Beer City Open Pickleball Championship

Andrea Koop, Co-Founder of the Beer City Open and professional pickleball player joins us to discuss this huge tournament going on at Belknap Park over the next 4 days.

More information can be found here: https://www.beercityopen.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm thinking about getting a pickleball tattoo. What do you
think of that?

Speaker 2 (00:03):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is West Michigan's Morning News Steve Kelly and Brett Bikita.
We are joined on the live line by the co
founder of the Beer City Open, professional pickleball player Andrea Koop.
Thank you so much for doing this today. My gosh,
you must be busy.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Thank you for having me. It is a busy week, so.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Talk to us a little bit about what's new this year.
The Beer City Open gets underway today and it will
bring the best in pickleball to Bell Knapp Park downtown
Grand Rapids. What can we look forward to?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Even look forward to seeing the best players in the
world in pickleball. All twenty two Major League pickleball teams
are there. We have a thousand amateurs complete competing alongside
of them. Bellnut Park will be very busy popping all week.
We food trucks, vendor village for those of you who
are new to pickleball and want to experience the whole vibe.
We think there's something for everybody. It's very family friendly

(00:54):
as well.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I have to admit, as a sports guy and sports
director at Wood Radio, I have not been yet. I've
seen a little bit on TV. Steve and his wife
Sandy have gone, So Andrew, I'm jealous and I want
to see it. And this is the perfect year because
you guys added the connection with Major League Pickball last
year and you saw this thing take off. I mean
you had semi final matches streaming on ESPN two. I
know ESPN Sports Center is part of their traveling around

(01:16):
the fifty States that they're going to be there doing
some stuff on Thursday that everyone will see across the nation.
So congratulations on this tournament. It's eighth year and how
it's exploded. But for people that just don't know about
this sport and maybe are just a novice, this is
really something that will push you into the sport of pickleball.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Won't it. I think so. The energy when you come
up to a professional pickaball and see it live, see
how fast and how athletic everybody is doing. You know,
how quick their hands are. It's amazing to see it
in person. Just like any sport, you see it in person,
it looks so different than on TV. But you know,
pickleball is great because you can play it at any level.

(01:54):
You know, We're fortunate enough to have the best in
the world playing on our Center Corps Grant stands, but
we also have a thousand amateurs who you know, may
look just like everybody else playing and whether you're a
new player, never played before. The whistleballs an equalizers, So
pick up that paddle, get out there, try it.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
By the way, they started back in twenty eighteen, they
had fourider participants. They have to now cap it. It
sells out at a thousand participants. People want to get
in to this event, they just can't. Andrea k Coop
has joined us right now now. A couple of things
that are different this year for people that have gone
in years past. Tell us about the past that you
need to buy so you can get on the grounds.
Especially I think it starts. Is it tomorrow or Thursday?

(02:32):
And what they need to do and how they.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Can get that so it does start tomorrow. I actually
play at twelve forty five. Come on out and support
my team. I play for the seat I played for
the DC pick upball team. We start at twelve forty five.
It's free tomorrow, so anybody can come free admission, so
help us pack the stands. Sports Center is actually going
to be walking around doing b roll tomorrow for their
live show on Thursday, so we wanted to look full
as well, and especially on the first day of the

(02:56):
free day of the week. Beyond tomorrow, we do have
a week admission path. I think that's seventy five dollars.
You can see it on our website. Otherwise, daily tickets
are needed for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's twenty dollars
on Thursday and Friday and thirty on the weekend. So
if you do want to come more than one day,
that weekly pass seems like the best deal in my opinion.

(03:17):
Everything's on our website, which is pretty easybeercityopen.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Dot com, and you never know was going to show up.
You mentioned all twenty two teams, so there's gonna be
some big names there because people have gotten into this.
But I know a couple of years ago Chris Draper
former Red Wing, was a player, right, people are getting into.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
This sport, yeah, absolutely, I think he's played a couple
times now, you know, so there's so many new note
new people are playing. Golden Tate has he's ever played
our tournament, but he's a big pickleball player. He's playing
all the time. We see this on baseball team social
media that they're playing like between games and they're dugouts,

(03:52):
like hitting the balls back and forth like it's sweeping
the nation. It's definitely a crazy.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
What's the best advice and we'll put the link to
the pod in the podcast section to your website, But
what's your best advice for parking in that area this week?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
So there is a lot of street parking, I mean,
get there early. We don't have if you're not a player,
we don't have parking on site on site for you
Tomorrow Wednesday. Anybody should be able to park, you know,
not technically supposed to, but we do think there'll be
plenty of parking tomorrow because it's a weekday, early in
the week. But otherwise we say street parking or any
of the city lots and take the dash bus down.

(04:27):
It's all on our website. There is a dash stop
right in front of the park.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Awesome. Co founder of the big event, the Beer City Open,
professional pickleball player Andrea Coop a pleasure. Thank you for
your time today.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Thanks guys, appreciate being on