Jared Franklin from Franklin Sports has a “personal passion” to grow pickleball in England as one of the brand’s earliest ventures into new territories outside the US.
Franklin Sports have a partnership with Pickleball England that sees the brand sponsor the English Open, English Nationals and Premier Pickleball League and provide the official competition ball (the X-40).
Pickleball 52 spoke to Jared, Head of the International and Special Markets Division at Franklin, at the recent English Nationals at Bolton Arena.
He said: “Everyone here is so passionate about growing the game. It’s so great to see from where we first started our partnership with Pickleball England to where it is now, all the growth and expansion country-wide.
“It’s definitely a passion of mine to see this baby grow in the UK specifically. It’s one of our earliest partners internationally.
“It’s early days still, but we’re confident people are going to drive it forward. The next stage is getting the likes of David Lloyd and public leisure centres to migrate and adopt it. There’s definitely a high demand and we need more courts.”
Jared said he feels the partnership with Pickleball England has been an ideal platform to embed Franklin Sports into the UK.
“Partnerships are all about relationships and trust and I feel we’ve built that between our organisations to the highest degree that it can be. To me and Franklin, this is a very important market for us and we want to do everything we can to support it and see the sport continue to grow.”
Jared visited the UK in 2023 for August’s spectacular English Open in Telford and the English Nationals in Bolton in October – and was highly impressed by what he saw.
“Outside of the US, the English Open was bar none the best indoor tournament I’ve ever been to,” he commented. “The massive numbers who participated, the number of courts and the facilities were outstanding.
“Here in Bolton, seeing these competitors grind it out shows that standards are rising. I’ve also seen some younger players which is really encouraging. I expected to see nothing but greatness and, sure enough, I’m seeing nothing but greatness here!”
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://www.pickleball52.com/jared-franklin-sports-pickleball-england/&media=https://www.pickleball52.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/sddefault.jpg&description=Jared Franklin from Franklin Sports has a "personal passion" to grow pickleball in England as one of its earliest ventures outside the US.){kind=link}