Player salaries in clubs in EU

langel said:

Ok, but why then US TT players are so, lets say - low profile?
If a US coach takes 500 times more than a bulgarian coach with the same result, isn't it a useless throw of money? Or is it part of the general FED usd problem?

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I don't know much about Bulgarian TT, but in the US, coaching has a set standard price.

USD60 an hour is pretty much cheap if you are getting a good level player - ie former Chinese provincial player.
US does have former world top players, as well as world champ medalists and some top coaches are charging as much as USD80 an hour.

You must also understand in US, some places are half of that, as the demographics at those "lower priced" cities are different.
Now, what is your demographics condition of Bulgaria? in US, say San Fransisco - it is a "rich" city, and you have lots of rich kids who is happy to pay.
This is why there is 100+ full time TT clubs in US (last I heard was 70-80 10 years back, so I assume it is over 100 now), and lots of clubs can attract former pros from China.
If there is no money, these former pros won't go there....

ICC in SF, has like 10+ coaches from China or something crazy like that.
During a school holiday program, there is 200+ kids in that training centre....


In a way, sports is for the rich.
I know kids who hire private coaches at USD5000 a month (excluding flights/accommodation/expense)

in Taiwan where I know majority of the high level coach
for example, Wu Wen Jia can charge just short of USD100 there.
Taiwan's demographics is worse than US in terms of salary range, but then, his students are "rich"

In fact, one of my friends student got a Chinese practice partner (former prov player) for USD3000 a month for 3 months....

Back to the US
all these influx of high level players/coaches, are the reason why US has one of the top junior development program in the world
Lily/Ariel are all part of this group of cadets.

langel
i just realized when you say low profile, you are saying they are lowly ranked.

I guessed that is another problem where a first world US has at the moment - in that links to this thread - there is no future as a player in TT......
Your top juniors stop playing because of university and career.

Ariel, Erica Wu are former Olympians, Ariel is a top 100 material, but stopped playing....
Lily took a break from university to go to Rio, but now she is back, and missed training for few months due to "catching up" of her studies
Kanak and Amy who are all top in they age category (in the world) would be an interesting site if they will go education route or sporting route.

Kanak has the best chance to break inside top 30, since he is WR67 now and still have a lot of room to grow.
I think Kanak will go the sports route, since he is already based in Europe now - so I guess he is the first US born player to sacrifice so much

In the US there is simply not enough money in the sport to survive outside of coaching. If you are female, you have no other option but to coach. Occasionally there is a women's open event somewhere in the US and 95% of the time or so the prize money for first place does not cover the total expenses of the trip. If you are male, you had better be able to guarantee that you are going to win every single tournament you enter or be prepared to live a very spartan lifestyle. Even if you do win everything, coaching almost pays more. If you always come in second, coaching definitely pays more.

A 2700+ player I know wrote to a major equipment company for sponsorship. He just wanted to see what was available from the company if he endorsed their products. He also coached lots of students and could steer his students to at least try their products as that was what he used in tournaments. He was told that unless he was currently ranked in the top 100 of the world, he would get nothing. No 5% discount on goods, no free t-shirts, not even a 3 pack of training balls. I have competed in a few other sports at a reasonable level and in both those sports you did not need to be top 100 in the world to get a discount on items or given some free equipment from time to time.

There is an old saying "How do you make a small fortune in car racing? Start off with a large fortune." The same could be said of playing table tennis. Coaching, at least for the time being, is the only way to make a living.

I think Tony explained it well (he is more authorized than me in this area for sure). Tony mentioned about ICC SF (Indian community center) and I play in ICC Milpitas. I think ICC probably is the only organization that invites ex top players from China and pays them 100K+ just to be coaches for junior programs that ICC is offering. Most of these top players go on their own and do private coaching after finishing their contracts.
Question on why US players are so low profile (meant bad players) I think Tony also explained well. Khoa Nguyen while he was #1 US player got to work as an engineer so couldn't do full time professional tt. Kanak probably is born rich (I am guessing here) so their parents care more about Olympic fame than a doctor/dentist/lawyer/engineer profession. But no doubt in the last 10 years US tt is getting better as the juniors are participating more and more.

tropical said:

In my club a 2700 player charges $65-$75/hr. He normally has a table at home so doesn't pay club fee. He can have 2 or 3 students at the same time and only needs to personally coach players 30min per session. Assuming he does it every day, 6 hrs a day (8 hrs may be too physically tired), with 1 students per hour, that is roughly 6 students a dayX$70 = $420/day; =420X5 days/week/52weeks/year = ~110K/year. And remember this money is cash thus has no tax imposed on it which is equivalent to ~$150K/year. I'd say that is a very decent salary, right?

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How is it that you could earn 110k / year and not have to pay taxes?
That sounds totally crazy and I'm very jealous of this ...

tropical said:

I think Tony explained it well (he is more authorized than me in this area for sure). Tony mentioned about ICC SF (Indian community center) and I play in ICC Milpitas. I think ICC probably is the only organization that invites ex top players from China and pays them 100K+ just to be coaches for junior programs that ICC is offering. Most of these top players go on their own and do private coaching after finishing their contracts.
Question on why US players are so low profile (meant bad players) I think Tony also explained well. Khoa Nguyen while he was #1 US player got to work as an engineer so couldn't do full time professional tt. Kanak probably is born rich (I am guessing here) so their parents care more about Olympic fame than a doctor/dentist/lawyer/engineer profession. But no doubt in the last 10 years US tt is getting better as the juniors are participating more and more.

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Meant to say ITTF Milpltas - one of the most high resourced (in terms of coaching staff) clubs in the world that I have came acrossed - more than WSA when it was still opened.

I chatted with Larry Hodges few years back when he had an article about coaches can make 100k a year.
but he did say working 52 weeks is impossible
never the less, I redo the maths, 80k was a "fair" number to get and many years ago (maybe 10+), I recall Larry reckoning there was more than 10 coaches getting more than that. Now there are so much more clubs, and juniors and coaches. There is a lot of money coming from parents nowadays

Off topic but as coaching costs for juniors are being debated: Why not send your kid to a country where you can top class coaching for literally no money? I'm thinking Sweden, Hungary, Germany etc. Countries with a proper club system (i.e. club as in non-profit).

MDP said:

How is it that you could earn 110k / year and not have to pay taxes?
That sounds totally crazy and I'm very jealous of this ...

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That is until you are audited by IRS. You are supposed to report this income and pay taxes on it. Not everyone does, obviously.

mart1nandersson said:

Off topic but as coaching costs for juniors are being debated: Why not send your kid to a country where you can top class coaching for literally no money? I'm thinking Sweden, Hungary, Germany etc. Countries with a proper club system (i.e. club as in non-profit).

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Yes there are parents (Kanak's as an example) are doing that. But cost can be higher by sending the kids overseas, I believe.

pgpg said:

That is until you are audited by IRS. You are supposed to report this income and pay taxes on it. Not everyone does, obviously.

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Many good singers from certain communities (Vietnamese as an example) are taking cash only for their performance. I know because my cousin is in show biz! They are rich ... richer than most senior engineers in Silicon Valley

tropical said:

Yes there are parents (Kanak's as an example) are doing that. But cost can be higher by sending the kids overseas, I believe.

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That is correct
a lot of time, a parent will need to join.

I guess most of my contacts are in Asia, and for them to just "go to China" for 3 months is much easier
And it isn't cheaper - it is more expensive, but the time and money will be more well spent.

Chuan Chih Yuan for example only excelled because of training in China.
Her mom had to sell a property every year (rich) to fund his expenses
Cheng I-Ching also only became world top 20 due to her training abroad and Taiwan by no means is a bad place to grow in TT - it can get you to world top 50, but not world top 10

mart1nandersson said:

Off topic but as coaching costs for juniors are being debated: Why not send your kid to a country where you can top class coaching for literally no money? I'm thinking Sweden, Hungary, Germany etc. Countries with a proper club system (i.e. club as in non-profit).

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I once did a comparison
living/eating in Germany / Europe is more expensive than China
China has language barrier with most coaches
China has better training environment
Europe has better competition environment
Either way it will cost money and if the parents aren't rich, I would rather say kid to study as first priority, table tennis as "hobbie"
The kids are sacraficing too much to train full time if there is no structure to feed him.

Ok, here the situation with coacing and training is different.
Our coaches are not able to do personal coaching more than 40 weeks, or less. There are empty weeks around holidays like Christmas, Easter and some weeks are spent for tournaments around the country and abroad aswell. They do coaching 3-4 days per week, once weekly we have a club tournament and sometimes once weekly /sometimes montly/ we have an open tournament. Our coaches do not take more than 3 personal coaching sessions daily. A 1 hour 1:1 coaching never takes less than a hour and a half, as after the active play an analysis has to be done, and there is always some empty time between sessions. So our coaches do not make more than 400, 500 1:1 coaching hours max. In USA they would earn between 35000 - 50000 usd, here in Bulgaria - 6000 usd.

langel said:

Ok, here the situation with coacing and training is different.
Our coaches are not able to do personal coaching more than 40 weeks, or less. There are empty weeks around holidays like Christmas, Easter and some weeks are spent for tournaments around the country and abroad aswell. They do coaching 3-4 days per week, once weekly we have a club tournament and sometimes once weekly /sometimes montly/ we have an open tournament. Our coaches do not take more than 3 personal coaching sessions daily. A 1 hour 1:1 coaching never takes less than a hour and a half, as after the active play an analysis has to be done, and there is always some empty time between sessions. So our coaches do not make more than 400, 500 1:1 coaching hours max. In USA they would earn between 35000 - 50000 usd, here in Bulgaria - 6000 usd.

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I feel you and fully understand.
in South Africa, the table tennis community is within the below average income group
lucky if any coach makes 30USD an hour, more like 15USD an hour (whereby Tennis/golf is above income group and can charge double to triple easily)

There is not that many students who can pay (99% of coaches coach for free, student get coaching for free too), and there is no full time centre, so coaches are lucky to coach at more than one club/location (ie 2 clubs a week at 2 days each- 1 to 2 hour per day), that isn't not a lot of "working" hours a week x 20usd less expense, there is no money here

I think Langel, your solution - get the coach to immigrate to America.
There is money and huge growth.

I have coached 20 hours week before (part time), it is very very tiring.
If I can work full time (earn a living from Coaching) in South Africa, I will, and i'm sure by now I would have help made an olympian.

Yeah, we have many many coaches working abroad, but in other sports, where we have stronger positions - weightlifting, wrestling, football, voleyball, tennis, but not TT. I know we have some tennis coaches in US universities recruiting good players from abroad and I mentioned in other threads here that if the US universities start to recruit TT prospects, this sport would grow and develope very fast in USA. Finding good players only amongst the richer, who can afford it, is much more difficult and not efective. Thats my point - few people able to spend a lot of money may not provide the expected results, but the same money invested in a broader program may help much more. And in that sense I think the Chinese way gives such good results.

langel said:

Yeah, we have many many coaches working abroad, but in other sports, where we have stronger positions - weightlifting, wrestling, football, voleyball, tennis, but not TT. I know we have some tennis coaches in US universities recruiting good players from abroad and I mentioned in other threads here that if the US universities start to recruit TT prospects, this sport would grow and develope very fast in USA. Finding good players only amongst the richer, who can afford it, is much more difficult and not efective. Thats my point - few people able to spend a lot of money may not provide the expected results, but the same money invested in a broader program may help much more. And in that sense I think the Chinese way gives such good results.

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I've been there, done that....I've visited many countries and seen first hand experience on what it takes to succeed.
I've sat with World top 10, and kids who want to become world top 10 and has the financial means and skills/technique/age to get there.
it all comes down to funding.

Now you can't earn money as a player - some one talked about winning tournaments in USA
I was laughing as even if you go and play all the ITTF world tours and win every single tournament - you can't break even (yes you can break even getting there and fund that trips expense), that money is not enough to last a year of "table tennis training/travel"
Say it will cost $5000 ~ $10000 a month, that is easily $100k+ a year of funding, and you need 10-15 years from cadet level? that is over $1m to burn away....

Who will pay that money? your parents? your government?
let me add - your university?

Tony's Table Tennis said:

Who will pay that money? your parents? your government?
let me add - your university?

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Maybe the best system is to combine the resources - parents, the asociation, government projects, local authority funding and projects, club activity and even /in some countries/ the universities. I don't say that this would guarantee Olympic champions, but will build a much wider ground to crop from. It happens with other sports, so why not with TT. Of course it depends on public attitude too.

Truls Möregårdh has decided to go pro 100% at the age of 16. He's opted out from attending one of the national TT high schools (which spans from the age of 16 to 19) where they get to train quite a bit during the day.

Source: https://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/a/21xW2R/truls-moregardh--sveriges-nya-pingislofte

It would be interesting to know if he'll be living off his parents, being paid by his club or by sponsors such as Stiga. A combination of all three?

langel said:

Maybe the best system is to combine the resources - parents, the asociation, government projects, local authority funding and projects, club activity and even /in some countries/ the universities. I don't say that this would guarantee Olympic champions, but will build a much wider ground to crop from. It happens with other sports, so why not with TT. Of course it depends on public attitude too.

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That would be the perfect world.

of what is happening now, only a selected few has so much funding.

so the next question is, why should they be so much funding in table tennis?
why pick TT over other sports?
Investors will ask this question, and compare the return of investment

I guess TT is just not a friendly TV sport
look at this youth olympic games
the camera is covering a bench full of computer screens, printers and workers - that shoudl of be hidden behind the scene - not on your match court side.
You don't see tennis having a front row audience of "admin workers" do you....