Steve Glassman Bet $30 Million on Pickleball — Just as Padel Took Over the World
“Only in Fort Lauderdale do we spend thirty million on a sport that’s already losing the match.”
The $30 Million Pickleball Empire No One Asked For
Commissioner Steve Glassman has a passion project, and it’s not public safety, transit reform, or affordable housing. It’s pickleball. Lots and lots of pickleball. Glassman has personally championed The Fort, a sprawling $30 million pickleball complex at Snyder Park, hailed as one of the largest in the country. The complex, packed with courts, concessions, and branding deals, is Fort Lauderdale’s newest monument to middle-aged recreation or as one critic put it, “the world’s most expensive hobby park.”
That would be eyebrow-raising enough, but Glassman isn’t stopping there. He’s also linked to a second pickleball project on Fort Lauderdale Beach, where public basketball courts at Bahia Mar are slated for demolition to make room for, you guessed it, more pickleball. Local residents have pushed back, calling it an elitist land grab and questioning how a city facing skyrocketing rents, decaying infrastructure, and constant flooding can find millions to spend on paddle sports. But Glassman seems undeterred.
“The city chose pickleball because it is the fastest-growing sport in the country and more accessible for the population overall.” — Steve Glassman
Unfortunately for Glassman, it might not be.
The Future Arrived and It’s Called Padel
While Fort Lauderdale is just now pouring concrete for more pickleball, the rest of the world has already moved on. The fastest-growing racquet sport on the planet right now isn’t pickleball, it’s padel, a high-speed hybrid of tennis and squash played in enclosed glass courts.
According to global data from Padel Court Quotes and Padel.fyi, there are now 25 million padel players across 110 countries and over 40,000 courts worldwide with that number expected to double by 2026. Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America are already in full padel frenzy, while new luxury developments in Miami, Los Angeles, and Austin are pivoting to padel facilities instead of pickleball.
By comparison, the U.S. pickleball scene, while large domestically, is slowing down. The sport had roughly 19.8 million players in 2024, and though it remains big in suburban America, international growth has plateaued. Padel, by contrast, is going global at warp speed, backed by celebrity investors like David Beckham, Lionel Messi, and LeBron James, and viewed as the next premium sport for resorts, private clubs, and affluent cities.
And that’s where the irony cuts deep: Fort Lauderdale just spent tens of millions building a monument to a trend that may already be peaking.
A Costly Case of Civic FOMO
Fort Lauderdale’s pickleball spending spree started as an easy win, a way to show “active-lifestyle” investment without tackling real problems. But critics argue it’s a symbol of the city’s misplaced priorities.
“Thirty million dollars for pickleball, while sewer pipes collapse and housing prices skyrocket,” one local advocate told South Florida Media. “It’s like the city’s playing games while Rome floods.”
And it’s not just about cost, it’s about vision. The Snyder Park facility is built for pickleball alone, meaning if padel continues its meteoric rise, the city will need to retrofit or rebuild to stay relevant in the racket-sport arms race.
Developers are already shifting gears: Miami’s Reserve Padel complex, backed by Beckham’s group, just raised millions to expand across Florida. In other words, the “next big thing” is already happening just not on Steve Glassman’s watch.
From Pickleball to Padel: A Tale of Two Futures
Pickleball may still dominate neighborhood parks, but globally, padel has taken the lead. It’s faster, flashier, and fits the luxury branding developers crave. Meanwhile, Glassman’s grand pickleball vision is starting to look like a multimillion-dollar relic, a symbol of a city that loves to chase fads but rarely leads them.
“We call it The Fort,” joked one local business owner, “but it’s really just The Fork because taxpayers got stuck with the bill.”
While Steve Glassman builds his pickleball paradise, the rest of the world is already playing a different game. The data is clear:
Fort Lauderdale’s $30 million investment might soon be the most expensive “retro” court system in America. The city wanted to build something “world-class,” but it may have picked the wrong paddle.
The Problem With Betting Big on Fads
To be fair, Steve Glassman may mean well. He’s not the first city leader to see a popular new sport and try to build momentum, literally. But when you’re dealing with tens of millions of taxpayer owned land, good intentions don’t erase bad planning. Investing that kind of money into a single-trend sport like pickleball is risky. Recreational fads rise fast and fall faster, leaving behind expensive, underused infrastructure. Smart cities don’t build around a moment, they build for the future.
If Glassman had taken a broader view instead of going all-in on pickleball, Fort Lauderdale could’ve had something truly evergreen: multi-use courts and fields that adapt with the times. A facility blending tennis courts, batting cages, a driving range, or even flexible event spaces would have given the city long-term value, no matter which sport was trending next. Instead, Glassman’s pickleball complex is locked into a single cultural moment, one already showing signs of plateau. In chasing a fad, he may have built a monument not to Fort Lauderdale’s future, but to its short attention span.
Update: Understand The Financing Behind The Fort
“The developer Brad Tuckman says Fort Lauderdale didn’t pay a cent. The truth is, taxpayers paid with the land itself, and got almost nothing in return.”
The Fort, a glossy $30 million pickleball complex built inside Snyder Park has been sold as a private investment that cost Fort Lauderdale “nothing.” But that claim collapses under scrutiny. The city handed over roughly 10 acres of prime public parkland, adjacent to downtown and just minutes from the airport, in exchange for a 1 percent revenue share, the lowest return of any major public-private deal in South Florida.
The developers, operating under My Park Initiative LLC, financed the project with about $23 million in private equity and a $7 million construction loan from Centennial Bank. They will retain 99 percent of all revenues from memberships, food & beverage, sponsorships, and retail. The city, meanwhile, will get the greater of $100,000 per year or 1 percent of gross revenue, according to public documents and reporting from Sports Business Journal and Yahoo News.
What That Land Is Really Worth
Snyder Park’s 10 acres sit in one of the hottest real-estate corridors in Broward County surrounded by airport, port, and downtown access. Comparable commercial parcels in Fort Lauderdale trade between $500,000 and $1 million per acre, depending on zoning. That places the land value conservatively between $5 million and $10 million. If privately leased at fair-market rates, 6 to 8 percent annual yield on that land would produce $600,000 to $800,000 per year in rent. Instead, the city locked itself into a 50-year concession that pays a flat $100,000 a year minimum less than a mid-level condo rents for on Las Olas.
Chart A: Public Land vs. Public Return
| Metric |
Market-Fair Estimate |
City’s Actual Deal |
| Land Value (10 acres) |
$5 – 10 million + |
City contribution |
| Annual Rent / Lease Equivalent |
$600K – $800K |
$100K or 1% of gross |
| City Revenue Share |
10 – 30 % (normal P3 range) |
1 % |
The Fort Revenue Reality Check
At launch, The Fort touted 700 members paying between $69 and $139 per month, plus day-pass users, corporate sponsors, and events. Even with expansion to 2,000 members, total membership revenue would hover around $2.4 million a year. Add food, beverage, retail, and limited sponsorships, and you might hit $5 to $10 million in gross receipts. That means the city’s 1 percent cut equals $50K to $100K per year, barely pocket change next to the public’s $5 to $10 million land contribution. Unless the complex somehow becomes a national tourist stop with eight-figure revenue, taxpayers will never see a meaningful return.
Who Really Built The Fort Pickelball Center
The developers behind My Park Initiative LLC are Brad Tuckman, Jeff Roschman, and Rich Campillo all private investors and marketers who rebranded themselves as pickleball entrepreneurs. Tuckman made his fortune selling a creative agency, CreativeDrive, to Accenture. Roschman and Campillo have long-running ties in South Florida real-estate circles.
Public filings show Tuckman personally registered as a lobbyist with the City of Fort Lauderdale, representing My Park Initiative LLC during negotiations for Snyder Park. That means the same individual lobbying City Hall also stood to profit directly from the deal, a textbook conflict of interest in most public-sector ethics manuals.
The Politics Behind the One Percent Deal
Vice Mayor Steven Glassman was one of the loudest advocates for The Fort project. Campaign-finance records from the Florida Division of Elections show that Glassman’s political committee, Back to Basics FTL, collected tens of thousands of dollars from developers, contractors, and real-estate PACs during the same period this and other development deals were approved. Some of those contributors have direct interests before the city or are linked to lobbying and land-use firms. So when a project like The Fort materializes with a 99 to 1 revenue split favoring the developer, it raises an unavoidable question:
Would any competent city negotiator agree to that ratio unless politics and donations were in play?
Why a One Percent Share Is Financially Absurd
In any normal partnership, if one side provides the land and the other provides the building, the profits are split roughly 50/50. If the private partner also operates the facility, they might deserve an additional 20 to 30 percent of the revenue. That would still leave 20 to 30 percent flowing back to taxpayers. Yet, Fort Lauderdale settled for 1 percent, the absolute rock-bottom rate. This isn’t a “partnership.” It’s a giveaway, effectively transferring public value to private hands for half a century.
Chart B: How Other Local Cities Handle Similar Deals
| Project |
City |
City Take |
Structure |
| Beach Concessions |
Miami Beach |
10 – 25 % of gross |
% rent + minimum guarantee |
| Las Olas Marina |
Fort Lauderdale |
$18.5 M in first 10 years |
Base rent + % rent |
| Freedom Park (Stadium) |
City of Miami |
$4.3 M floor + 5 % % rent + $20 M for parks |
Long-term ground lease |
| Skyviews Observation Wheel |
City of Miami |
10 % of ticket sales |
Lease amendment |
| The Fort Pickleball |
Fort Lauderdale |
1 % of gross (≈ $100K) |
50-year land license |
The Real Cost of “No Cost” Developments
Yes, the developer paid for construction. But taxpayers paid in opportunity, giving up 10 acres of green space and the right to earn fair value from it for two generations. And since the city’s return is tied to revenue, the public assumes the risk of slow growth or failure without any control over operations. In effect, taxpayers became silent partners in a private club, except they don’t get dividends, votes, or access.
Fort Lauderdale Got Played Like a Pickleball Game
This is not fiscal stewardship. It’s political patronage dressed as “economic development.” The city’s own Las Olas Marina deal proves Fort Lauderdale knows how to structure fair partnerships. So why was The Fort different? Because developers with lobbyists and political checks were at the table, and ordinary residents weren’t. When developers give to city PACs and walk away with 99 percent of the profit from public land, that’s not capitalism, it’s corruption.” The Fort deal should be revisited, audited, and renegotiated to reflect fair market returns for taxpayers. Otherwise, this will stand as a case study in how not to manage public assets.
How Developers Can Easily Shrink the City’s 1% Share at “The Fort”
“When you tie the city’s income to revenue but let the private partner control the books, they can make the numbers look however they want.”
The Fort’s deal structure hands the developer near-total financial autonomy. Because Fort Lauderdale’s cut is tied to 1% of gross receipts, the city’s income depends entirely on how those receipts are defined, and who defines them. Right now, that’s the developers themselves. If the contract doesn’t tightly spell out what counts as “gross revenue,” the operator can legally bury profits inside expenses, shift earnings between subsidiaries, or reinvest funds back into the property before the city ever sees a dime. They can pay themselves “management fees,” bill “marketing services” through affiliated LLCs, or credit “in-kind sponsorships” that never pass through the books. Each maneuver quietly shrinks the city’s share while keeping the private revenue stream intact.
At that point, the city’s 1% becomes meaningless. Without mandatory third-party audits, affiliate disclosure rules, and caps on internal deductions, Fort Lauderdale is relying entirely on the developer’s honesty. The lesson is simple: in public-private partnerships, whoever controls the accounting controls the outcome. And right now, the Fort Lauderdale public isn’t the one holding the ledger.
The Core Problem, The City Has No Control Over Gross or Net Calculations
If the city’s share is 1% of gross receipts, then it depends entirely on what the developer defines as “gross.” If the definition isn’t clearly spelled out and audited by an independent party, they can:
-
Redirect revenue through subsidiaries (e.g., food & beverage run by a separate LLC).
-
Bundle “marketing fees,” “management fees,” or “reinvestment costs” that are deducted before reporting gross.
-
Shift sponsor income to an affiliated entity (say, a shell that “licenses” court names) and report minimal income at the facility level.
That’s classic accounting manipulation and it’s legal if the contract language allows it. If the 1% applies to net profit rather than gross receipts (or if “gross receipts” can be offset by internal costs), it’s even worse the developers could spend or reinvest every dollar, leaving the city’s share close to zero on paper.
Spending Their Way Out of Revenue
The developers could also just “reinvest” profits in:
-
Facility upgrades or expansions,
-
Branding, sponsorships, or “ambassador” salaries,
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Developer management fees,
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Event promotions or “marketing partnerships” that conveniently pay their own companies.
Each dollar they pour back in before calculating the city’s 1% means less for the city, more for them. They could literally build a $5M “pickleball stadium expansion,” claim reinvestment, and keep the city’s take minimal for another decade, all while increasing the asset value of their leasehold, not the public’s.
The Lack of Oversight on the Fort
Unless the lease itself requires real transparency, quarterly certified financial statements, independent audits with city access, clear gross-revenue definitions that include affiliate transactions, and caps on internal expense deductions. Then Fort Lauderdale has no practical way to verify how much it’s actually owed. That’s the worst kind of public-private structure: asymmetric control of reporting. The private partner controls every input, the revenue, the definitions, the deductions, and the timing while the city just waits for a check.
A full search of Fort Lauderdale’s Legistar system, Commission minutes, and Parks Department project files shows no evidence of those safeguards. There are no quarterly statements, no audit schedules, no revenue definitions, and no disclosure rules for affiliated companies. The city approved a 1% revenue share but failed to build in the mechanisms to confirm that 1% even exists.
In any competent partnership, those controls are standard. The City Auditor’s Office should have access to independent audits. The Parks & Recreation Department should publish yearly operating summaries with gross-revenue totals. The Procurement Division should maintain a compliance schedule that tracks rent payments, escalators, and penalties. None of that appears anywhere in the public record. Yet officials, led by Vice Mayor Steve Glassman, who pushed the deal through, still promote The Fort as a “no-cost win” for taxpayers. But if the city can’t see the books, how can it prove the win? The land is public, the profit is private, and the paperwork is invisible. The silence in the city’s records isn’t an oversight. It’s the oversight.
What a Smart City Contract Would Have Done
A properly drafted public-private partnership (P3) lease would include:
-
Detailed revenue definitions: No offsets, no affiliate loopholes.
-
Auditable books: City finance department or independent auditor can review.
-
Caps on management fees: e.g., “not to exceed 3% of gross receipts.”
-
Mandatory annual statements: Certified by a CPA under penalty of perjury.
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Transparency clause: All subcontracts, sponsorships, and affiliate entities must disclose financial relationships.
If those aren’t in place, and reports from Fort Lauderdale show no mention of them, then the developers can essentially pay themselves first, reinvest second, and leave the city crumbs.
Why This Is So Dangerous for the Tax Payers
This model creates a permanent imbalance:
-
Developers profit directly from expansion, branding, and traffic.
-
The city’s return depends on whatever number the developer chooses to call “gross.”
-
Even if business booms, the public’s upside remains capped and opaque.
It’s the perfect setup for self-enrichment under the veneer of a partnership.
“A 1% deal is bad enough. A 1% deal without audit power is a financial black hole.”
When Fort Lauderdale signed over Snyder Park to build The Fort, city leaders didn’t just give away public land, they surrendered financial oversight. The agreement ties the city’s return to 1% of revenue but provides no meaningful way to verify what those revenues truly are. That’s not partnership. That’s blind trust. Developers can now spend, shuffle, and self-deal their way around accountability. They can reinvest in the property under their own management, pay affiliated companies for “services,” or move sponsor and concession income through private entities before it ever hits the ledger the city sees. Every dollar reclassified as an “expense” or “reinvestment” is a dollar that never counts toward the city’s 1%.
Without audit rights, financial transparency clauses, and public reporting requirements, the system is designed for opacity. The city can’t open the books, can’t question the math, and can’t verify if taxpayers are receiving fair value. It’s a recipe for permanent underpayment disguised as partnership and it’s playing out in broad daylight. At Las Olas Marina, the city structured a far stronger deal, millions in base rent, plus a defined percentage of profits. Yet in the same political climate, The Fort’s developers walked away with 99% of revenue on public land and near-total control of the accounting. That’s not coincidence. It’s the new model of how private interests capture public assets: build the amenity, brand it as community investment, and quietly monetize the margin.
If the city doesn’t reclaim its right to audit and enforce real transparency, Fort Lauderdale will spend the next half-century watching private developers cash in on public property while taxpayers get token checks and press releases. The Fort isn’t just a pickleball arena, it’s a warning that a 1% deal today becomes a 100% lesson tomorrow.
Article Sources:
City of Fort Lauderdale Public Records
- Comprehensive Agreement – Snyder Park Pickleball Facility (The Fort)
City Commission File #22-0560 — Approved June 21, 2022. Authorizes My Park Initiative LLC to design, build, and operate The Fort under a 50-year public-private lease.
Fort Lauderdale Legistar – File #22-0560
- Commission Meeting Minutes – June 21 2022
Official record of the vote finalizing The Fort’s agreement.
Meeting Detail Page
- Lobbyist Registration
Lists Brad Tuckman / My Park Initiative LLC as registered lobbyist for The Fort.
Lobbyist Registry
- City of Fort Lauderdale – Parks & Public Amenities Page
Describes The Fort as a “no-cost public-private partnership.”
fortlauderdale.gov – Parks & Public Amenities
Independent & Business Media
- Sports Business Journal (Mar 24 2025): “Inside ‘The Fort,’ a One-of-a-Kind Pickleball Facility.”
Confirms $30 million build, $7 million loan, developer equity ≈ $23 million, and 99 % revenue retention.
sportsbusinessjournal.com → Inside “The Fort”
- CoStar News (Dec 2024): “Stadium Touted as World’s First Dedicated to Pickleball Nears Completion in South Florida.”
Confirms 10-acre city parcel and construction financing from Centennial Bank.
costar.com → Pickleball Stadium Story
- Florida YIMBY (Dec 2024): “World’s First Pickleball Stadium Nears Completion in Fort Lauderdale.”
Details loan structure and developer entity.
floridayimby.com → Article
- Yahoo News / South Florida Sun Sentinel Syndication (2023): “Critics Still Not Loving Idea of 42 Pickleball Courts at Snyder Park.”
Notes the city’s 1 % revenue share and residents’ opposition.
yahoo.com/news/critics-still-not-loving-idea-120000809.html
- Local 10 News (ABC) (Jan 27 2025): “World’s First Pickleball Stadium Opens in South Florida.”
Reports official opening and public-private status.
local10.com → Pickleball Opens
Las Olas Marina Comparative Data
Political Finance and Corporate Transparency
Legal and Statutory References
Together, These Sources Document:
- The 2022 city approval of The Fort’s 1 % revenue-share deal.
- The developer financing structure and lack of audit provisions.
- The absence of oversight records within Fort Lauderdale’s own archives.
- Comparative P3 deals (Las Olas Marina, etc.) that demonstrate stronger public returns.
- The political and corporate network (My Park Initiative LLC and Glassman’s PAC) behind the project.
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