Engage Pickleball
American-made, engineering-led, and one of the pioneers of paddle spin.
United States · Founded Around 2015
- Country
- United States
- Founded
- Garage startup around 2015
- Leadership
- Robert Elliott (founder & CEO) and Jodi Elliott; family-led
- Scale
- Roughly 70+ employees
The story
Engage started when Robert Elliott, an engineer, Division I athlete and competitive player, built a paddle for his wife Jodi because nothing on the market suited her game. Six months later that became the Encore, which took roughly half the medals at USAPA Nationals that year and put the brand on the map.
Engage is one of the very few leading brands that designs, engineers and manufactures entirely in the United States, with its own employees in its own facilities.
Shape decoder
| Model / shape | Category | Dimensions | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| EX | Widebody | 16" x 8" | Standard / widebody |
| MX | Elongated | 16.5" x 7.5" | - |
Thickness is part of the naming too: 12.7mm (marketed as 1/2") and 15.2mm (marketed as "6.0").
Surface technologies
- FiberTEK · Spin-oriented face.
- Specialized skin · A legacy face engineered to sit at the maximum allowed surface roughness under USAP rules.
Core technologies
- ControlPro Polymer Core · With built-in vibration control.
- Core & Skin Dimensioning · Engage's term for tuning the core and face as a harmonized system rather than independently.
Series and models
Encore, Encore Pro, Pursuit, Pursuit Pro (Control and Power series), Trident, Alpha Pro, X2.
Worth knowing
Engage was among the first to experiment with adding grit to paddle faces in the mid-2010s, arguably the origin of the modern spin race. It signed a young Ben Johns as one of its first pros, returned as an official PPA Tour sponsor in 2026, and signed Eric Oncins.