Table Tennis vs Ping Pong - Should Table Tennis take note from Ping Pong?

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For those who dont already know...ping pong is where the legends play...table tennis is for sissies. And all this mumbo jumbo is for nerds. FWIW
 
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China has the biggest Table Tennis population. I'm guessing 90% of that 300 million. No wonder they have the best technology, biggest clubs and Michael Jordan level of stardom players. While in the rest of the world, Table Tennis population is barely unnoticed.

Yes, you are absolutely right.
The most important problem of table tennis - his popularity as a recreational sport.
And what do we have here?

Poor competition organisation.
I love table tennis! In January I was in Budapest for Pro Tour. There was possible to see how wrong is everything in this amazing sport. I went there for last 16 players. First 4 singles they set at 4 tables in same time. Ok. I was not happy because is not possible to look to 4 matches in same time. But then it was easy because first 2 tables was about 10-15 metres from viewpoint but other 2 tables were 50-60 metres!!! I think its not possible look to table tennis from this distance. But OK, at tables closier played Joo Sae Hyuk and Vladi Samsonov and I was happy. BUT!!! After this, they set next 4 matches to 2 and 2. But what do you think which tables they choose? OFCOURSE!!! These which they were 50-60 metres from viewpoint!!! Why? Because they set cameras for these tables! Someone who prepared this tournament didn't think about spectators.

"Because they set cameras for these tables"
Next point - poor video translations.

ittv awful!
Bad light, bad camera angles, sound constantly behind the image or even goes from another table.
ittv1.jpg

Do you remember video translations during Olympic in Rio? The organizers demanded to remove the video from Youtube, use only their dumb site.


ITTF saying us: "table tennis is very quick and we need longer rallies". Why using these new shit balls? We are playing with them more than 2 years. Nothing is better, they are joke. If you buy ball with ***, you want to buy some quality. But no, they are pure shit. ITTF doing nothing about it :( Please give us back old balls. My club need more than 2x bigger money for buying balls for year! Please give us bigger nets and everything will be more interesting. These balls are so bad, there is no possibility for longer rallies because you never know how it will jump :( And I don't understand how is possible tolerate so big difference. If you play one day with Butterfly G40, try next day something like DHS. You will be very sad about your play :(

Agree again.
New plastic balls killing popularity of our sport.

Small clubs outside western Europe don't have enough money for this shit balls. I am often visiting a small children's sports club near my house and trainers using hot water or steam to repairing crumpled balls!!
Can you imagine how these balls are jumping!!!

And equipment stores for table tennis has a new way to advertise an expansive special new rubber for plastic balls!

By the way - about equipment.
They banned some defenders "glass" pipes and antispin rubbers etc. Who would use them? Top sportsmen? Ma Long? Other China attackers? No.
Seniors and ordinary sports fans.

What do they do?
 
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Not just ITTF's poor media presentation but they have some idea that chinese dominance is responsible for their own failure, to generate publicity. So instead of doing the best job they can to create bigger fan base they look to cripple better players, with shorter games, larger harder to kill balls, limited country slots.

So now the problem is they haven't made it more popular elsewhere but crippled table tennis in china. So many empty seats in small venues for a giant country's official sport. Think what they could achieve if they focus instead to make the game and presentation as good as possible.

It's so embarrassing that this small event of nobodies can eaisly outdo the international body for a popular olympic sport.
 
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Before I say lack of money...

Just how much money do players win at the big tournaments and opens?

I don't think very much, tens of thousands at best, and if the chinese players show up nobody else has a chance because they are just better. But that number depends on sponsorship, which depends on fan base.

What the ITTF needs to do instead of looking at the CNT as adversaries, work together to promote them as internationals superstars. Just look at how popular the NBA is around the world and those are all Americans.
 
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I don't think very much, tens of thousands at best, and if the chinese players show up nobody else has a chance because they are just better. But that number depends on sponsorship, which depends on fan base.

What the ITTF needs to do instead of looking at the CNT as adversaries, work together to promote them as internationals superstars. Just look at how popular the NBA is around the world and those are all Americans.

Unfortunately Chinese media is not as open to the world as American media is. If ITTF wants to be recognize globally they should start looking for partners in American media. But easier said than done.
 
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Prize pools used to be much bigger at the pro tour events. idk if table tennis will ever attract a lot of people that are not playing it themselves. It is probably one of the hardest sports to realize what's going on, why players seem to make these "easy" mistakes.

Getting more kids to start playing table tennis should be the main priority imo. Sadly part of this seems to be a parental problem, at least where I live. When I was younger we had an old man train all the kids, he was quite strict, which made a lot of players quit, but those who stayed became some of the best in our area.

Nowadays the kids seem to have no ambition in getting better, we have more kids than ever at our club, but they mostly want to hang out with their friends. Nowadays it is unthinkable that a trainer makes a kid cry, his parents would call and tell him that their kid is the best and can't be treated like that. I am pretty sure most of those kids will quit before they are 18...

Regarding the stream: I think it is good to have nearly all matches streamed. Obviously not with the best quality as most are single camera streams but only real table tennis junkies will watch them anyway. What needs to be done is more table tennis in tv. People in Germany used to know Timo Boll, Dimitrij Ovtcharov and maybe Christian Suess and Steger but as we have almost no coverage at all they seem to have forgotten.

However at least for Germany the national tv stations are to blame and not the ittf
 
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Unfortunately Chinese media is not as open to the world as American media is. If ITTF wants to be recognize globally they should start looking for partners in American media. But easier said than done.
They have the super league which is the highest level of the sport.

The problem is only a few of the best players in the world are allowed to play important events internationally, so the CNT is forced to be closed to guarantee their own success. Can you imagine if only 2-5 american tennis or track athletes are allowed? You need to be so much better than everyone else to guarantee a win at the end of several rounds of competition, since your winning chance must be >90% at each one on average.

This is completely problem of ITTF's creation, and as long as fans don't assign the blame nothing will ever be fixed.

To Garrison: table tennis is the "national sport" in china, but outside of a few tt schools nobody plays seriously. There are far more amateur players in germany even. So here you have the largest natural pool of fans in the world for prize money, and money for ITTF to market and expand, and they watch football or basketball instead because ITTF thinks of china as the adversary.
 
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Around a year ago I made an online petition to change the camera angles. I posted it on various forums, facebook groups etc. but I've had only approximately 10 signature on it. Maybe we could try again...

http://sporteology.com/top-10-popular-sports-world/

The fans of table tennis are scattered around the world. With millions of hobbyists, amateur players, and professional players table tennis has a strong fan base of more than 900 million fans around the world.

Where are those 900 millions?
 
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For those who dont already know...ping pong is where the legends play...table tennis is for sissies. And all this mumbo jumbo is for nerds. FWIW

Yeah lets all play with blue sandpaper and in an arena where u need sunglasses all the time:cool:. Hahaaaa!
 
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