Hyperspace Ventures are the new owners of an expansion team in Major League Pickleball, the Palm Beach Royals!

Below is an excerpt from the article that was featured in Sports Business Journal on Tuesday, September 9th.

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By Rob Schaefer, Sports Business Journal

The Royals’ control ownership group is led by Zach Hunter and Taylor Meyer, former tennis teammates at the Univ. of North Carolina who co-founded digital development/investment firm Hyperspace Ventures together in 2017.

With MLP’s 2025 season concluded and the Royals set to debut in 2026, Hunter and Meyer shared additional details about the strategy behind their investment and plans for the team in a recent interview with SBJ.

For one, in addition to the ownership group of Hunter, Meyer and fellow Hyperspace partners/UNC alum Alex Rafiee and Peter Fox, the Royals have brought on a slew of limited partners in the team including Florida Panthers C Aleksander Barkov; former UNC basketball players Tyler Hansborough and Marvin Williams; Colts CB Kenny Moore II; WTA player Bianca Andreescu; Ultimate Software founder Scott Scherr; Advertising Week CEO Lance Pillersdorf; and Lyrical Partners founder Jeff Keswin.

Hyperspace had previously invested $5.3M into Pickleball Inc., the parent company of a wide range of pickleball properties including the United Pickleball Association, Pickleball.com, equipment seller Pickleball Central and facility franchiser The Picklr. Hunter said that as his firm bets big on the sport of pickleball at large, this was the right time to invest in a pro team because MLP’s current media rights deals are up at the end of 2025 and (although UPA has yet to announce any forward-looking deals on this front) 2026 will “be the first time that MLP/UPA does an actual media deal,” outside of its PickleballTV joint venture with Tennis Channel or scattered windows across national networks like ESPN and Fox.

“We thought it was the perfect time to get in at the level that we’re getting in. If we waited a few years and these media deals are coming in, to get in on a team at this valuation would be impossible,” Hunter said. “The media deal is obviously a big driver, just like most other sports. But we’re excited to build a franchise and monetize in other ways as well.”

View the original article here.

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