Viewership numbers

[Tony's Table Tennis]

We've had this conversation enough times that I'm not really interested in re-hashing it again. And I understand dealing with the leagues is part of your business, so naturally you prefer them to WTT. I don't care whether you call it WTT or rename it TTW or whatever, and replace all of the leadership and organize it however you want. That is not the point. The point is there needs to be a single organization with a near-monopoly on selling the top players' matches to advertisers, TV carriers, and fans, in order to make enough money to turn table tennis into a higher-profile sport outside of Asia.

but here lies a big problem.
You need an organization that is more fair to the players than they are for themselves.
until then, it is just like any other federation - you have way more money running the admin of the show, than the players who are the show.

Players are very often fans, but fans don't have to be players. The NFL is the most popular sports league (by far) in the US and only a small share of fans have played organized American Football at any point in their lives, let alone have more than a rudimentary understanding of the sport. Of course experienced players of any sport will tend to be more interested in the highest level of the game, but there is more to it than that for sports with big followings. It's about entertainment, drama, storylines and personalities. ~130 million people don't watch the Super Bowl because they played Pee-wee football and want to see how the nickel matches up with the tight end on third down, they watch because it's a cultural event.

If you don't like that example, how many Formula 1 fans have even sat behind the wheel of a racing car? How many were introduced to the sport by Drive to Survive?

Yep, it is clear, active player vs viewer doesn't go hand in hand.
however, as pointed above, maybe tt is just too technical for non active players to understand or watch.

 

[RefereeNumber2]

The examples you give aren't great examples still, but the point is not to argue this to death because you have a point, it is just significantly overstated IMHO. A huge part of that NFL culture you are talking about begins with getting kids involved in the sport. Many successful businessmen played football or made connections in that business, especially in the middle American states, so there is an large subculture around the sport that is not visible on TV. The storylines and all the other stuff are mass marketing tools, but they all sit on a large base of hardcore believers who learned, played and watched the sport as children.

Formula 1 is also a bad example because everyone who can drive relates to driving. It is pretty similar to watching sprints/marathons - you don't have to have done one to understand what makes the race tick. That said, Formula 1 is still a very niche sport in general, but as with most sports that are expensive, rich people take enough of an interest in it to keep it going.

Some of the mistakes made in table tennis are historical, but the bottom line is that the sport has never significantly gained traction as something attractive to the masses or rich people. Remember, China partly invested in it because it was cheap to invest in. That said, table tennis as an activity is outcompeted by other sports when alternatives are present, but usually, culture is what keeps sports popular in the first place. It is their culture of playing the sport as children that keeps the sport popular in China, if not, the sport would be almost dead globally by now. Tennis, basketball, football and golf had an upper class history from the start, as do many sports that are popular today and they were lucky to have better business standing and TV deals when money really started going into sports. Maybe the US was also unlucky not to have good table tennis players at the top of the sport during the 80s and 90s as that might have helped. But there are now facilities in just about every school supporting most of the big sports in America. Because just like with religion, the biggest thing determining whether you like a sport is how early you were exposed to it in a positive fashion.

It feels like this conversation is getting away from the context in which I made my original point. This thread is full of people talking about how it is easier to get into pickleball than table tennis. My point was simply that that has very little to do with how popular the professional version of that respective sport is. In that context, I think my examples of the NFL and Formula 1 are extremely relevant. Both sports are quite hard to get into for various reasons (physical risk in the case of football, sheer expense in the case of Formula 1) and yet are popular for cultural/entertainment reasons.

And your response illustrates the exact point I was initially making: the success of a sport in terms of popularity has much more to do with cultural presence than how many people are playing it seriously as an entry point into the sports fandom. People play football in the US as a downstream result of the huge cultural and entertainment presence that the NFL (and college football) has, not the other way around.

As to your argument about driving and Formula 1, at that point why not consider anyone who’s ever held a ping pong paddle a table tennis player? Formula 1 was in steady decline before ownership changed and it took on a new marketing strategy that included the Drive to Survive show. Again in this case, entertainment and cultural presence drive fandom. Not the number of people who drive cars (lol).

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

It feels like this conversation is getting away from the context in which I made my original point. This thread is full of people talking about how it is easier to get into pickleball than table tennis. My point was simply that that has very little to do with how popular the professional version of that respective sport is. In that context, I think my examples of the NFL and Formula 1 are extremely relevant. Both sports are quite hard to get into for various reasons (physical risk in the case of football, sheer expense in the case of Formula 1) and yet are popular for cultural/entertainment reasons.

And your response illustrates the exact point I was initially making: the success of a sport in terms of popularity has much more to do with cultural presence than how many people are playing it seriously as an entry point into the sports fandom. People play football in the US as a downstream result of the huge cultural and entertainment presence that the NFL (and college football) has, not the other way around.

As to your argument about driving and Formula 1, at that point why not consider anyone who’s ever held a ping pong paddle a table tennis player? Formula 1 was in steady decline before ownership changed and it took on a new marketing strategy that included the Drive to Survive show. Again in this case, entertainment and cultural presence drive fandom. Not the number of people who drive cars (lol).

don't worry, your examples are all on point.
It has painted an answer, because I am sure there are not millions of picketball players, but they are getting millions of views.

same as that Adam gets way more views than WTT.
I am sure Adam gets audiences that don't play TT too.

 

[NextLevel]

It feels like this conversation is getting away from the context in which I made my original point. This thread is full of people talking about how it is easier to get into pickleball than table tennis. My point was simply that that has very little to do with how popular the professional version of that respective sport is. In that context, I think my examples of the NFL and Formula 1 are extremely relevant. Both sports are quite hard to get into for various reasons (physical risk in the case of football, sheer expense in the case of Formula 1) and yet are popular for cultural/entertainment reasons.

And your response illustrates the exact point I was initially making: the success of a sport in terms of popularity has much more to do with cultural presence than how many people are playing it seriously as an entry point into the sports fandom. People play football in the US as a downstream result of the huge cultural and entertainment presence that the NFL (and college football) has, not the other way around.

As to your argument about driving and Formula 1, at that point why not consider anyone who’s ever held a ping pong paddle a table tennis player? Formula 1 was in steady decline before ownership changed and it took on a new marketing strategy that included the Drive to Survive show. Again in this case, entertainment and cultural presence drive fandom. Not the number of people who drive cars (lol).

The problem is that you are trying to divorce cultural presence from how many people are playing it seriously as an entry point into the sports fandom (whatever that means). Cultural presence is highly tied to how many people play and understand the sport, especially as children.

I don't know whether formula 1 is that popular, especially in the USA, but your point that the professional and amateur sports are not necessarily related is taken. The point related to cultural presence is that cultural presence is very much related to how many people play the professional version or something very much like it as children. Whether you define that into the sports fandom, I am not sure. One of the things that benefits formula 1 is that the equipment companies also have another popular industry they are invested in. So formula 1 is partly subsidized by the auto industry. Most racket sports piggy back off each other as well.

The other issue which is more evolutionary is whether the sport was able to get on TV and get huge TV revenue early. Tennis originally used its subscriber/member base who were willing to fund it (and golf did the same) to drive spectacles for TV. Table tennis never had that or used that leverage to do the same. In fact, Dan Seemiller argues that going beyond hardbat has been a big killer of table tennis and that if we reduced the impact of spin and equipment, table tennis would be much more popular as sport. I think he is right, but the problem is that when people are making money from the status quo, they are the people you have to defeat to get the greater good and from an evolutionary perspective, good luck with that.

 

[XpingpingpongpongX]

If a state includes table tennis in PE classes, organizes competitions between schools, and gives scholarships to town champions and state champions, I believe table tennis will grow fast in the US. But we don't have any law maker or governor who like to play table tennis.

One possibility is, the major manufacturers unite together and fund those things in a small region. Once it succeeds and gets popular in a city or in a state, it builds the culture there and could spread out.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

If a state includes table tennis in PE classes, organizes competitions between schools, and gives scholarships to town champions and state champions, I believe table tennis will grow fast in the US. But we don't have any law maker or governor who like to play table tennis.

One possibility is, the major manufacturers unite together and fund those things in a small region. Once it succeeds and gets popular in a city or in a state, it builds the culture there and could spread out.

I heard in some Asian countries, where TT is small, TT can get you university scholarship.
so at least there is a pull effect there.

 

[RefereeNumber2]

Yep, it is clear, active player vs viewer doesn't go hand in hand.
however, as pointed above, maybe tt is just too technical for non active players to understand or watch.

We are all table tennis players and fans in this forum, so we understand and appreciate the complexity of table tennis. But I think we should be careful not to underrate the complexity of other sports which we may not understand as deeply.

Other sports, including many extremely popular ones, are also very technically complex in ways that are hard to follow on TV. I'll go back to the example of the NFL and American football -- that sport is extremely complex, and it is nearly impossible to completely follow on live TV because (talk about camera angles!) the screen doesn't even show everything that is happening on the field at once. All of those slow-mo replays and multiple angles are actually necessary to even understand what is happening in the game. And I would venture to say that almost any team sport is going to have more layers of tactical complexity than a singles sport just because of the number of moving pieces.

There are other things American football has going for it in terms of viewership, but table tennis also has some natural advantages compared to more popular sports. In particular, table tennis matches are much shorter than football games or tennis matches, which is better for shorter audience attention spans and also raises the stakes of every point (because of the scoring system, there are a lot of points in tennis matches that basically don't matter at all). Shorter matches means table tennis could have more matches overall, which potentially creates more fodder for sports gambling, which is also a big entry point into sports fandom in the current day and age. And the presence of spin, although maybe harder to follow, also allows for more highlight rallies and shots which are also a big way younger audience members get into sports fandom as well.

 

[zeio]

Tit for tat.

Pickleball players accused of vandalizing tennis courts
https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1721162

 

[NextLevel]

We are all table tennis players and fans in this forum, so we understand and appreciate the complexity of table tennis. But I think we should be careful not to underrate the complexity of other sports which we may not understand as deeply.

Other sports, including many extremely popular ones, are also very technically complex in ways that are hard to follow on TV. I'll go back to the example of the NFL and American football -- that sport is extremely complex, and it is nearly impossible to completely follow on live TV because (talk about camera angles!) the screen doesn't even show everything that is happening on the field at once. All of those slow-mo replays and multiple angles are actually necessary to even understand what is happening in the game. And I would venture to say that almost any team sport is going to have more layers of tactical complexity than a singles sport just because of the number of moving pieces.

There are other things American football has going for it in terms of viewership, but table tennis also has some natural advantages compared to more popular sports. In particular, table tennis matches are much shorter than football games or tennis matches, which is better for shorter audience attention spans and also raises the stakes of every point (because of the scoring system, there are a lot of points in tennis matches that basically don't matter at all). Shorter matches means table tennis could have more matches overall, which potentially creates more fodder for sports gambling, which is also a big entry point into sports fandom in the current day and age. And the presence of spin, although maybe harder to follow, also allows for more highlight rallies and shots which are also a big way younger audience members get into sports fandom as well.

Anything in life done at a high level is complicated at that level, the key is whether someone can be given an intuitive understanding that allows them to follow and track the action in minutes. When one hears that one team has four chances to gain at least 10 yards and if they don't, the other team takes over. And they are trying to get into the endzone to score, that gives a story most people can be invested in and follow.

When I sent my friend from France a video of Felix Lebrun beating Hugo in a point, she said the video was too fast to follow, and in fact, I have noticed that a lot of my TT anticipation and ball track is not natural to people who casually observing the sport. When I am training, I feel slow, but they watch me and think I am a pro.

The current speed of professional TT is not necessarily to its advantage and I think many of us because we are players experience it at a slower and more enjoyable speed than the general public does.

 

[RefereeNumber2]

Anything in life done at a high level is complicated at that level, the key is whether someone can be given an intuitive understanding that allows them to follow and track the action in minutes. When one hears that one team has four chances to gain at least 10 yards and if they don't, the other team takes over. And they are trying to get into the endzone to score, that gives a story most people can be invested in and follow.

When I sent my friend from France a video of Felix Lebrun beating Hugo in a point, she said the video was too fast to follow, and in fact, I have noticed that a lot of my TT anticipation and ball track is not natural to people who casually observing the sport. When I am training, I feel slow, but they watch me and think I am a pro.

The current speed of professional TT is not necessarily to its advantage and I think many of us because we are players experience it at a slower and more enjoyable speed than the general public does.

And why isn't "Get the ball back onto the opponent's side of the table one more time than they do" an intuitive understanding that people can follow? I can virtually guarantee it would be easier for you to explain the action of a table tennis match than to explain how American football works to respective complete novices. It's hard to even take this seriously.

 

[NextLevel]

And why isn't "Get the ball back onto the opponent's side of the table one more time than they do" an intuitive understanding that people can follow? I can virtually guarantee it would be easier for you to explain the action of a table tennis match than to explain how American football works to respective complete novices. It's hard to even take this seriously.

You seem to be confusing the story with the experience. Once you explain football, especially for a TV cast, it is pretty easy to follow the ball.

It is hard to explain to people who haven't experienced what spin does why the rally is happening the way it is at the speed it is - you sometimes don't even see the ball if you are not trained to do so. Tennis would have a similar problem if it was played on the scale of table tennis, but the size of the court gives them more room for people to appreciate what they are doing.

People who have tried to return pro serves have a very different understanding what difficulties tennis players have from people who haven't but the scale does the work of allowing for a narrative. Table tennis is so fast you probably have to slow it down and even then, people will not really understand why people are putting easy balls into the net so often. I suspect in terms of appreciation, amateur table tennis with rallies is more fun to watch for most casual viewers than professional table tennis.

 

[XpingpingpongpongX]

And why isn't "Get the ball back onto the opponent's side of the table one more time than they do" an intuitive understanding that people can follow? I can virtually guarantee it would be easier for you to explain the action of a table tennis match than to explain how American football works to respective complete novices. It's hard to even take this seriously.

Football is basically throwing and catching. Don't let the ball drop and go across the line. I probably would offend many people, but I think it's the most boring sport to do and watch when I often see 2 teenagers playing throw and catch in a driveway. I personally just don't see the fun in it.

 

[piligrim]

People should watch chopper against attacker. It easy to see ball and understand what happen )))

 

[RefereeNumber2]

You seem to be confusing the story with the experience. Once you explain football, especially for a TV cast, it is pretty easy to follow the ball.

It is hard to explain to people who haven't experienced what spin does why the rally is happening the way it is at the speed it is - you sometimes don't even see the ball if you are not trained to do so. Tennis would have a similar problem if it was played on the scale of table tennis, but the size of the court gives them more room for people to appreciate what they are doing.

People who have tried to return pro serves have a very different understanding what difficulties tennis players have from people who haven't but the scale does the work of allowing for a narrative. Table tennis is so fast you probably have to slow it down and even then, people will not really understand why people are putting easy balls into the net so often. I suspect in terms of appreciation, amateur table tennis with rallies is more fun to watch for most casual viewers than professional table tennis.

You seem to be confused about the main thread of the conversation. Table tennis does have technical nuances and depth that make it hard to follow, such as spin and speed. But it has other things that make it simpler and easier to follow, such as simple scoring, and short matches. If perceiving a small ball moving and spinning very fast were the limiting factor to why people watched a sport, then zero people would watch golf. My whole point from the beginning is that this is not the main explanatory factor behind why sports are popular or not for spectators.

 

[XpingpingpongpongX]

You seem to be confused about the main thread of the conversation. Table tennis does have technical nuances and depth that make it hard to follow, such as spin and speed. But it has other things that make it simpler and easier to follow, such as simple scoring, and short matches. If perceiving a small ball moving and spinning very fast were the limiting factor to why people watched a sport, then zero people would watch golf. My whole point from the beginning is that this is not the main explanatory factor behind why sports are popular or not for spectators.

I think team sports are in general more popular than single player sports. So for direct comparison, TT and pickleball was not popular in the US, being easy to learn and followed as a beginner is a major factor that pickleball grows faster than TT.

 

[NextLevel]

You seem to be confused about the main thread of the conversation. Table tennis does have technical nuances and depth that make it hard to follow, such as spin and speed. But it has other things that make it simpler and easier to follow, such as simple scoring, and short matches. If perceiving a small ball moving and spinning very fast were the limiting factor to why people watched a sport, then zero people would watch golf. My whole point from the beginning is that this is not the main explanatory factor behind why sports are popular or not for spectators.

That's why I hate making these discussions about winning arguments. Is watching a ball spinning very fast the essence of golf, one of the slowest games in the world? Can you type that with a straight face? My main point is that there is enough time to follow the sport and enjoy the skill of what is going on without special insight. I have enough awareness and experience of TT to know that I experience it as at much slower speed than the casual onlooker. And that this slower speed is enhanced even further when my table tennis neurons so to speak are especially excited and activated. That's part of the reason why engaging in a sport leads to different experiences for those observing it. I think many experienced players are blind to this difference in perception.

 

[Der_Echte]

lol dude its not like i tell pickleballers this to their face, but you and and me both know that is 100% easier for a great ping pong player to go and become a great pickleball player than it is for a pickleball player to come and become a great ping pong player. even your friends who were 2000+ rated are probably great examples of this, and not really what I was talking about anyways. my comment was more for people who are would be potentially starting either sport. Its much easier to get good at pickleball than it is to become skilled at ping pong. The ball moves slower, and you have so much more time to react. those two factors alone make it a much easier sport to learn than table tennis.

My club is right next to a 10 court pickleball park. on rainy days, the pickleball players come and they are at the very last table 9 out of 10 times. When I go to play pickleball, i'm already in the upper half of the players, holding my own just fine at the mid level courts and still getting good action at the higher level courts.

I am never concerned whether anyone likes or dislikes my opinion there haha, willing and fun to tell to face, it is even better to do so, it is open.

I feel the same way as you, maybe even more so.

 

[Dr Evil]

Table tennis does have technical nuances and depth that make it hard to follow, such as spin and speed. But it has other things that make it simpler and easier to follow, such as simple scoring, and short matches. If perceiving a small ball moving and spinning very fast were the limiting factor to why people watched a sport, then zero people would watch golf.

Closer to 0% than 1% of American football fans understand what's really happening on the field on more than a rudimentary level. Phil Simms, a great NY Giants quarterback of the '80s, has said that offenses and defenses are now so much more complicated than when he played that he often can't follow what's going on. And yet... The spectacle of super fast big men trying to weave through small gaps in a ferocious crowd of gargantuan steroid freaks trying to crush them, or of a guy throwing a ball 40 yards through the air moments before being obliterated by two 300+ pound behemoths body slamming him while the ball spirals through the air somehow to the exact spot where it can be caught by an Olympic quality sprinter leaping ten feet in the air to barely catch the ball with his fingertips while another equally insane athlete is leaping with him and bashing and clawing at his hands and arms... somehow this is more compelling than watching an equally great athlete subtly adjusting his racket angle in an invisible fraction of a second to put a small fast moving spinning ball back over a little net on a table.

Golf also has great advantages over tt as a spectator sport. I'd say the most important is it's easy to follow because it's slow. One guy with an expensive club (that will be advertised to the wealthy viewing audience at the next commercial), one ball sitting on the ground in front of him waiting patiently to be hit, one target hole marked by a flagstick. What the guy is about to do with the expensive expensive club is just as technically demanding and subtle as hitting a tt ball, but it's much easier to appreciate because it's one shot with enough time for a full minute or more of explanation and commentary before and after the ball is hit. Also important is the effect of spin. Unlike table tennis, invisible incoming spin doesn't change how the ball comes off the golf club because the ball isn't moving at all until the player hits it. (In tennis, incoming spin also doesn't have much effect on contact dynamics because the interaction of the heavier ball with tennis strings mostly kills incoming spin.) So this invisible but crucial aspect of table tennis is absent from golf (and tennis), and doesn't interfere with fans being able to follow what's happening.

 

[RefereeNumber2]

That's why I hate making these discussions about winning arguments. Is watching a ball spinning very fast the essence of golf, one of the slowest games in the world? Can you type that with a straight face? My main point is that there is enough time to follow the sport and enjoy the skill of what is going on without special insight. I have enough awareness and experience of TT to know that I experience it as at much slower speed than the casual onlooker. And that this slower speed is enhanced even further when my table tennis neurons so to speak are especially excited and activated. That's part of the reason why engaging in a sport leads to different experiences for those observing it. I think many experienced players are blind to this difference in perception.

Sorry that I misunderstood your previous point about "speed" as referring to the speed of the ball making it hard to see rather than the speed/pace of play. At this point you can just keep narrowing it down to the all of the characteristics distinct to table tennis as reasons why it is hard to watch. But literally anything that makes a sport distinct could potentially be used to argue that it is difficult to watch. Weird scoring system -- hard to understand. Slow/lots of breaks -- boring and unengaging. Fast-paced -- too intense to follow.

Experienced players of every sport think that their sport of choice is especially challenging and subtle, and if you ask they can come up with myriad ways in which their sport is extremely difficult to master -- many of which a casual spectator wouldn't have even guessed existed. They could then easily conclude that a casual viewer simply couldn't appreciate or get any enjoyment out of watching their sport. Maybe I just don't have sufficient arrogance to believe table tennis is one that's actually too hard for a casual non-player to follow. Yes, it's fast, but many viewers could easily find that more exciting and thrilling -- just like it's easy to find people who think NFL, baseball, and golf are way too slow and boring to watch.

Many sports that are extremely popular have many weird characteristics that should in principle make them hard to watch/understand/follow, and yet they have legions of fans. Fans have the remarkable ability to learn about and become absorbed into a sport. Once they're hooked in, I seriously doubt "difficult to watch," is a significant barrier. Aren't there many Chinese (and more broadly, Asian) table tennis fans who barely or only just casually play the sport? Why isn't the speed of the game too hard for them to follow?

The real question is how initial entry to fandom happens in the first place. I strongly believe that for the large majority of sports fans, initial fandom has far more to do with cultural presence, storylines, stars, and drama, etc., than ease of watching or previous playing experience. Indeed, I'd argue that how easy you find it to understand/watch a sport, and whether you have seriously played that sport or not, is typically a downstream result caused by the social and cultural factors behind fandom rather than the other way around. We Western table tennis players are a small minority and are among the exceptions.

 

[joshmak10]

The majority of the western world has always perceived table tennis as a basement hobby (ping pong). They see it as just hitting a small plastic ball back and forth with a racket over a table with a net. Rarely do they ever care about speed or spin, they just care about rallying.

I don’t think the western world makes competitive table tennis accessible as compared to other sports, nor do they see any reason to get involved. Getting a good racket with decent enough speed and spin can cost hundreds of dollars, and then you still have to pay to get into table tennis clubs since outdoor table tennis tables won’t cut it. Buying your own table also costs hundreds of dollars of dollars. Coaching in the West is also expensive. You also rarely see professional table tennis products ever in major sports retailers like Sportchek, Dicks, etc.

Another big thing for me that makes it hard to get people into table tennis is its presence in public schools. You see in most PE classes, teachers tell students to play basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc. They also have competitive teams with inter school championships that feel rewarding. Whereas table tennis is rarely ever taught in public schools and there are more so table tennis clubs for fun rather than competitive teams.

I never got into table tennis until around 2020 during the pandemic as a 14 year old who was bored at home and randomly found the 2016 Men’s singles olympic final, to which i became hooked to the sport. And even then it wasn’t until 2023 that I started playing seriously and competitively since I wasn’t aware of pro equipment. At least for soccer, I get exposed to the pros cleats more often when I go to the mall and stuff like that. Bottom line, if table tennis wants more viewers especially to compete against the giants like soccer, basketball, tennis etc, it needs to have to a better, more accessible presence in the Western world