Can the USA grow the sport

You guys can bitch and moan all you want but doing what you have always done will get you what you have always got.

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That is exactly true of our natl assn and out club system.

Haha quadruple haha when I say I am a Table Tennis Athlete is pandemonium and utter WFT dude.

The sport is growing very fast in the USA. It's growing because businesses decided it was cool to have tables at work, and because people are opening for-profit clubs. It isn't growing in schools, or through municipal government, community-based non-profit clubs, or the national association. As noted above, this is America, that just isn't how stuff works here. The reason there's one of these threads every month moaning about the state of US TT is it's growing from the bottom up, with tens of thousands of bad players playing ping pong. And we all want lots of 1800+ table tennis players. But out of every million bad ping pong players, a few hundred, or maybe a thousand or two will get wound up in it enough to become tournament TT players. That is how TT will grow and improve as a sport in the US.

Back in 2010 a few guys started a bad, one-night a week club in my podunk town. They got a bad, humid space in a community center with tile floors, low ceilings and not much room. They bought some cheap bad tables, and about 15 - 20 people started to play. That's where I started playing in 2012. And in 2018, some of the players had turned over, and the club had moved three times, but it was still the same crap club in a different bad space. Then in September a friend who also started in 2012 rented an empty storefront in the local mall and made it a six-days-a-week fulltime club. It's his first month of operation and he is already making a profit. A lot of it is from mall walkers coming in to play ping pong instead of browsing the stores. And many forummers would say that's not TT. And it's that attitude that is keeping table tennis from growing even faster in the US. Pingpong players are just TT players who aren't that good. Like most tennis players, and golfers, and I'm sure bowlers and rock climbers aren't very good either. It takes a boatload of bad players to get one good player, because most people aren't that into it. But the more bad players you have, the more good ones you will eventually get. It won't be USATT, or schools, or community clubs making that happen. It will be full-time, for-profit club businesses, because they have the only motivation that gets things done in the land of the free and heavily indebted, money.

I agree that TT must be beyond competitive TT
whats the point of moaning about how a tournament is run if so little % of your fans will actually take part
I play basketball on the side, I will play social 3on3, I will never take part in a tournament.
I buy basketball clothing and add to viewership count - I have never been any member of any association - i'm just a fan.

Table tennis is difficult as you need space, table, equipment, ball
and the above space and money for table tennis has to compete with other sports, games, activities in your schools, community centres.

no for profit options is also not sustainable.
If there is income, there is expense, and one can hire staff/coaches and progress to bigger club, more coaches and extras
no budget will continue remaining "bad"

table tennis is also too technical and some times not fun for "fans" to play or watch - how to fix this, I don't know

I think the powers to be, must fix it from fan based view point and super casual tt player view point.
too much emphasize has been on your regular forum members/advance fans etc.
we are the minority, and if just 1% of the 99% social fans comes on board in the USA, USA can double/triple the base bigger.

They must be something for the social TT part,
making them competitive TT players should not be the way to go

A little bit concerning social psychology - in the modern world full of electronics life is more and more concentrated between the walls. So those, who still want to practice some sports, prefer the open-air, and this is highly encouraged by parents. Well, lot of sports can be practiced in halls and in open-air as well, but TT is not amogst them. Our club organised a lot of open-air TT events during the summer, just to popularise the sport, and it gave good results, but the fact is that most of the youngsters prefer to play outdoors.

Loopadoop said:

The infrastructure of most very popular sports has been provided by municipalities, ie playing facilities.

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I think this is an important point. At least in Belgium I know a lot of clubs are partly sponsored by the government. There are many industrial sponsors as well that due it because of government regulations about minimum sports facilities for a large company. So government actually plays a large role.


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perham said:

I think this is an important point. At least in Belgium I know a lot of clubs are partly sponsored by the government. There are many industrial sponsors as well that due it because of government regulations about minimum sports facilities for a large company. So government actually plays a large role.

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Yes, it al starts with the basic notion that in fact there is such a thing as society.

yoass said:

Yes, it al starts with the basic notion that in fact there is such a thing as society.

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I think there's a fundamental difference between US society and European societies. There's way more resistance there towards European style socialism on a political level. And often enterprises such as clubs are not profitable enough to be fully private entities, specially considering the level of popularity of the sport and the density of players in a particular region. I'm of course assuming a lot here, and maybe someone can correct me on this, but I think this is a vicious cycle where no clubs means not a lot of interest, and no interest means no economical justification for a club. If this is going to change, it should be done by an entity that can handle economically negative results for a long period of time, and in most places in the world only government can play this role.

perham said:

I think this is an important point. At least in Belgium I know a lot of clubs are partly sponsored by the government. There are many industrial sponsors as well that due it because of government regulations about minimum sports facilities for a large company. So government actually plays a large role.


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I don't think US Government does not play a large role in sports
table tennis is just not on the list
some times we must ask why must they choose table tennis, where they can choose other sports, games, activities, or even humanitarian, education, welfare etc etc
there is only so much money going around - what makes table tennis so special?

Nothing really. That's the thing. If there is enough interest and there is a big investor willing to invest, it generates even more interest. I know in case of chess Saint Louis Chess Club did something like this, and they at least tripled the interest in chess by organizing large tournaments and following up with programs such as chess in school, etc. So, to your point, the choice of sport is quite arbitrary, but interest can be generated wherever there's money, and that in turn attracts more money.

Tony's Table Tennis said:

I don't think US Government does not play a large role in sports
table tennis is just not on the list
some times we must ask why must they choose table tennis, where they can choose other sports, games, activities, or even humanitarian, education, welfare etc etc
there is only so much money going around - what makes table tennis so special?

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Tony's Table Tennis said:

I don't think US Government does not play a large role in sports
table tennis is just not on the list
some times we must ask why must they choose table tennis, where they can choose other sports, games, activities, or even humanitarian, education, welfare etc etc
there is only so much money going around - what makes table tennis so special?

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I would say that the budget fight should not be between the different sports, but between the budget for social affairs and the budget for weapons.

I will say this to anyone. If anyone wishes to have a low to nonexistent allocation of funds for military... that nation can well better have an association of powerful nations who got their back... or better have hypnotic or financial control over them... or the likelihood of a stronger nation who doesn't give a damn invading your country is high... then any of your personal and national assets, along with your language and culture are out the window.

I am certainly on anyone's side about a good arguement about the total amount and composition of the funding. My nation could certainly accomplish the mission of defending the nation for a lot less... a lot of funding is inefficient. Sure, we keep an advantage of military superiority by keeping ahead of the technology... and that doesn't come cheap. At the end of the day, the same 10 companies get nearly all the funding for procurement.

My nation has it's own problems that have arguements for funding that are much stronger than those for sport or TT... but whoever said the ones who make our laws and execute them are wise or efficient?

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School districts in USA are notorious bloated top heavy with many leaching costs tied to facilities and maintenance far in excess of what is needed for the mission.

Where the rubber meets the road... the teachers... are way underpaid, way overworked, and have diminishing support. Yet, nearly every school district allocates huge money to district staff, excess facility, and high profile sports, like American Football.

We can make reasonable person arguements about the right and wrong of it.

School is where it needs to happen... and the budget needed is pretty small, especially if the school administration would accept the free help that many seniors offer...

Our national association could help out there by certifying them as vetted safe leaders with documentation and follow up communication. This is already being done with the Safesport effort, an extra pdf and email from executive usatt will not kill a budget.

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robertsherry said:

Numerous years back in the Dallas Metro the biggest club would run one of their competitions a year as a 72 player 2 level RR, ensured 10 matches of singles and 10 matches of copies more than 2 days. It topped off quick with a holding up rundown. That competition profited for their club than their other two joined.

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I'm not being critical, but what does the highlighted text mean?

The other place it is happening is where people take a risk and open a club. Foreigners who are likely to love tt are the driving force. Without a constant or increasing influx of foreigners to USA cities, we would have 80 percent less of the clubs we have.

In the last 15 years, the number and quality of full time clubs has really exploded... from single digit to dozens.

Some other places have figured out how to include tt and booze to make a business model... without it being beer pong.

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Tinykin said:

I'm not being critical, but what does the highlighted text mean?

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I think you are conversing with a bot . Original post was by 'Loopadoop' user on page 1 and looked like this:

Loopadoop said:

Many years ago in the Dallas Metro the largest club would run one of their tourneys a year as a 72 player 2 tier RR, guaranteed 10 matches of singles and 10 matches of doubles over 2 days. It filled up fast with a waiting list. That tournament made more money for their club than their other two combined.

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I think it (perhaps with a Thesaurus substitution algorithm) got transformed into:

Numerous years back in the Dallas Metro the biggest club would run one of their competitions a year as a 72 player 2 level RR, ensured 10 matches of singles and 10 matches of copies more than 2 days. It topped off quick with a holding up rundown. That competition profited for their club than their other two joined.

I leave it as an exercise to figure out which words got substituted by what to generate confusing statement that caught your eye .

Almost every sport in the US is asking the same question. So many different sports to choose from, more than when I was a kid.