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Major League Pickleball · Dallas

MLP Is Back: The Dallas Recap, and the Day Ben Johns Silenced Even His Biggest Critic

MLP is back, with a brand-new format, 19 of 20 teams reshuffled, fresh rule fights — and a redemption arc nobody saw coming. Here's Dallas in six beats, ending with the moment host Zane Navratil ate his own words on Ben Johns.

Creator: Zane NavratilRuntime: 15 minVideo published: May 26, 202631.5K views when summarized
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TL;DR

The 30-second version

  1. MLP scrapped its grindy NHL-style regular season for two round-robin pools where your weekend finish maps straight to standings points — and the drop from 1st (25) to 2nd (18) is brutal, so every match matters.
  2. The LA Mad Drops won the event and a full 25 points, with Ben Johns "redlining" next to Jade Kawamoto like we haven't seen in years.
  3. Defending champ Columbus Sliders took 2nd without their top woman, Paris Todd (suspended) — fill-in Alex Strong played so well people wondered if she'd earned the spot.
  4. The New Jersey Fives broke up the best mixed pair in the league on purpose; Zane calls it a mistake, and they slid from an S-tier team to merely high-A.
  5. New officiating took over the off-court chatter — a "step on the court and you're carded" rule players openly hate, plus Owl AI line-calling that Zane argues just isn't accurate enough yet.

01 · The new format

Two pools, and a savage gap between 1st and 2nd

For two years MLP ran an NHL-style regular season — three points for a win, two for a Dreambreaker win — and it "became a boring grind," with teams already clinched or eliminated long before the end. The fix Zane says he'd been pushing for two years: two round-robin pools, where your weekend finish maps straight to standings points.

The new points ladder. 1st is worth 25, 2nd drops to 18 — and finishing 6th in pool play earns you a zero.00:01:56
Why it mattersThe reward curve is so steep at the top that there are no dead rubbers anymore. Every pool-play match swings real points — exactly the drama the old format lost.
Before you guys complain that MLP is constantly changing — which you are absolutely right about — ask yourself, is this format not way better? I think unequivocally it is.— Zane Navratil

02 · How it shook out

One night, two pools, a clear pecking order

Only one of the 20 MLP teams kept last year's lineup — the St. Louis Shock, who paid $1.3M to keep Anna Bright. The other 19 all changed. Once pool play ended, the bracket sorted cleanly: pool winners played for 1st/2nd, runners-up for 3rd/4th, on down the line.

Final group-play standings. The LA Mad Drops ran the table at 5–0; Columbus and New Jersey topped the other pool.00:01:38

Here's the seeding shocker: everyone penciled in Shock-vs-Fives for first. Instead the Shock beat the Fives in a Dreambreaker — for the fifth straight time — and that match decided third place, not first.

03 · The winners

The Mad Drops took it, and Ben Johns looked like Ben Johns

Going in, the LA Mad Drops were seen a tier below the Shock and Fives — and then made "as compelling an argument as possible" that they belong in the S-tier. They won the event and 25 standings points off a genuinely weird week of mixed results.

Ben Johns (LA, far side) with Jade Kawamoto against St. Louis. After dropping both gender-doubles matches, Ben caught fire.00:03:48

The story of the weekend for LA was Ben. After losing both men's and women's doubles in one tie, "Ben played some of the best ball I've seen him play in a long time," carrying them to an 11–6 win and then the Dreambreaker. Behind them, the defending-champ Columbus Sliders grabbed 2nd — and they did it without their top woman, Paris Todd, who's serving a suspension. Fill-in Alex Strong was so good "some people were wondering if she earned herself a lineup spot."

04 · The gamble

The Fives broke up the best pair in the league

For two years, Will Howells and Anna Leigh Waters were the best mixed team in MLP. So the New Jersey Fives… split them up, pairing Will with Georgia instead. Zane's verdict was blunt: bad call.

Zane's on-screen review of the Fives' roster call — the clown logo says the quiet part out loud.00:06:32

The results backed the skepticism. Anna Leigh and Noi went 4–1 on the weekend; Will and Georgia went just 2–3. Anna Leigh and Georgia are "far and away the best women's team," but the other three lineup spots look shaky.

The takeawayThis one event probably knocked the Fives from a presumed S-tier team down to a high-A — entirely on a self-inflicted lineup decision.

05 · Rules & robots

New cards players hate, and AI calls nobody trusts yet

Two officiating stories ran the off-court chatter. First, new UPA rules made stepping onto the court a cardable offense — and players are not happy about it. Second, MLP rolled out Owl AI line-calling, which Zane clocked as accurate "within a couple inches"… and not in a good way.

MLP's new Owl AI line-calling partnership. Zane's problem: the broadcast never showed the AI's call against the actual video.00:13:27
Honestly, I think it's a dumb rule. I think what makes MLP exciting is the team aspect of it — the coaching on the sidelines, the cheering. Getting punished for trying to show some support… I think it's really dumb.— Federico Staksrud, on the new card rule

On the AI: "until this stuff is made public, we're going to continue to question it… these programs just are not good enough yet."

06 · The mea culpa

"I was wrong about Ben"

Zane saved this for the end "because I'm still salty about it." He'd long argued Hayden Patrick had a higher ceiling than Ben Johns. This weekend, paired with Jade Kawamoto, Ben "redlined like we haven't seen for years — he was everywhere, he was dominant."

Ben Johns' team closing out St. Louis. The performance that made the host publicly reverse his take.00:14:38
Great day for my haters, but it gives me an opportunity to communicate something to you guys. I've been wrong previously, and I will absolutely definitely be wrong again. But I'm not going to double down — when new information comes to light, I'll admit when I'm wrong.— Zane Navratil

The point lands past pickleball: saying "I was wrong" out loud, on camera, is rarer than the hot take that needed correcting in the first place.