Jefferson Parish opens $2 million pickleball complex
Jefferson Parish opened a $2 million pickleball complex over the weekend in Metairie at Mike Miley Playground.
Why it matters: Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the U.S.
The big picture: The pickleball complex has nine new covered courts and four refurbished ones with lights for free play, leagues and tournaments, according to the parish.
It also has two small covered areas for spectators and players, along with a new parking lot.
By the numbers: At the groundbreaking in 2023, the parish estimated the project would cost about $1 million, which would be funded from the recreation millage tax.
The actual pricetag came in a touch over $2 million, parish spokesperson Rachel Strassel tells Axios New Orleans.
She said the original project ended up costing more than quoted.
The parish paid $1.25 million from the millage, and council member Deano Bonano covered the remaining $800,000 from a discretionary fund, she said.
Zoom out: Pickleball participation nationally has grown more than 220% in the past three years, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.
Even Drew Brees is getting in on the action. He hosts an annual pickleball tournament in New Orleans and is part owner of a Major League Pickleball team in Austin.
New Orleans metro has at least 30 pickleball facilities, including options through NORD and City Park, according to Pickleheads.com, which maps courts and their amenities.
The Exchange Pickleball + Bar on Tchoupitoulas Street, Brees' Pickle N Pins and Ochsner Fitness Center in Elmwood have indoor courts available for a fee too.
If you go: The new pickleball facility is open daily from 8am to 9pm.
It's next to the Ree Alario Multi-Purpose Center at 500 Pickleball Court.
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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Bringing Tech To Game Day At The New England Patriots' Stadium
In April, the Kraft Group—which owns the New England Patriots, MLS' New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium—signed a five-year agreement with tech infrastructure provider NWN to transform the tech framework for the Kraft Group's facilities, including Gillette Stadium and a new training facility for the Patriots. I talked to Kraft Group CIO Michael Israel and NWN CEO Jim Sullivan in April about the challenges of bringing the latest technology infrastructure to a place like Gillette Stadium, and how big facilities with a multitude of uses can plan for the future. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity. It was excerpted in the Forbes CIO newsletter. Why is it important to partner with NWN to bring upgrades to Gillette Stadium and the Kraft Group's other event facilities? Israel: With NWN as a partner, everything we do within the Kraft organization from an IT perspective is on a life cycle: When we buy something, this is how long we expect to use it. It's become a necessary component within IT because you want to have a predictive budget. It's no longer 'set it and forget it.' You have to know that I'm going to keep this Wi-Fi system for five years. That way, you can at least let management know that while we're spending this amount of money now, it's going to come back up four or five years later. Creating that expectation, long-term budget and continued investment in it avoids the surprise. That being said, we have been looking at what the next five years brings to the Kraft organization, and in partnership with NWN, we have a whole bunch of things that are lining up together. That, plus new facilities, really made us sit back and say, 'We need to be looking at this beyond the typical 18 to 24 months of what we do for budgeting.' We have a new football practice facility that's being built as we speak, which comes live in April of '26, which brings about its own components for networking. We then have the FIFA World Cup coming in June and July of '26. Coming out of that, we have new network and Wi-Fi refreshes. We'll have to make determinations of [the best Wi-Fi speed and capacity]. By the time we're done with all that, we have another firewall refresh that comes forward. And then in the midst of all that, if that's not enough, we're potentially building another stadium north of Boston, in Everett, Massachusetts, for our soccer team. Kraft Group CIO Michael Israel and NWN CEO Jim Sullivan All of this together from a core infrastructure perspective, we sat with Jim [Sullivan] and [CMO] Andrew [Gilman] and their team and said: This is everything we have on our docket for five years. I need an organization that can help us strategically plan, make decisions based on what's the right choice for all of this. We're making a commitment now that's going to go five to seven years into the future, and I need that platform in place because what we're doing functionally is rapidly changing at the same time. There's base items that are happening, like as we build our football practice facility and you go into a room, I can control the light, or the temperature or the ambient settings in conference rooms from our Cisco platforms. But if I enter the room, what's going to happen on our IP TV systems? How are we [working with] the endpoints that are hanging off of the network, to create a better experience for the players that are coming in? As you bring AI into the mix, you're talking about things that are entirely different and looking and saying, 'How can I take data that's historically sitting there and use it to my advantage?' We're looking at the stadium itself. If you're a ticket holder and you're walking up to the gate, what's the last thing you want to do? Wait in line for 20 minutes to get into the stadium, wait in line for 20 minutes to get a cheeseburger. One of the projects we're currently investigating is building a digital wallet system, where I walk up and, similar to a Clear lane at an airport, we can do opt-in facial recognition tied to your digital wallet, hook into Ticketmaster, shred your ticket. You don't have to take anything out. Walk up to a concession line. Fast pass line, sees your face, hits your credit card, checks your ID for age verification, logs into the loyalty system and says, 'You just bought two cheeseburgers,' and you're in and out. Those are the types of things that will change a stakeholder's perception of, 'Gee, that was a pleasurable experience. The folks who choose to wait in line are waiting 20 minutes for a cheeseburger. I just did it in a minute.' That will differentiate us. People will say, 'Maybe I don't want to sit home and watch a 75-inch TV. Maybe I do want to come to the stadium and experience it.' Those are the challenges that we are faced with. It's how can I use the network and put solutions on top of it to speed transactions, to get more things done and to make us more efficient. How do you come up with what you want to accomplish, and how do you figure out what kind of infrastructure is needed to make it happen? Israel: We have our Monster Jam [this weekend] at the stadium. On Saturday, I'll be walking around the stadium engaging. Gillette is one of the few stadiums in the country in which we own and self-operate our stadium. It's our security staff, our concession staff. I am walking around watching how our fans engage with us. How are our systems being used? Where are they inefficient? Where are they doing their job? How can we improve that experience? Guests will come up to me and say, 'How do I get to the gate?' 'How do I get to my suite?' 'Where's the nearest bathroom?' When they're asking me these things, that's registering in my mind: They don't have that information today. When you have these types of events, they're new users. You want them to have a positive experience because that's your lead in to a potential soccer season ticket holder or future Patriots season ticket holder. But even when you get to the Patriot season ticket holders, what can we do to enhance that experience? It's seeing how our guests experience things, what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, and not sitting back and saying, 'I'm good. I'm going to go watch the game.' I've been here six years. I think I've seen 15 minutes of one football game. On a football day, I'll generally do about 30,000 steps walking the stadium, watching what's going on. The other side of the coin is what do we do from a technology perspective, looking at what do I need to do to ensure that I have connectivity, and what devices are now connecting to the networks that hadn't in the past? The system that waters the field is an IoT system that's attached to our network. If it's not connecting, it's not watering the field, and we don't know what's going on. We have to allow for connectivity, secure that connectivity, and make sure that that connectivity is reliable. We constantly do surveys after a winter to say, what got impacted by the winter? Do I have Wi-Fi access points that may be misaligned that need to be looked at? I have FIFA coming in next year. That's like having seven Super Bowls over six weeks here at the stadium. They're going to use my parking lots on the east and west side as fan activation zones. I don't have connectivity there. Working with the NWN team, we have to determine what does FIFA need? How do we light up those areas that when the fans are there, they have connectivity. Their booths can operate, their systems can operate, the fans can get connectivity, and we'll have maybe 50,000 or 60,000 fans in the bowl, but we could have an additional 50,000 people on the campus, and that's not a crowd that we're used to having. What are some of the infrastructure upgrades that you need to make some of these things happen? You're talking about wider connectivity, AI, faster speeds and more reliable facial recognition. Israel: Looking at expanding where that connectivity takes place [starts with] something as simple as evaluating the state of our infrastructure all underneath: the state of our cabling infrastructure, our fiber backbones, all of that is one piece. We look at the bandwidth right now at the stadium for Wi-Fi. We have four 10Gb pipes supplied by Verizon. Is that going to be sufficient? As we look to perform upgrades, we have to turn around and say, what do we predict that rate of growth to be over the next five years? Because what is working today is probably not suited for what's going to happen in two or three years, as we start adding more and more onto the network itself. With NWN, we'll evaluate the vendors. Which technology do we want to put in? Is it a Wi-Fi 6E decision? Is it a Wi-Fi 7 decision? Is it something else? In some cases, we're having to make sure networks aren't stepping on top of each other. Ultimately, it's assessing our current state versus what we expect the future state to be. And at the same time plan for building another stadium. How am I going to support all of that? The relationship with NWN affords us the opportunity to say, 'I can't do this all myself.' My staff is here. I need a vendor who's got the breadth of product knowledge to be able to sit with me and say, 'These are your choices,' and also be a group of folks who have a deep bench that can handle multiple projects with us at the same time. On the NWN side, how do you determine what to do in large facilities like these and how to support current and future needs? Sullivan: NWN, over the past five years, has grown from $250 million to over $1 billion dollars this year, and really expanded this full end-to-end IT infrastructure. The market is changing really fast with AI adding in. For us, it's working with organizations to start with the end state: What's the vision of what we have to have here, what we're trying to drive? And then, what's the required capabilities? Most of these environments, from the application, to the AI, to the infrastructure, to the unified communications, to security all have to be assessed as one holistic solution. Then we put in the right required capabilities from the technology, the services, the overall management, and co-management with Mike's team. We've reached the breadth and scale where we're dealing with organizations where there's hundreds of thousands of people, or states with 50,000 deployments of people and requirements. We can cover end-to-end, but also have the scale to handle a large project that goes across multiple technology domains and supports a smaller event, and all of a sudden it surges to hundreds of thousands of people. Everyone is getting used to [the fact] that customer experience needs to be world-class; there's expectations there. Ultimately, the Wi-Fi is going to be fast, strong and secure. And then going into these new technologies to a real beneficial evolution, where it's creating new user experience, new knowledge, but is also driving a backend that's going to create a lot more capacity demands on the networks, on the infrastructure. You've got to be able to tie it all together. We've got 5,000 enterprise customers across the country: both state and federal, and then large enterprises like the Kraft Group. You're talking about lots of upgrades, but what will fans, players, vendors and employees actually notice? Israel: The fans are going to notice these little things like the changes in applications. We'll have more autonomous concession locations where you can just go in, check into the location, pick your product, walk out. It's frictionless engagement. In other areas, our club and suite locations, we'll see changes in how people can engage the absorption of IP TV: more dynamic programming, potentially changing what an individual suite holder can see or control in those scenarios. We have a stadium that's 20 years old. When you look at some modern stadiums coming in— whether it's SoFi in California or Allegiant in Vegas—[we're looking at] things that they're doing there and saying we need to up our game. Our stadium is used as a convention center year-round. We have events going on almost every day and [we are] making sure that we're in that competitive landscape. When you look at us versus the Massachusetts State Convention Center in Boston, we want to make sure that we're on par. The Kraft family is always looking to invest in the stadium, keep it up to date, modernizing. But at the same time, [Kraft Group President] Jonathan [Kraft] and [CEO] Robert [Kraft] are very entrepreneurial in terms of what do we need to do that's different. Getting that support from ownership is key. I'm walking in with an idea, and maybe sometimes the ideas don't come to fruition, but I'm given the chance to bring things forward and saying, how can we take that step? Players are coming out of colleges and walking into an NFL environment expecting more. That's what our player facility is going to be. How do I take information coming out of the weight rooms and bring that and put that in the coach's hands to say, 'Did Jim do all of his pushups today? How much is he lifting? What are we seeing?' Those types of pieces. Where can AI enhance the teams, whether it's soccer or football? I don't have those answers today. I need to sit with the coaches and say: What would you like to see from that side? How can we brainstorm together? I don't know what a football coach is looking for. Did someone line up incorrectly at the line of scrimmage? Are they doing things a certain way? How can I help them with systems to mentor, train and teach the players? That requires us collaborating. Something as simple as a coach telling me, 'I don't like to sit at the front of the room and just teach. I need to be able to walk around the room. I need to have a tablet in my hand, and as I'm marking on my iPad, I want that to project up on the screen.' These are easy wins, but if I don't hear that, I can't supply that solution. One of the first things you said was that you like to be able to have a predictable plan. So how do you plan and get everything in place for not only the capabilities of today that you want, but the capabilities of tomorrow that no one has even thought about yet? Israel: You're making sure that you have room for growth in the systems that you have and that you have management and measurement systems in place. We have a very well established network operation control system and a security operations control system, in which we can monitor at all times what's the utilization on these systems, what's going on, what's the bandwidth, how are they operating? Then we can predict, 'Maybe I bought this thinking it was going to be a five-year investment, but do I need to do something in the midst of that life cycle?' And that will also happen when all of a sudden, in the middle of a process, we're going to build out a new north end zone and the traffic is going to wind up changing with 30% more than last year. What do I need to do to adjust the network for that? Life changes quickly. Those are the types of things that we adjust accordingly, but as long as my core network is there and it can support this, that's ultimately what we're looking to supply. Sullivan: In technology today, we talk about the application enhancement piece or the user experience piece: if you have the right backbone and infrastructure and support the capacity. This is very different than 15 years ago, when you had to put in some major software program with some of the AI technologies and features. Today, it's learning, and then a new feature could come on that you could just add into the user experience. It's pretty incremental once you have this base plan, and that can be added in on the fly, versus having to do some major infrastructure. It does provide a lot more flexibility, a lot more agility for applications or innovations that didn't exist today, but six months from now they do exist and you can put them in place. What advice do you have for CIOs looking to bring more technology to their facilities, thinking about not only what to do today, but what to do in the future? Israel: Ultimately, it's not just if you build it, they will come. If you're building it, you need to be brainstorming how you're going to use it, and you need to have relationships with all of your stakeholders to understand what's holding them back, what would they like to see? In some cases, they don't know what they don't know, and we have to take these technology discussions, take the technology out of it, and think about how are we going to provide solutions. Sullivan: We did 5,000 distinct deployments last year. The really successful ones are driven with a positive outcome you're trying to get to. Collaboration and a partnership between the two as a seamless team really drives the most success to drive those outcomes.
Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
What the Trump travel ban means for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games
GENEVA (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump often says the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are among the events he is most excited about in his second term. Yet there is significant uncertainty regarding visa policies for foreign visitors planning trips to the U.S. for the two biggest events in sports. Trump's latest travel ban on citizens from 12 countries added new questions about the impact on the World Cup and the Summer Olympics, which depend on hosts opening their doors to the world. Here's a look at the potential effects of the travel ban on those events. What is the travel ban policy? When Sunday ticks over to Monday, citizens of 12 countries should be banned from entering the U.S. They are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Tighter restrictions will apply to visitors from seven more: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Trump said some countries had 'deficient' screening and vetting processes or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. How does it affect the World Cup and Olympics? Iran, a soccer power in Asia, is the only targeted country to qualify so far for the World Cup being co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico in one year's time. Cuba, Haiti and Sudan are in contention. Sierra Leone might stay involved through multiple playoff games. Burundi, Equatorial Guinea and Libya have very outside shots. But all should be able to send teams to the World Cup if they qualify because the new policy makes exceptions for 'any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the secretary of state.' About 200 countries could send athletes to the Summer Games, including those targeted by the latest travel restrictions. The exceptions should apply to them as well if the ban is still in place in its current form. What about fans? The travel ban doesn't mention any exceptions for fans from the targeted countries wishing to travel to the U.S. for the World Cup or Olympics. Even before the travel ban, fans of the Iran soccer team living in that country already had issues about getting a visa for a World Cup visit. Still, national team supporters often profile differently to fans of club teams who go abroad for games in international competitions like the UEFA Champions League. For many countries, fans traveling to the World Cup — an expensive travel plan with hiked flight and hotel prices — are often from the diaspora, wealthier, and could have different passport options. A World Cup visitor is broadly higher-spending and lower-risk for host nation security planning. Visitors to an Olympics are often even higher-end clients, though tourism for a Summer Games is significantly less than at a World Cup, with fewer still from most of the 19 countries now targeted. How is the U.S. working with FIFA, Olympic officials? FIFA President Gianni Infantino has publicly built close ties since 2018 to Trump — too close according to some. He has cited the need to ensure FIFA's smooth operations at a tournament that will earn a big majority of the soccer body's expected $13 billion revenue from 2023-26. Infantino sat next to Trump at the White House task force meeting on May 6 which prominently included Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. FIFA's top delegate on the task force is Infantino ally Carlos Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs partner whose two-year run as U.S. Soccer Federation president ended in controversy in 2020. Any visa and security issues FIFA faces — including at the 32-team Club World Cup that kicks off next week in Miami — can help LA Olympics organizers finesse their plans. 'I don't anticipate any, any problems from any countries to come and participate,' LA Games chairman Casey Wasserman told International Olympic Committee officials in March. He revealed then, at an IOC meeting in Greece, two discreet meetings with Trump and noted the State Department has a 'fully staffed desk' to help prepare for short-notice visa processing in the summer of 2028 — albeit with a focus on teams rather than fans. 'Irrespective of politics today,' Wasserman said in March, 'America will be open and accepting to all 209 countries for the Olympics.' FIFA and the IOC didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about the new Trump travel ban. What have other host nations done? The 2018 World Cup host Russia let fans enter the country with a game ticket doubling as their visa. So did Qatar four years later. Both governments, however, also performed background checks on all visitors coming to the month-long soccer tournaments. Governments have refused entry to unwelcome visitors. For the 2012 London Olympics, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko — who is still its authoritarian leader today — was denied a visa despite also leading its national Olympic body. The IOC also suspended him from the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021. ___ AP soccer: and AP Olympics at
Fox News
4 hours ago
- Fox News
After trans pitcher leads team to state championship, opponent and lawyer suing over situation speak out
Transgender pitcher Marissa Rothenberger led Champlin Park High School to Minnesota's state softball championship game after a pair of playoff wins on Wednesday. The pitcher's dominance this season has prompted a lawsuit by three anonymous opposing players amid a national divide over the legality of trans athletes in girls' sports. One of the players involved in the lawsuit reacted to the pitcher's run to the championship game in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital, provided by her attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). "It is upsetting to see a male athlete dominating our sport and taking opportunities away from girls who have worked hard all season to make it to the championship game in the state tournament. On top of the unfairness, it is oftentimes a risk to play a physical sport like softball against a male athlete," the statement said. "I am proud of the girls who played hard, and at the end of the day deserve it more than a boy, but I hope that more people will continue to stand up for female sports and take the rights of women and girls seriously." The anonymous player's team did not reach the championship game, the ADF said. ADF attorney Suzanne Beecher weighed in on the situation as well. "A male's belief about his gender doesn't erase the physical advantages over female athletes. And every girl competing deserves the chance to experience the thrill of victory," Beecher told Fox News Digital. "What happened tonight was not only unfair but put every female athlete at risk of getting injured due to the clear differences in biology from male to female. We filed a lawsuit against Minnesota officials to upend their radical policies that hurt female athletes across the state and restore their opportunities in a fair and safe competition." Rothenberger pitched both the quarterfinal and semifinal on Wednesday, and even hit two doubles in the semifinal to help spark a comeback. Champlin Park will now face No. 4-seeded Bloomington Jefferson in the title game on Friday at the University of Minnesota's Jane Sage Cowles Stadium. Champlin Park's school district previously provided a statement to Fox News Digital defending the decision to allow the athlete to compete on the softball team. "Throughout the entire season, and as the Rebels advance to the state tournament, it is important to note that all of the student athletes participating for the Champlin Park Softball team are eligible to compete in compliance with Minnesota State High School League rules and applicable state law. Due to data privacy laws, the District is not able to provide public comment regarding a specific student athlete," a statement from the Anoka-Hennepin School District stated. "In addition, the District is named in an active lawsuit which limits what information can be shared." Meanwhile, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office has released a statement responding to the lawsuit against the state over Rothenberger's participation in the girls' softball season. "In addition to getting exercise and the fun of competition, playing sports comes with so many benefits for young people. You build friendships that can last a lifetime, you learn how to work as part of a team, and you get to feel like you belong," Ellison said. "I believe it is wrong to single out one group of students, who already face higher levels of bullying and harassment, and tell these kids they cannot be on the team because of who they are. I will continue to defend the rights of all students to play sports with their friends and peers." After President Donald Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order, the Minnesota State High School League announced it would defy federal law by allowing transgender athletes to continue playing in women's sports. Ellison then claimed at a press conference on April 22 that he received notice from the Department of Justice threatening legal action if the state did not follow the executive order, so the attorney general decided to sue first. The White House later responded to the lawsuit, condemning Ellison for taking legal action to enable trans inclusion. "Why would a grown man sue the Trump administration to allow other biological males to participate in women's sports? This is creepy and anti-woman," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital. Minnesota's state legislature failed to pass the "Preserving Girls' Sports Act" in early March, which would have stated that "only female students may participate in an elementary or secondary school level athletic team or sport that an educational institution has restricted to women and girls." Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
