She’s the queen of all things marketing and creative for the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Australia, an excellent yapper, and even knows a thing or two about catching waves on an inflatable board. You may also know her as one-half of the PPA Aus vibe hire duo, but I hear the other one has recently been reassigned…
I was lucky enough to catch up with Ke’ale in between her packed task list at the recent PPA Brisbane Cup, where I got to ask all of my burning questions about how she got started with pickle, what she does in her day-to-day, and — importantly — why she’s known as ‘sparkle muffin.’ If these have all been mysteries to you as well, keep reading to learn about what it really takes to run marketing for one of Australia’s professional pickleball leagues!
A day in the life as PPA’s marketing director
Make your way to one of the dozen PPA Australia events on offer this year, and chances are you’ll catch a tattooed blondie hopping between courts and the media desk, chatting to players, photographers, broadcast crew, volunteers, and everyone in between.
“That’s how everyone should know me,” Ke’ale says. “The yapper.”
Ke’ale is the marketing director for PPA Australia, Major League Pickleball (MLP) Australia, and the newly introduced Minor League Pickleball (MiLP) Australia as well. On a day-to-day basis, her role is a mixture of responsibilities.
One of her primary roles involves running the PPA tour’s social media accounts, including the PPA and MLP Instagram accounts, all 12 MLP team Instagram accounts, and the new MiLP channel. “I cross-post amongst all of those as consistently as possible, which gets quite hard every single week,” she says. “There’s also prepping for events, which we have one pretty much every month at this stage.”
On event weekends, she’s prepping broadcast and socials graphics, working alongside videographers and photographers to get sponsored deliverables sorted, and helping Sange figure out the perfect spot for sponsor signage so key brands are front and centre.
“Lots of graphic design, which is fun because I’m not a graphic designer,” she jokes. “And then with all the videos we get from previous events, cutting up content, liaising responses, website design… it’s a mix of stuff.”
When asked how this compares to what she was doing before, Ke’ale says, “Before I was sitting in an office for eight and a half hours a day. It was very boring. Whereas here, I’m on my feet anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day, five days in a row, and I absolutely love it. When I’m working from home, I get a bit bored. I need to be outside. So I work at cafes.”
One of Ke’ale’s favourite parts of the role is being at the events. “It’s the most fun,” she says. “I’m not just sitting behind a computer and putting posts out; I’m talking to the athletes and the spectators. Not just the pros, but also the opens, the amateurs, the masters, the juniors. I love it.”
It’s a big community environment at these events, which adds so much to the sport. As I can attest to (from spending 99% of my time on the sidelines), the fun environment goes beyond just the athletes as well.
“I’ve also recently started moving more into the vendor space with Sange’s help. We have our merchant gear stands set up at events where everyone can purchase and customise gear. For some of the future events, I’ve also already had inquiries from businesses hoping to set up vendor stalls. So I’m also responsible for ensuring nothing is a direct implication on any of our major sponsors, and ensuring there’s room for everyone.”
Ke’ale’s introduction to the world of pickle
Her path to this role started in a less-than-ordinary location… a sauna.
“About a year and a half ago, I was sitting in a sauna with this other chick. We went to the same gym and just started talking about life. She asked me what I did, to which I said, ‘I work in marketing, in agriculture and farming. And I hate it.’ She then said ‘Oh, I work in the professional pickleball space.” And that was Sange (PPA Australia Commissioner), funny enough.
Shortly after, Ke’ale lost the agriculture role. One of the owners of the gym, who is good friends with both her and Sange, happened to go on a walk with Sange around this time. “And Sange must have been like, ‘Oh, we’re looking for a new marketing manager,’ and she was like, ‘Ding ding, I know a girl at the gym who is also looking for a job in marketing.” And I guess, as they say, the rest is history.
Ke’ale went on to have a pre-interview chat with Sange to ensure she was the right fit, and then had a more formal interview with the PPA Australia team, including then-CEO Adam Thompson, CFO Tim Joiner, and President Anthony Liveris.
“Funny enough, I thought Tim was the CEO back then, too. Adam was like, “Surfing. Wow, that’s really cool. Like, yeah, pickleball’s great, but tell me more about surfing.” Meanwhile Tim was like, “Why were you at this job for a year, but only at this job for four months? What is going on?” she recalls from that chat. “I thought Tim was going to be my worst fan, and Adam was going to be my biggest fan. We’re all good friends, but now me and Tim are like besties.”
“The vibe hires, as we’re called,” she laughs.
Juggling challenges like a pro
I wanted to get Ke’ale’s perspective on some of the challenges she juggles in her day-to-day, and what it really takes to set up and run a professional pickleball tournament in Australia.
“When I’m doing photography and videography at events, it becomes a little bit hard to juggle the social media aspect as well. I’m getting into the groove with that now, but at these events, anything can happen. Especially when the weather doesn’t cooperate… when it’s windy, if it’s raining, things can change at the drop of a hat.”
“Technology doesn’t work all the time either,” she continues. “Sometimes the draws change, or athletes pull out of the event, so we have to pick another match and put it forward. There’s nothing that’s super challenging, but there’s a lot of going with the flow.”
This raised two points in my mind. The first is that PPA Australia is a small (but mighty) team, so I imagined they were all hands on deck for every tournament, which means ‘marketing’ as a role extends to so much more. The other thing is — I’m sure it’s imperative for staff and volunteers to be adaptable to different spaces. They work out of different venues with different set-ups, they don’t always know what the tech situation is going to be, etc.
“Wi-fi is never good,” Ke’ale says. “Vietnam was probably our most challenging because we had a lot of setbacks with media. Meta suddenly flagged that we were in a different country while I was posting 20 times a day, and it took down all my accounts. I lost access to everything.”
Other challenges include finding the right lighting, particularly for filming and photography, and trying to keep players happy. “An important part of my job involves trying to get a good amount of content for everyone as well. After events, I sometimes get messages from players disappointed in the number of photos I was able to grab. Unfortunately, I physically can’t be everywhere at once. Sometimes I just miss things.”
Behind-the-scenes of tournament prep in Australia
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to set up and run a professional pickleball tournament in Australia, you’re in luck! Here’s a bit about what Ke’ale and the rest of the team do to prepare for the big weekends.
“Matt, Sange and Dan handle all the player logistics. Brackets, seedings, things like that. They do a great job and I have no idea about it, which is a good thing because if I start to know I might have to do it,” she jokes. “Set up is a big one. For this event, yesterday it was just me and Sange. We had a couple of volunteers. Most of the time it’s Sange, myself, Tim, Dan, and maybe Hugh. At no point is it ever really more than five of us,” she continues.
There is also extra work to be done for combined PPA/MLP events. “At a PPA event, it’s just PPA signage. When we have an MLP event, it’s double the workload. We’ve typically been working for 16 hours the day before the event, physically getting the venue ready, as well as the days leading up to it. Unpacking and repacking the storage pods with all our equipment, ensuring the right materials are travelling to the right events. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes.”
Even seemingly ordinary tasks have hidden preparation. “For the broadcast, it’s not as simple as just pressing go on a screen. I have to create all the graphics that you see on YouTube, create the YouTube stream itself, correlate everything into a system that Hugh uses out on broadcast, and test that it all works. I also work with the videographers and photographers to do sponsor content. You don’t want to create the same video at every single event for a sponsor. So, trying to think of the viewer and considering how we make each event slightly different, but slightly better,” Ke’ale says.
Standout moments from a career in pickleball
In her almost two years in the role, pickleball has already taken Ke’ale far and wide.
“Vietnam was really fun. I almost crashed a scooter. I wasn’t even driving it,” she laughs. “It was so hot, but it was cool to see such a massive Asian presence at the event, and to see what a massive crowd looks like. We’ve always had grandstands built into our events, and they always look great with people in them, but that was next level.”
“There was New Zealand this year as well. We had a massive local presence of Kiwis come down. But my favourite, honestly, was the APO in Melbourne at the start of the year. It’s not far away, but it was awesome to see the USA athletes combined with the Australian athletes. And just to see the way that our U.S. partners run things as well, because we worked with them for that event.”
It really goes to show how adaptable the sport is. It can be played anywhere and by anyone. That’s also not to say that anywhere and anyone can put together a great event. As the sport expands, standards may be quite different across the world. There are a lot of considerations that come into running an event, and running it well.
Ke’ale also believes it shows how far the sport still has to go in comparison with the US. “Asia’s close behind — they have a lot of money over there, and it’s so easy to put up a building and lay some courts. But even then, if you want to run a pro event, you can’t just chuck 18 courts a meter apart from each other. A lot goes into running a professional tournament.”
Life beyond the court (as a SUPerstar)
As much as I love pickleball, this is typically my favourite part of the People of Pickle interviews. We love a good ‘beyond the court’ plug! Here’s a bit of our chitchat about this insanely cool part of Ke’ale’s life.
Tati: “Tell me about life outside of pickleball. I hear you’re really good at standing up on water.”
Ke’ale: “I am really good. Like Jesus. Yeah, I do stand-up paddleboarding, I want to say semi-professionally. I was taught at a young age that professional didn’t mean that you were the best. It meant you got paid to do what you do. And I’m lucky enough to have sponsors that give me some coin. My ranking in Australia is number one currently for stand-up paddleboard racing. That is what we call a technical race, which is in and out through the surf. And then a distance race, which is about 20 km from here to there. I’m also top three in Australia for stand-up paddleboard surfing. Internationally, I won a Bali longboard competition for stand-up paddleboarding. So it’s all stand-up paddleboarding.
Tati: “It’s insane. I literally didn’t know any of this existed before you. We used to live in Austin, and there’s a big river that runs through the city where everyone paddleboards. But like you just stand and paddle, or you sit down. Seeing you out there on waves, I was like, ‘Hello, I’ve never seen this in my life.'”
Ke’ale: “Well, funny enough, fun fact is that stand up paddleboarding used to be considered the fastest growing sport in the world about 10-15 years ago.”
Tati: “Until pickleball came along.”
Ke’ale: “And now I’ve been in both of them somehow.”
Tati: “Have you always been on the coast?”
Ke’ale: “Yeah, I’ve lived on the coast for pretty much my whole life”
Tati: “Always like a water baby?”
Ke’ale: “My name means crest of a wave, so I don’t think I was getting out of surfing in any capacity whatsoever. My parents met in surf lifesaving, so I grew up doing surf lifesaving, outrig, canoe, paddling, swimming, and then moved into stand-up paddleboarding.”
Tati: “Did you ever want to do anything else with the sport? I know that now you’re doing like experiences and stuff.”
Ke’ale: “I’ve been lucky enough to partner with a brand called Experience Travel that runs surfer trades out of the Maldives. We’re running one next year, which will be like 10 days in the Maldives, fully all-inclusive. Find some waves, go for a surf. And then running clinics too.
And then… the question I’ve wanted to ask Ke’ale for a while but saved specifically for this moment.
Tati: “I’m dying to know why your social media name is ‘Sparkle Muffin.’ What does it mean?”
Ke’ale: “My friends and I used to go to trivia every Wednesday night, and I retain a lot of useless information. This question came up, and it was, ‘What is a sparkle muffin?’ And I just thought it was 1. hilarious that I knew what the answer was, and 2. it’s a spider. I’m petrified of spiders. It’s really cute, though. As they were Googling it, I went on Instagram and thought, ‘That’s a really funny name.’ I changed my username, and this was back in the day when you couldn’t change your username again for two weeks. So I realised, ‘Oh, so I’m Sparkle Muffin for at least two weeks now.’ And then it stuck. Everyone started calling me Muffy or Sparkle or just Sparkle Muffin. I think in New Zealand, I changed it back to Ke’ale Dorries, and I got a few messages being like, ‘What is going on? Who is this?’ So I switched back after like 3 days.”
I also wanted to dive a bit deeper into Ke’ale outside of the sport world as a whole.
Tati: “What’s something people would be surprised to learn about you?”
Ke’ale: “I feel like I wear everything on my sleeve these days… including my tattoos. I actually have a quote from The Shining tattooed on my leg. It’s one of my favourite movies. It says, ‘Wendy? Darling? Light of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.”
Tati: “The Shining is one of your favourite movies. Why does that sort of not surprise me.”
Ke’ale: “I think another thing is that I’m one of the girls. And I’m a big advocate for gay women, LGBT rights, all that kind of stuff. I’m very open about that side of my lifestyle. I think there’s still a lot of stigma around that, too. As a gay woman, people assume you’re butcher and they expect one of the boys. I think I can be one of the boys, but at heart, I’m a girl’s girl. I’m always with you guys, you know, the wags of pickleball.
Tati: “Is your sexual identity something that has been a defining thing in your life? Is there anything that you felt you’ve had to do differently or stand up for yourself? Has it affected you in any way?”
Ke’ale: “I had a pretty good upbringing. I’m 28 now, and I came out when I was 16 to my parents and my family and friends. I think that’s when things started to get a little bit easier for people. Maybe 10 years before that, it was a lot harder. Even now, I feel like it’s just normal. Right? Nobody even cares anymore. You still get typical, ‘You’re too young, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I just embraced it straight away. I was like, ‘This isn’t going to be something I’m gonna hide or make taboo.’ I know I’m gay. When I was 22, I got the pride flag tattooed on my arm. My stand-up paddleboard sponsors were like, ‘Why don’t we create all your boards with rainbows on them?’ So I’ve got all these old photos where all my boards are rainbow designs. The swimwear brands sent me rainbow coloured swimwear. They were just like, ‘Yeah, rep it.’ It’s not out there. It’s just subtle, which is what I like.”
Tati: “Do you feel like it is something that needs to be out there?”
Ke’ale: “I think it’s a bit of both, honestly. When I was young, I couldn’t think of any athletes I had to look up to who were gay. There was no one, or no one knew they were gay. Whereas now, you’ve got a lot in the surfing industry, there’s a lot of gay athletes out there, and I think it’s really important for people to look up to somebody. That’s not a trope that I took on because I didn’t think I was going to be a professional athlete, but just, you know, a young girl walking down the street, sees me with a partner or me on my own or whatever. For them to know that it’s fine. And you don’t have to fit into somebody else’s agenda to be the way you are.”
Tati: “What’s something that you would love people to know about you?”
Ke’ale: “That I’m single. Get me a girlfriend on the blog.”
Tati: “Big, bold, underline asterisk. **Ready to mingle.**”
Tati: “What’s a value you live by?”
Ke’ale: “Treat people the way you want to be treated. I think that’s very simple, but it’s true. If someone’s treating you a certain way, that says more about them than it does about you. Simple answer.”
Final words
What an incredible human! Ke’ale has contributed so much to the pickle world in such little time, and I feel so lucky to bring you her story from beyond the court.
As a little parting gift… I asked Ke’ale two very important questions.
On her biggest pickleball ick: “I honestly hate it when people throw their paddles. Grow up. Also, from a marketing point of view, it’s not great. I mean, it brings in the views on Instagram, but it’s not the views you want. I think you should respect your gear. My gear in paddleboarding costs me upwards of $6,000, so I’m not throwing that around. I think it’s a bit like, ‘Chill out. It’s just a sport. Have some more fun. Leave it out in the court. Only one person’s ever going to win. You can’t change that, and if you played your best, you’ve played your best. That’s the way I live.
On her message to the fans: “To the fans… Come down and watch some more pickleball. Come buy some tickets. Also, follow me @Sparkle.Muffin_”
There you have it!! Learn something new? Who do you want to see featured next?
Catch ya at the next one!
