Table Tennis Popularity Trends in your country?

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A common sentiment expressed in table tennis forums is that Table Tennis is dying. Personally i do not think that TT, or any sport which has achieved the popularity that TT has can die, however i do agree with the general consensus that table tennis is declining, at least in the competitive format that we play. However i find that a break ground for each country would be much more comprehensive and interesting:

USA: Competitive side has been relatively stable, though most competitive junior players are children of immigrants from Southeast Asia and India(This is probably biased because i live in a Suburb), the causal side has seen great growth around 2008-2010, but has been in decline since then(https://www.statista.com/statistics/191959/participants-in-table-tennis-in-the-us-since-2006/).

Germany: Player Population is aging rapidly, and clubs are not getting enough juniors, and membership in the German table tennis association is at a all time low, i have no information about the casual side, though i suspect because of the large number of public tables in remains a popular past time.

China: Popularity is decreasing because Xi prefers other sports(soccer), China's dominance,(though it might resurface trough the immense popularity of Zhang Jike who has said he will try to promote table tennis, and other countries growing closer to China)

Bulgaria: On the competitive side is growing a healthy amount partly due to clubs being very active in recruitment, especially strong on the junior side however lack strong adult players.

Pakistan: Stagnation/decline, due to in part of structural issues, such as power struggles limiting the competitive side, and tournaments. Also cricket dominates everything(like soccer in Germany), however there seems to be a large interest and talented players.

New Zealand: Most players are immigrants/children of immigrants, and the high cost barrier discourages people to play.
Pls add to the info and post about your countries, and i will edit this post to accommodate the info.

Ukraine: Interest exist for the sport, however structural issues limit the potential.

Sweden: Stagnating, however table tennis infrastructure is sufficient to support compeititve table tennis. However professionals are lacking, especially when compared to 1950-2000s.
 
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Upon my observation TT popularity in Bugaria is growing. In my club we have more than 30 children training hard, perticipating in many competitions and taking medals. In my town we have at least two other clubs with similar activity. My club organizes a lot of outdoor events for populizing the sport. Recently we bought two Cornileau outdoor tables which will be placed on public places in the city park. We don't have WR top 100 seniors, but from time to time we have juniors in WR top 100. For a country with 7.5 million population we are doing well, I think.
 
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Upon my observation TT popularity in Bugaria is growing. In my club we have more than 30 children training hard, perticipating in many competitions and taking medals. In my town we have at least two other clubs with similar activity. My club organizes a lot of outdoor events for populizing the sport. Recently we bought two Cornileau outdoor tables which will be placed on public places in the city park. We don't have WR top 100 seniors, but from time to time we have juniors in WR top 100. For a country with 7.5 million population we are doing well, I think.
That's encouraging to hear!!! How big is the population in your town? How does your club attract so many juniors?

Passionate about TT
 
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Sadly in my country (Pakistan) it is not growing, or at least not showing healthy growth. There was a time we won medals at the Asian games level and the Commonwealth games level but for the past many years, this has not happened. We are also now plagued by mismanagement and a crisis at the administrative level with parallel bodies fighting for control of the sport here. This resulted in our team being unable to go to the CW games. One body selected the team, and the other blocked it from traveling.

There is a lot of interest in the game and we have some very talented players but the lack of support at the association or federation level is killing the game. There is always a funding problem when it comes to sending a team to an international event. We are a cricket country (God I hate that over-rated game so much) and pretty much all other sports are like step children.

I am lucky to be a member of two private clubs that have table tennis facilities otherwise I would have to drive almost three hours (round trip) for a game. With work and family commitments that would mean no game, for me. In fact this is why I quit the game for almost ten years. I had nowhere convenient to play.
 
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Sadly in my country (Pakistan) it is not growing, or at least not showing healthy growth. There was a time we won medals at the Asian games level and the Commonwealth games level but for the past many years, this has not happened. We are also now plagued by mismanagement and a crisis at the administrative level with parallel bodies fighting for control of the sport here. This resulted in our team being unable to go to the CW games. One body selected the team, and the other blocked it from traveling.

There is a lot of interest in the game and we have some very talented players but the lack of support at the association or federation level is killing the game. There is always a funding problem when it comes to sending a team to an international event. We are a cricket country (God I hate that over-rated game so much) and pretty much all other sports are like step children.

I am lucky to be a member of two private clubs that have table tennis facilities otherwise I would have to drive almost three hours (round trip) for a game. With work and family commitments that would mean no game, for me. In fact this is why I quit the game for almost ten years. I had nowhere convenient to play.
I have family commitments too that's why I can't play competitively. It has become just a casual sport for me, sadly.

In New Zealand where I live, TT is mainly played by Asian immigrants at the professional level. There are some homegrown talented players fortunately. Only school with kids from wealthier families would participate in inter-school competition. Poor kids would usually play rugby, or no sport. Sadly club fee+equipment+coaching becomes quite expensive for many.



Passionate about TT
 
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There is a lot of interest in the game and we have some very talented players but the lack of support at the association or federation level is killing the game. There is always a funding problem when it comes to sending a team to an international event.
Same issues for Ukraine. :(
No sport would grow w/o financial investments...
 
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speaking for romania, the sport is growing healthily, more from the amateur level and to a lesser extent the professional level. we held around 100 tournaments celebrating WTTD, even an official person from ittf came to visit. here is an ittf article: https://www.ittf.com/2017/04/13/world-table-tennis-day-incredible-numbers-romania/

on the amateur level, each week there are 3-4 tournaments, sometimes more. we have our own amateur ranking system, with about 5000 subscribed members. we even have local specialised tt-shops, importing almost everything with the exception of DHS stuff. we can buy butterfly, donic, xiom, nittaku, joola, tibhar and many other brands locally

the pro scene however is stagnating for the seniors(18+), because you just can't make a living with tt. the juniors, cadets and mini-cadets however have some pretty talented folk, and the girls' team have won european championship last year
 
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@langel Thanks for the info, it is good to hear that table tennis is actually growing somewhere. Just curious, how did you guys buy two tables, that should cost quite a a lot, trough group fundraising?
 
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speaking for romania, the sport is growing healthily, more from the amateur level and to a lesser extent the professional level. we held around 100 tournaments celebrating WTTD, even an official person from ittf came to visit. here is an ittf article: https://www.ittf.com/2017/04/13/world-table-tennis-day-incredible-numbers-romania/

on the amateur level, each week there are 3-4 tournaments, sometimes more. we have our own amateur ranking system, with about 5000 subscribed members. we even have local specialised tt-shops, importing almost everything with the exception of DHS stuff. we can buy butterfly, donic, xiom, nittaku, joola, tibhar and many other brands locally

the pro scene however is stagnating for the seniors(18+), because you just can't make a living with tt. the juniors, cadets and mini-cadets however have some pretty talented folk, and the girls' team have won european championship last year

Respect for making 112 tournaments, do you know of any specific consequences of these tournaments, such as more people starting etc?
 
@langel Thanks for the info, it is good to hear that table tennis is actually growing somewhere. Just curious, how did you guys buy two tables, that should cost quite a a lot, trough group fundraising?

No fundraisings. Only club income. We have 11 tables in the club working on heavy duty. Veteran tournaments once weakly and an open tournement once per weak or two, always with about 30-40 perticipents. 3 coaches for 1-1 training and some more when needed on demand. Twice per year outdoor activities for a weak or two for populizing the sport, financed with the help of the town authorirties. Our town has a population of around 400 000 not big, not small. Some two cents come from the federation too.
 
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Tend to agree with OP about Germany. Was travelling through Munich in April and was invited to a local sports hall. Apart from foosball tables there was a couple for TT and they were constantly occupated by kids. It made me really happy.
Unfortunately can't say the same about the USA. Apart from a close circle of my friends don't see many people getting interested
 
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I tried to pull some stats from the Swedish table tennis association's website but it wasn't very informative. I found another source stating that we have 37k people that are members of table tennis clubs (not sure if they're licensed players or not - most likely not).

In general it's pretty much the same as when I was a kid. Most youth clubs (connected to the schools) will have 1-2 tables that are used quite a lot but very few kids actually join TT clubs.

The TT clubs are fewer compared to the 80ies when we had our big boom but some are still fairly vibrant. It's fairly easy to find a club if you live in one of the TT "hotspots" in Sweden.... Stockholm, the south, the west coast and a few random cities up north.

Quite a few clubs have hobbyist type training groups for adults. A club in this context is a non-profit organization.

The elite scene is not very impressive compared to 1950-2000 but at least we have Truls ;)
 
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To be the devil's advocate: does it matter? Do you only play table tennis because it is popular?

It's the 21st century, we don't need huge broadcast TV contracts to be able to watch tt, or to support physical specialist tt shops in every town. You can put good videos of matches on Youtube with your phone, and you can order equipment from the other side of the world with a few clicks.

I have some friends, who participated in a sport that they estimated could have less than 100 enthusiasts in the whole state. They drove 6 hours to get to the one competition that happened a year (and even that one competition has been running for less than five years, organised over Facebook). If anything, they loved it more, and made close friendships.
 
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To be the devil's advocate: does it matter? Do you only play table tennis because it is popular?

It's the 21st century, we don't need huge broadcast TV contracts to be able to watch tt, or to support physical specialist tt shops in every town. You can put good videos of matches on Youtube with your phone, and you can order equipment from the other side of the world with a few clicks.

I have some friends, who participated in a sport that they estimated could have less than 100 enthusiasts in the whole state. They drove 6 hours to get to the one competition that happened a year (and even that one competition has been running for less than five years, organised over Facebook). If anything, they loved it more, and made close friendships.

I agree with your general point and suspect most of the folks who live in a relative 'TT hot spots' in their country, including US, are pretty happy 'as is'. However, if TT was more popular, I can name at least a couple things that would make it even better for me:

* More places and people to play, presumably with better playing conditions.

* Easier access to coaching and perhaps cheaper lessons (?)

* More leagues/tournaments closer to where I live. I'm reasonably happy with the fact that a very decent monthly tournament is 'only' 3.5 hour drive away, but having something similar locally would not hurt.

* I would not mind for Boston to have a Bundesliga-equivalent pro TT team, which is much more likely if TT was popular. Would buy a T-shirt and go to the games :).
 
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To be the devil's advocate: does it matter? Do you only play table tennis because it is popular?

It's the 21st century, we don't need huge broadcast TV contracts to be able to watch tt, or to support physical specialist tt shops in every town. You can put good videos of matches on Youtube with your phone, and you can order equipment from the other side of the world with a few clicks.

I have some friends, who participated in a sport that they estimated could have less than 100 enthusiasts in the whole state. They drove 6 hours to get to the one competition that happened a year (and even that one competition has been running for less than five years, organised over Facebook). If anything, they loved it more, and made close friendships.

I agree with most of of what you said and this is probably the best way to look at it, however i think it is generally accepted that a) A popularity can signify to a certain extent the state of the game B) Greater popularity= greater benefits, for example instead of driving 6 hours one has to drive only 2 hours, and popularity can augment that feeling of love fore the game and the social interactions which come with that. I was once part of a club with 350 members, and every weekend 16 or so teams played home and away matches, and those matches were extremely fun and rewarding(and frustrating if you played against old pip players).
Personally i like to soak up knowledge, and a more worldly view of things, even though it is in a practical sense useless to me, and i suspect that a lot of people would also find it interesting, and to me relationships between trends and their result are also fascinating, especially in things i am passionate about
 
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I agree with your general point and suspect most of the folks who live in a relative 'TT hot spots' in their country, including US, are pretty happy 'as is'. However, if TT was more popular, I can name at least a couple things that would make it even better for me:

* More places and people to play, presumably with better playing conditions.

* Easier access to coaching and perhaps cheaper lessons (?)

* More leagues/tournaments closer to where I live. I'm reasonably happy with the fact that a very decent monthly tournament is 'only' 3.5 hour drive away, but having something similar locally would not hurt.

* I would not mind for Boston to have a Bundesliga-equivalent pro TT team, which is much more likely if TT was popular. Would buy a T-shirt and go to the games :).

I have to agree with these points.
 
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In Japan there's been 20% increase in registered players and now have 330k in 2018.
Most important tournaments are aired on TV and the faces of top players are recognized by many.

However only 20% of the registered players are adults meaning most of them quit after high school.
There's a strong development and high performance system in place so it'll continue to progress there but lack of TT clubs for adults have been a problem for as long as I know.
 
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To be the devil's advocate: does it matter? Do you only play table tennis because it is popular?

It's the 21st century, we don't need huge broadcast TV contracts to be able to watch tt, or to support physical specialist tt shops in every town. You can put good videos of matches on Youtube with your phone, and you can order equipment from the other side of the world with a few clicks.

I have some friends, who participated in a sport that they estimated could have less than 100 enthusiasts in the whole state. They drove 6 hours to get to the one competition that happened a year (and even that one competition has been running for less than five years, organised over Facebook). If anything, they loved it more, and made close friendships.

The question is about popularity of TT in your country.

But I agree with you. I played table tennis back in China where it was hugely popular. Club opens until 11pm every day. Training runs everyday at low cost. Table tennis academy runs every summer.

I still play table tennis in New Zealand where a club only opens one night per week. I play table tennis because I truly love it. I know people have switched from table tennis to more popular sports such as badminton and basket ball. But hey, who cares. Like you said there are people that pursue even rarer sports. If we love table tennis, we will keep on playing.

To be honest, thanks to the fact that table tennis is not that popular, I made friends more easily. If people make so much effort to come to the club, they truly LOVE table tennis. I made good friends. Friends that can go on and on about table tennis.

In short, keep on playing table tennis because you love it. You will find people just as passionate as you.
 
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In Japan there's been 20% increase in registered players and now have 330k in 2018.
Most important tournaments are aired on TV and the faces of top players are recognized by many.

However only 20% of the registered players are adults meaning most of them quit after high school.
There's a strong development and high performance system in place so it'll continue to progress there but lack of TT clubs for adults have been a problem for as long as I know.

Nice to hear that at least in some major TT nations the popularity is going up. (as I understood in Germany, Sweden it's stagnant or decreasing slowly).

How about your neighbors? For example South Korea, others...?
 
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