With the 2026 pro pickleball season officially underway, Major League Pickleball has released a number of competition changes that will be implemented this year as the league looks to build on a highly successful 2025 campaign.

All the changes outlined in this article refer only to Premier level competition, as the league is still in the process of finalizing the competition structure for the Challenger level.

Let’s get into it.

Regular Season Event Format

Arguably the biggest change is the league’s switch back to group play for regular season events.

Each regular season event will feature ten total teams that will be split into two groups of five teams. Round robin group play will take place from Thursday to Saturday, with the top four teams in each group advancing to Sunday.

Group standings will be determined using the same standings point structure from the 2024 and 2025 seasons: 3 points for a regulation win, 2 points for a DreamBreaker win, 1 point for a DreamBreaker loss, and 0 points for a regulation loss.

On Sunday, the same-seeded teams from each group will play each other for real standings points: Group A #1 v. Group B #1, Group A #2 v. Group B #2, and so on.

These matches will be worth varying numbers of standings points:

•             #1 Matchup: Winner receives 25 standings points; loser gets 18
•             #2 Matchup: Winner receives 15 standings points; loser gets 12
•             #3 Matchup: Winner receives 10 standings points; loser gets 8
•             #4 Matchup: Winner gets 6 standings points; loser gets 4
•  

The teams that finish at the bottom of their respective groups will each earn one standing point for the event and will not play each other on Sunday.

This new format will allow events to build up to the week’s biggest matches on Sundays, with the event ‘champion’ being awarded the highest number of standings points.

Each team will compete at five events, so the maximum number of points a team can attain throughout the regular season is 125.

Lineup Management

In another big change from 2025, teams will now be able to use more than four players in their lineups for each match.

If a team wants to use one of its female players for women’s doubles and another for mixed doubles, that is completely allowed.

That being said, the doubles lineups will still need to be set the night before.

This rule also applies to DreamBreaker situations. Teams will now be able to use any of their players for DreamBreakers, regardless of whether they competed in any of the doubles games.

DreamBreaker lineups will be set by each team following the second mixed doubles game.

This specific change puts a new premium on singles specialists, since they will be able to actively participate in matches where they otherwise would not have been able to.

Waivers

On account of the aforementioned rule about lineup management, teams will no longer be able to claim another team’s player off of waivers like they were able to in 2025. Teams will not be required to declare “starters” and “bench players” because they will be able to use all six of their players as they please.

There will also be only one waiver wire period this season, which will take place on July 1, 2026, after the sixth regular season event in Randall’s Island, New York.

During this period, teams will be able to swap out one of their rostered players for one UPA-signed, MLP non-rostered player.

Free Agency Draft

The 2026 Free Agency Draft will run similarly to how it did in 2025, with teams bidding on specific draft slots.

Unlike last year, the draft will not be broken into two parts for starters and bench players; rather, teams will be able to fill all six of their roster spots as quickly as they would like to.

Playoffs

The Premier level playoffs will now take 12 of 18 teams and will run over the course of three weekends with events in Dallas, San Diego, and New York City.

Key League Event Dates

Here are the expected dates for key league events in 2026:

•             Jan. 28-Feb. 15: Trade Window #1
•             Feb. 15: Keeper Deadline
•             Feb. 27: Premier Free Agency Draft
•             March 2-July 15: Trade Window #2
•             July 1: Premier Waiver Period

The league will release updates to the Challenger level competition structure in the coming weeks.