blake to compete against Steffi Graf and Sock in mixed doubles action. Finally, the climax event of the evening will be the $1 million winner-take-all showdown between the mixed doubles team of John McEnroe and Maria Sharapova and the formidable duo of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. With such legendary talent involved, the event is sure to provide thrilling tennis for the spectators.
Chris Fowler, Andy Roddick, and Michele McMahon will call Pickleball Slam 2. Reporting from the courtside is Camryn Irwin.
After the Pro Bowl Games at 3 p.m. ET and the Clippers-Heat NBA game at 6 p.m. ET, this is ESPN’s third and last live event of the day. All day long, ESPN2 will feature a tonne of college basketball, including a battle between #4 Stanford and #7 UCLA, two of the top ten women’s teams.
April of the previous year had an average of 669,000 viewers for the premiere event.
Tennis Icons vs. Pickleball Prowess: Sock and Blake Challenge Tennis Legends
Pickleball has become more popular as a televised sport throughout the past year or two. Pickleball leagues have reached agreements with ESPN and CBS Sports to broadcast live matches, but the sport’s future on television appears uncertain. PickleballTV, also known as PBTV, is a 24-hour pickleball network that Tennis Channel debuted in November of 2023. It is the second network of its kind.
This year, former tennis champions turned pickleball phenomenon Jack Sock and James Blake (now an ESPN tennis pundit) will take against tennis giants Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, John McEnroe, and Maria Sharapova in two exciting matches. World No. 1 ranked and multiple Slam champions McEnroe/Sharapova vs. Agassi/Graff square off in the third and final match for a $1 million purse.