Friday Pickleball Signs YouTube Star Kyle Koszuta in Push Into Performance Market

Friday Pickleball has signed professional player and YouTube content creator Kyle Koszuta, also known as ThatPickleballGuy, marking the company's most significant move yet into the competitive performance paddle market.

The announcement signals Friday's evolution from a recreational paddle brand known for affordable and brightly-designed equipment into a serious competitor against established performance companies like Selkirk and Joola.

Koszuta, who has built a substantial following through his educational YouTube channel and his online academy ThatPickleballSchool, brings both tournament-level playing ability and proven content creation expertise to the partnership.

"I was surprised to see how invested and intentional their R&D process looked," Koszuta said. "Their team really cares about the products they launch and spend months testing and iterating to make sure they're perfect."

Friday goes pro

Central to Friday's expansion is Triplett's ambitious but realistic business pivot, establishing the company that produces paddles fit for the highest level of competitive play. While he understands they can't compete against big box brands in the short-term, Friday aims to capture market share in the mid-size paddle brand market.

In line with this strategy, Friday has submitted their paddle lineup for UPA-A approval and will soon announce a full-foam paddle—also slated for approval—that Kyle will be using as his primary paddle going forward.

"Five years from now, there'll be only a handful of companies making pickleball paddles," Triplett said, outlining Friday's long-term vision. "And you say, how did Friday stick around? Didn't they sell those bright pink paddles to old ladies? Then you're gonna say, Kyle Koszuta, he's great with old ladies," he jokes.

The expansion plan centers on Friday's content-heavy approach as a sustainable competitive advantage. 

"Friday clearly is very much a content heavy brand. We're going to continue to invest in content and hope that keeps us around for the long haul," Triplett explained.

This strategy acknowledges the market reality that Friday may not overtake established leaders immediately, but positions the company to capture significant market share through differentiated brand building and community engagement.

How the partnership started

The relationship between Koszuta and Friday Pickleball's Jake Triplett developed organically through the pickleball content creation community, beginning with mutual recognition of each other's work. Kyle first noticed Friday through their viral "4 Stages of Pickleball" video, which caught his attention in an increasingly crowded landscape.

After some initial DMs and mutual appreciation, Triplett suggested they collaborate. "Two weeks later, I was going to Kansas City to play that Kansas City PPA and decided to meet up with the Friday guys,” Koszuta recalls.

Their first filming session at Chicken and Pickle in Kansas City proved to be a watershed moment for both creators. What started as a simple collaboration turned into something that clicked almost immediately. "We filmed four or five videos that day that have probably amassed over 25 million views," Koszuta said. "Every video we filmed together went viral."

The success wasn't just about viewcount but more about creative chemistry. Triplett observed, "We thought that even though he mainly does long-form content, let's get him in our skits. While maybe we had two of them written beforehand, we filmed some extras on the fly. And suddenly they all started going viral."

For Koszuta, it represented his first truly collaborative content experience. "It was really the first time, outside of working with my business partner Tyler,  I'd ever worked with somebody else. Just having the three guys in that environment was very collaborative and inspiring."

The partnership has been characterized by genuine mutual admiration. Koszuta's praise for Triplett's creative abilities was particularly notable: "Jake doesn't have a lot of ideas that don't hit. One of his greatest skill sets is his ideas." Koszuta jokes, "And then I just show up to boost the post, you know."

From Triplett's perspective, Koszuta embodies a unique work ethic that drives creative excellence. "I would compare Kyle," Triplett said, thinking through the analogy, "Kyle is like one of those dogs that herd sheep."

Triplett jokingly expanded on the comparison: "He's wagging his tail and he's been sprinting around for five minutes doing it, and then he comes back to the owner wagging his tail, wanting more. I feel like that's Kyle when it comes to content. He is the sheepdog of pickleball content. You watch that dog and you go, I can't believe we tried to domesticate these things. 

Kyle absolutely loves, eats, sleeps, breathes content. He's like, why would I take a day off? I love doing this. I'm ready to go back and do it again."

From collaboration to partnership

From their first filming session in Kansas City, Triplett recognized that Koszuta pushed him to be a better creator—and he wanted more of that creative energy.

The breakthrough came during a casual brainstorming session at Triplett's kitchen table. In just 30 minutes, they generated what Triplett called "a year's worth of content." Koszuta was equally energized, later turning those ideas into his next nine videos.

The shift from creative collaboration to business partnership evolved naturally through friendship and ongoing conversations. Koszuta emphasized there was never any initial intention to develop a formal creative partnership—it just happened organically through repeated successful collaborations and growing trust.

This pattern played out several times: successful projects leading to more opportunities, each reinforcing their creative chemistry, before they finally had a serious conversation about making it official.

Their partnership works because both understand the dual demands of performance and content creation. Triplett brings years of professional storytelling experience, while Koszuta contributes competitive credentials and proven content expertise—a combination that creates natural creative synergy.

Friday’s full foam paddle is coming

Friday's commitment to serious paddle development suggests pickleballers can expect significant performance improvements from their upcoming full-foam paddles. After testing 58 different paddle constructions—an unusually extensive R&D process for the industry—Friday has developed what Koszuta describes as an even more powerful paddle than their current Fever model, with UPA-A approval expected in mid-January.

The company's recent launch of the Fever 102 demonstrates this performance focus in action. The paddle features a proprietary innovation: a thin strip of rubber between the honeycomb polypropylene core and the foam that increases weight and enlarges the sweet spot—essentially providing the benefits of lead tape built directly into the paddle's construction. Beta testing with 250 users showed overwhelming approval, with 96% saying they would recommend the paddle to a friend.

Both Koszuta and fellow pro Rachel Rohrabacher will be competing with the Fever 102 at the upcoming PPA Masters, giving the paddle high-level tournament exposure. The new foam paddle line—consisting of the Aura (CFC layup) and Aura Pro (triple carbon fiber layup)—will use solid EPP foam construction with the same rubber strip internal weighting. 

Friday is done making just recreational equipment. The Aura will be their most powerful paddle yet, and the Aura Pro will be even more powerful.

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