Is Pickleball A Bubble? Court Surfacing Trends with To Watch Out For (with Brent Poss)
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Brent: [00:00:00] what happens is if you start making a lot of mistakes, yes. You learn from them. The, the problem is, can you recover from them? Because if you make a lot of mistakes early on, it's a very difficult hit on the reputation. Yeah. And so the, the biggest mistake, and without getting too specific in the actual mistake, is [00:01:00]
Joe: What's up guys? Welcome back. I am here with my friend Brent PAs. Brent, you are a living legend in the pickleball world. I know you, I know you're gonna be, you know, humble about it, but you are, you are a, a true voice in our, uh, our industry. So thanks so much for taking some time outta your day to,
Brent: course. I appreciate that. Thank you. I
Joe: Yeah, super excited. So, so Brent runs a, well, he's the, you're the president of Cortex. Maybe you could just talk about that really quick, just kind of present day, what do you, what's your day to day? And then maybe touch on what, what's going on in the Facebook group?
Brent: Okay. So I am the President of Cortex Construction. We are a court building company that does both [00:02:00] residential and commercial. We cover a large chunk of Texas. Um, it's a large state, and so the, the challenge there is not overextending too much, but, but letting folks know that you can have a reach. Um, I do also run the Backyard Pickleball Facebook page, which is a, a whole kind of a different subject, but, you know, it's a, it's a
Joe: Another full-time job,
Brent: it feels that way.
It really does. I mean, it's a full-time, like keeping track of what's going on there, but we use it for information. We, we don't, I don't even really advertise at all that I do what I do. I mean, people know it because we'll talk about it, but, but what I don't like to do is see folks, especially in the years I've been doing this, to see folks not have the right information.
Do things based on what they're seeing kind of in the general population of things and, and, you know, making mistakes. And I don't want people to do that, so I'm just trying to give information. So
Joe: Well, I, I think, I think your voice and your presence in, in a group, like when I joined that group, I think there were [00:03:00] maybe 1500 people in the group and then it has exploded. I think it's over 11,000 people in
Brent: 12 now.
Joe: And I think, I think the way that the industry is working right now is you have a lot of, a lot of new guys and a lot of, a lot of new contractors, a lot of people, uh, just more courts and people are starting to think, maybe I could do this myself.
So you've been such a, both for contractors and for homeowners especially, um, to just say, Hey guys, let's pump the brakes on. Everybody thinking this is super easy and let's, let's at least get you the right, the right information. So I'm, as I was getting started, I was so grateful to just be able to see what cus what questions customers were asking and not just asking each other, uh, the fact that you're leading that group is so helpful for both the contractor and the homeowner.
So,
Brent: Well, I'm mindful on there that things are not the same everywhere and I get that construction practices are, are different in in areas. However, there's some universal truths to, [00:04:00] to court building and there's some things that you can always at least understand and no options.
And, and I get that it's not best for everybody. Some people think that I am trying to push only one way. I do try to push the way that I believe is best. Of course, that's what I'm gonna do. 'cause that's what I believe. But there are other ways that can be done and I just want people to have information.
So
Joe: Yeah, totally. Well, I, we've got a lot of new guys, or, you know, guys that are thinking about starting surfacing businesses, maybe even jumping to court, building businesses, kinda like you're running. So I'd, I'd love to hear just a little bit of your story. I know you didn't, you didn't take my path. You didn't start as a court surfacer yourself, but maybe just, you know, a couple minutes on your story, how did you get here?
And then I'd love to dig into, you know, what you're seeing. You know, we're riding this pickleball wave right now. A lot of us, and I, I wanna get your take on how long is this wave going to be rideable? So,
Brent: totally. Very good question. So I have a little bit of a different path to this business. Um, I have been building courts for 20 years, but I didn't immediately start that. Um, went to college, got a [00:05:00] degree, then went into a family business and worked for 10 years in a family business that I felt very unfulfilled in.
Um, it, it, it was unfortunate that I felt that way, but, but I did, and, and so the unique part of my journey was that I was a customer of a local court builder and had a court built for me and my family. Um, of course when I first had it built my. Only son at the time was one, and I told my wife the court was for him.
It has nothing to do with him. It was for me. I wanted it, you know, he, he was one years old, he didn't play. Um, and so, uh, now he's 20, almost 26 now. So I became interested in the business because I loved sports growing up. Always played, really got to know the folks that built my court back in the day. And, and it was a sport court, which is a little bit different than what we're gonna talk about mostly here with the, with the acrylics side.
Um, but court building is, court building and attendances of it are the same. Um, so, so I got into that, um, kind of [00:06:00] by coincidence really, because it wasn't my intent. I was looking to do something else and ended up getting to that business through, in a relationship. And then just kind of learned from literally the, the very bottom of how do you sell a court?
How do people go about getting one? What are they asking for? What do they do? And, and just doing a lot of just. Sweat equity in it, you know? And for the first several years it was very like, wow, you really have to get out there and you really have to present yourself 'cause you don't have anything that you can show people that you've done that trust, that
Joe: that is the, that's an inflection point right off the bat that you gotta figure out how to push through. No doubt.
Brent: You do, you do. And, and I will say this one advantage that I had, and I absolutely will admit this, that going to the sport court network, which the sport court especially back then was a really, you know, solid name in the industry that that led to some credibility that was kind of instant. Um, I used the fact that I was a court owner as well, so the questions that, that they were asking, the questions that I was asking.
And so I kind of had that [00:07:00] kind of both sides of it. But still, you still can't point to something you've done if you just pretty much started, you know, so you have to kind of build it slowly and, and methodically and you have to really care about the clients and what you're doing.
Joe: Great. So then yeah, real quick on Cortex, so you told me before we hit record that you are, you guys have five crews running right now. So talk a little bit about like how you've scaled from when you started. Like what, what was the, what was the state of the business when you, when you joined, and how have you guys grown That?
Brent: Yeah. So, so Cortex is, is, uh, a little bit of a, a combination of my group at the company I was at and the Cortex group that was in place. Um, cor the owner of Cortex West and Ready is, is a really, really smart businessman who really cares about his clients. He really cares about his work and he cares about the people that work with him.
And so the thing that he's done really well is to, to have a reach that people know that we're there and not, [00:08:00] and you know, one thing that we struggle with on, on a tangent here, but one thing we struggle with is that we do a lot of commercial and sometimes larger projects. So the residential folks think that's all that we do.
I. And that's so far from the truth. In fact, the backyard stuff, the residential stuff is the bread and butter of what we do, the stuff that we really like the most. And so that's that. So at Cortex, we've kind of grown over time to kind of handle the, the number of locations. And we really haven't Austin, San Antonio and Dallas kind of location.
And so those are three main cities and main corridor that we hit. But then with those, with that many crews, we have to do a lot of work to keep everybody
Joe: How do you, how do you structure your different crews? So if you have five, do you have, do you have like one or two that are like kind of their, their lane that they run in is the residential and then you've got, or does everybody do everything? How do you, how do you guys think about your, your crews
Brent: that's a great question. The leads of each crew kind of have their own abilities and personalities and we kind of have to mix and match. Um, it is [00:09:00] true that some excel may be in one area, maybe residential or one commercial better, but with the variables of court surfacing, as you guys will find out or know, you can't always stick to those.
So you have to be extremely flexible when it comes to where you put guys. So we kind of cross train in every way that we can so people can get, the guys can do
everything that you never know what, you never know if you're going to get a slew of residentials in a row or a slew of, you know, fi high school courts in a row. So yeah, you, you definitely have to, you have a little bit of control. It, it, at your guys' level you probably have a little bit of control on, on how to schedule and how to make that work.
Joe: But yeah, you don't
Brent: Our bo our board is con it's controlled chaos is what it is because, you know, aside from the, the curing times and the, the schedules and the deadlines, you have the weather and the personal issues and everything that goes into that. And you know where we are, we surface and, and build just about all year.
Not quite, the winters in Texas are kind of mild and minor and there are some winters where it doesn't affect a whole lot at all. [00:10:00] Now, a little bit for sure, but not like four months out of the year, like in many places. So it is, it is
hard. We're here in Cincinnati and yeah, we have a true, true four month minimum winter of off season. So yeah, that's great. But we do get a break. You get, you get a little bit less of a break.
Not having a break is sometimes a very taxing and challenging thing. It really is. Yeah.
Joe: no doubt. Okay, that's great. All right, so thanks for, thanks for sharing some of that. So it is really good to know, um, like the size of your region that you're really focusing in, these really these three cities and then how much, yeah, how much, um, five, five crews can cover. Because I think, you know, when you, when you're starting a surfacing business, you're like, all right, I could, I could go just one crew and we could just crank out residentials, you know, all day long.
Um, and then there's like, I wanna scale and then there's like, I, you know, then you're talking about warehouse space and uh, there is a point at which, um, yeah, that can be it, it starts to be [00:11:00] counterproductive, but it sounds like you guys have kind of cracked the code on that. So.
Brent: It is true. You have to have not only the thought of the space and the, and the material ordering and all the, the stuff that comes with that. You have to make sure that you maintain quality. Because the number one thing that'll hurt you instantly in this business is your quality starts to go down. It will then just fester.
It'll continue, it'll grow, and even if you get on top of it and you care, which you do, you still have to make sure that quality's number one, and that the guys that are working. And those situations away from places have to be on top of things for sure.
Joe: No doubt. That's so good. Okay. I want to, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk, talk a little bit about what you're seeing in our industry right now. So, you know, you've got this huge pickleball boom, and that's why if, if you're, if people are listening to this episode, they're, you know, they're either, you know, just really interested in, in pickleball in general, or they're thinking about starting this as a business.
What are you seeing? Um, like a lot of people are like, man, you, you picked a good time to start a [00:12:00] pickleball court business. I'm like, yeah, I mean, I did. And also like, and I usually just say, you know, we're riding the wave and, and I'm curious and a lot of our guys are curious, uh, especially those that are starting at this point right now, we're recording and at the end of March in 2025, you know.
How long is this, is this bubble gonna pop at some point? Are are that's, that's what everybody starts to ask me is, are the courts just, is pickleball gonna go away kinda like racketball or is it just, is it like cornhole, you know, I get all these crazy questions, but what's your, what, what are you thinking?
Brent: Okay. So having been in it 20 years, I've seen a lot of changes and things that happened in the court building market and, and obviously the pickleball explosion is unique and something that not a whole lot of court builders have have seen happen, um, unless you've been in it like a long, long time and there's been some other things.
So here, here's my take on that whole kind of explosion. First of all, [00:13:00] if you're a client and you want to do a court, if you hire somebody, and I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just being factual here. If you hire somebody with the word pickleball in their name, you can be sure that they're a new contractor.
Now, I'm not saying that a new contractor can't do excellent. What I'm saying is that if their name pickleball. Then they are getting into it at this time, trying to somewhat wide ride this wave. Maybe not, maybe just wanted to build courts and it coincided with that, that that's fine as well. But you know, at Cortex we're court builders.
And it's funny when people say, do you build just pickleball courts? Uh, not even close. I mean, everything, it happens to be that a big chunk of what we do right now is pickleball, which is great.
Joe: That's where the demand is. Yeah,
Brent: it is. And, and I think the demand will continue, especially, it, it doesn't take a, you know, a genius to, to see that it is catching on to a point that people, they're, they're seeing it more than just a, a, a cornhole activity.
It's, it's a life sport for people. And, and there's a lot of folks that prefer, you know, building them at home. They [00:14:00] prefer going to places where they need to be built and congregate. You know, there's a lot of need. Now. Will there be saturation? I'm sure there will. Of course there will be. And that is more the reason why as a court building company, you have to make sure folks know that you're in it for the long haul.
You're not a niche only, you're a court builder. You can do it all and you understand it all. And so that's the thing that I've seen is that a lot of folks getting into it today, they see the pickleball side and they rush into it. And I mean, there's a lot of crossover from different, um, occupations that they assume, oh, this is easy.
Oh, this
Joe: I'm a, I'm a asphalt, you know, I'm a driveway sealer, or I'm a epoxy floor garage guy. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Yeah. I'll just add this little service. Yeah,
Brent: Yes. Well, and and the hard part about that is that in, in 99% of the time, they're, they're not doing it, uh, correctly at all. And, and they're doing it in an inferior, inferior way that gives the whole kind of industry kind of, that brings it down a little bit. Like, oh, that's all it is. [00:15:00] Well, why is it just that I can do that?
So that, that's that's get, let's get into the specifics a little bit. So in the Facebook group, you're seeing, you know, you're, you're having CU customers or you know, people that are thinking, I want to build a court in my backyard, or I want to, you know, this is happening at our HOAI want to help make, I wanna help the board members at my HOA go about this the right way.
Joe: And then you've got, so that's the planning side. So you're really helpful on that. And what we're gonna do another, another talk on, uh, the differences between all the subsurface, right? Your asphalt, your reinforced concrete post tension. Um, but then you've got, um, you've got all these. People that have just had their courts surfaced, and maybe they've had them surfaced by some of these new guys.
Uh, and so for me, as, as we're helping coach these new guys, I want them to hear as they're either considering getting started or they are, or they've already started, what are some of the things that you're seeing the most common mistakes or where, where are these new guys really missing the mark? Where they really need, they really, they honestly just need, [00:16:00] they need to figure out how to get access to some mentors that can kind of disseminate all of these, uh, all this wisdom.
Uh, or they just need to keep making mistakes until they figure it out and they can, you know, get to where you're at and say, I've been doing this for 20 years and I know all the problems. What are, what are the problems that you're
Brent: So that's a, that's a great point. And what happens is if you start making a lot of mistakes, yes. You learn from them. The, the problem is, can you recover from them? Because if you make a lot of mistakes early on, it's a very difficult hit on the reputation. Yeah. And so the, the biggest mistake, and without getting too specific in the actual mistake, is not preparing properly when they go into court building or even surfacing and, and not asking the right questions and making sure things are done the right way.
And if, if it's, it's pretty simple. I mean, aside from the groups like that we're on with the Facebook group or, or even just simple internet knowledge, it is very, very easy to find some of the things that are very, very important when it comes to. Proper court construction. And I don't mean [00:17:00] just how it's gonna look on day one, it's how it's gonna look on day 600 and how it's gonna last and how it's gonna operate and how it's gonna work and all that stuff.
So we see a lot of people cutting corners, um, missing the boat on, on the most important details that have basically been around this court building 1 0 1. So that rushing into it and going, okay, I can do this. That's no problem. I've been doing garage flooring for a long time. It's gotta be the same thing.
And when you
Joe: I don't need, I don't need that acrylic resurfacer, like we just, we just put paint down. Yeah. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Well, and that's another thing that is very unique to this pickleball world, okay. Is that you never had in the basketball, and when I say basketball and, and tennis world, when it comes to acrylic, you never had those folks thinking, I can just go grab a, a bucket from Home Depot and I just go paint my concrete.
Brent: And that's a court. People never thought that. Then very few did. But now everybody thinks, oh, it's just, it's just paint. I've gotta deck that's painted. I just go paint a deck.
It's an I'll just watch a YouTube video real quick and I'll be good. Yeah,
Yeah. [00:18:00] It's an athletic surface. You've gotta be careful with how it plays in the weather. You know, this is the out, that's another thing.
The outdoor court construction world is very, very different from the indoor court construction world. And so some of those things, yeah, some so many variables, some of those things that people think are not important or are much more important than they realize and it, and it, you don't find out until it's kind of too late sometimes we're rebuilding or redoing people's mistakes like a lot.
And it's really we're, running into a lot of that. Yeah, no doubt. Okay, so you think pickleball, just to go back to our previous point, you think pickleball is here, here to stay? Like if, if you are, if you're serious about being in it for the long haul, like we're saying then. You know, you're not, you don't have to, what I'm hearing you say is we're not worried about the pickleball court bubble popping in two years from now.
Joe: And what I usually tell people is, look, you know, for better or worse, I know you're real into post tension and that that's gonna be a much, uh, stronger and longer lasting subsurface solution. But, you know, here in Cincinnati, in the Midwest, we've got [00:19:00] asphalt cracks, reinforced concrete cracks, you know, all the time.
So that while we hate that for our customers, it it's not, it's not bad for business. You know, you're, you're going to have to, and even for you guys, you're gonna have to resurface at some point. So there's
Brent: There's, there's, there's no doubt. And, and just because a court builder wants to have the court as best as it can be, we don't always get that wish. And, and sometimes we have absolutely no say or no choice. And in the future there is going to be a lot of, of not just fixing improper courts, but just maintaining ones that were built the right way, that just are out of their lifespan.
Um. You know, it's, it's possible that people can get what they want from a lesser quality material. And we can talk about how in certain areas, um, you know, the asphalt versus the, the post tension and the concrete versus asphalt question, all that. We can talk about that. Um, but you're right, it's going to be around.
And, and I do believe, you know, the, the bottom line is there will be saturation to a point and there will be a point at which [00:20:00] you just don't have the same demand for people that wanna have backyard courts, you know? But I think we're a long way from that because it, it has the opportunity for people to, to be active as a family and something that they never really thought they would do
Joe: age can play. It's
Brent: every age
Joe: to learn. It is, it is a, a unicorn of a sport, and I think
Brent: it is.
Joe: you know, all of, all of the, the, the, the fact that it makes sense for so many people, for more than one reason, uh, is, is super helpful for, for us on the business side. Um, and just as you know, I play pickleball all the time, so
Brent: Yeah.
Joe: it's, it's great from a community standpoint
Brent: For sure. Well, that's another thing that I, I played college tennis and I switched over from tennis to pickleball. Um, yeah. And I play a lot of pickleball and, and really I do love it. I do enjoy it, but what I really like is that I understand what the players are seeing and experiencing. I understand sizing and spacing and divider fencing and things that a lot of court [00:21:00] builders that aren't into the sports, they have a little bit of a disadvantage.
They can kind of ask questions, but they don't really have that same understanding. And, you know, I, I like to play with folks to, to, to get, to enjoy just the camaraderie and playing, but I like to also know what they think about certain services, what they don't understand. It's amazing how little, yeah.
The players that play that may even be unbelievably good sometimes have no concept of what they're playing on. They have no concept of what it takes to get to that. And so I, I learn a lot from them. I really do. So,
Joe: That's so good. All right, last question for this one, Brett. So let's talk really quickly about Paddle. So, you know, we've got, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. Paddle is the fastest growing sport in the world. So, so, and it's, it's coming. So the, I I'm curious, the thing that I see with Paddle is that it's just, it is a, a little bit more of a, a higher class, uh, sport in the sense that, um, I think you're, it's gonna be harder to put one now if you have the money to [00:22:00] put.
Um, a, a solid fence lighting, post-tension concrete court in your backyard. You can probably afford a paddle court, but I think paddle courts are gonna be probably a little bit more expensive, a little bit higher end of a product in general. Um, so how should we think about, you know, this next phase if you're, if you're a forward, because in in business, you always want to be thinking about what's next.
So where, where are you seeing paddle? How is Cortex, are you guys doing paddle courts currently? How are you thinking about this particular part of the court building world?
Brent: Sure. Um, maybe because our, our proximity to, to Mexico and, and Ford, we call 'em Padel here.
Joe: Oh yeah. I understand that paddle
Brent: paddle's the thing, so Padel courts paddle either way. Um, we're absolutely seeing an influx of people wanting to, to play Padel and do padel courts. Um, we, we at Cortex actually just started doing 'em, have been doing a few.
Um, they're very challenging initially because it takes a lot more [00:23:00] detail and different structures
Joe: Right.
Brent: regular courts. We all know that. Um, but, but I do feel they're gonna grow both in the residential and the commercial. Probably more so in the commercial because that barrier for entry is a little larger.
Um, it's a little easier to have a basic pickleball court than it is to have a basic, the, the cost structure's significantly different. Um. I think it's important, the most important part of this, I think it's important to be able to do just about anything in the recreation court kind of world that, that anybody can do and, and have that in, in the tool belt.
Because if somebody wants, we've got some folks that want a pickleball court, but then they want a padel as well. It's, and they kind of want both. And, and, and for me, like having played, been a tennis player and I played a lot of racquetball. I just played fa for the first time like two weeks ago. And it's really fun.
And, and it's a, I, I haven't actually played yet, but man, watching highlights on YouTube running out the door.
Well that kinda stuff is, you gotta be advanced and it takes a while, but, but the [00:24:00] reality is it's a great workout and it's a lot of fun and it's different than pickleball, it's different than tennis, it's different than racquetball, but it's got some of a mix of all that. And so it is a lot of fun and, and I do think that there'll be more and more as we go on, I just don't know if it's ever gonna reach that, you know, a bunch of folks have padell courts in their
Joe: yeah, the scale, it, it seems like there's a scale problem 'cause you, you have, for the courts themselves, if you, I can't quite picture as fun as the sport looks, uh, it looks like it takes a little bit more skill than, than pickleball to get really, to get, you know, good. Um, and then, and then I can't quite picture, you know, we did, we did 27 pickleball courts in one location last summer.
I can't picture 20, like there being enough demand to do, you know, more than six to eight. Pade courts in a park
Brent: Yeah. Well, I think it's because, like you said, it's the fastest growing sport in the world. I think that that kind of a cultish attitude that the pickleball crew has gained, I think the Poel people have that as well, [00:25:00] and the, the groups, they get on and they chat about it and it's their passion, and I think that's gonna continue to grow.
But it's always gonna be, I think, in my opinion, less of a number because again, it's, it's a little bit more of a higher costing sport to play and of course to build. And so it's just a little bit different. But yeah, it is, it's fun and I think it's something that is not gonna go away for
sure. That's fair. Awesome, Brent, well, we'll, we'll cut this one off here. This has been so good. Thanks for sharing some of your story. Um, yeah, I it's really good to hear you talk about, you know, where the court industry is at, and then I, that was a personal question of mine, like, where are you seeing pa uh, Padell paddle?
Joe: Where's that going? So Yeah. Perfect. about that. That's great. Any, any last thoughts for, um, our guys that are just getting started? That, that was one other thing I wanted to sneak in here. Um, a as, as you're looking at this Facebook group, what, what watch outs or what, uh, just real quick, any encouragement for these guys that, you know, our guys are trying to start something for their family?
You know, I, I certainly don't want to paint this as, Hey, everything's like, you know, rosy, it's, [00:26:00] it's gonna be amazing and you're gonna make a lot of money and you're gonna make your customers super happy. What, any, any quick watch outs before we wrap this one up?
Brent: Yeah, I think one thing that's really important is to, is to not get discouraged and to always be passionate about what you're providing because there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna be very difficult with their demands, with their desires, with their wants and needs.
And it's hard when you know the right answers. But the client doesn't always want to hear those. And they may have their own answers, which their answers that they want is the right answer for them. But you have to decide what's most important. You know the integrity of what you're doing. We do things a certain way so that we know we can always have quality, and we don't compromise on that when we compromise.
It's only on maybe sides on certain things or different amenities, but not the core construction of the court because we don't want to have like a low end version that's gonna break down for somebody. We want it to last. And so I think it's really important to focus on quality, to focus on people, to make sure you're passionate about it.
So.
Joe: So [00:27:00] good. Yeah, no, we don't wanna be, uh, you know, putting coatings down 10 days into the concrete curing because the, 'cause the customer wants it fast, even if, even if they agree not to, you know, even if they waive the warranty, like we don't, we don't want to cut corners in
Brent: Exactly.
Joe: So, so good.
Awesome, Brent. Super appreciate you, man.
Brent: Okay, thank you.
