Rule Approved! New colour rubbers as of 2020!

Tony's Table Tennis said:

And I'm sure you can agree - every rule change related to equipment has seen equipment pricing raised

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I have yet to see prices go down after an equipment rule change - can't argue with that!

I find it really hard to predict how this proposal will play out. I do wonder if it will only take off with intro-level equipment. And perhaps I'm just hoping that you're wrong about the vendors losing their minds and flooding the market with a bucketful of colour variants.

Think of it this way, manufacturers will create more rubbers with different colors making them use. More resources and increase the price. With the factory prices increased, distributors will have to pass it on to consumers as what Tony is saying.

Yeah, maybe i see it all too positive, but that´s me, and as Mr. Weikert said in the podcast: Nothing is carved in stone here. It will be for a testing period to see how the players and customers or actually the market in general will react on this. If the market says there is no demand then so shall it be, but why limit oneself from the beginning on.
And the argument with rule change/price increase might have a point, but then again we´ve also seen price increasement without any notable rule change too.
So just let the market and the players decide and see what the outcome is without condemning it before it even happened.

AndySmith said:

I'm just hoping that you're wrong about the vendors losing their minds and flooding the market with a bucketful of colour variants.

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I hope I am very very wrong.
I hope I was wrong about the poly ball (I was the first in Africa to have prototype samples, and the first ball broken within the first few mins of testing), the poly ball nightmare eventually was worse than what I forecast for.

some manufacturers are silence about this matter; I think a few companies (flashy colourful ones) will start.
I hope it doesn't take over and dies down eventually

yoass said:

In the end, to me it's lifting a restriction. Yes, that can lead to insane derailments. But the incentives, to me, don't seem to lead that way.

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Thank you.
I think this sums it up quite well.

From a philosophical standpoint, I am okay with the rule as long as you have to have different colors on each side.

If ITTF requires black on one side and any color that is not black on the other side, there is part of this that could make sense. Because, as a player, you would always know that black is the other color when playing someone who twiddles with pips.

However, from a manufacturing standpoint, there is a problem. The black rubbers will move off the shelf because, 50% of the rubbers bought HAVE to be black. But the rainbow of other colors all competing to be the second color will end up having a longer shelf life. Because the other 50% of rubbers will all come from that rainbow of color choices.

So, no matter what you do, unless you get the rubbers straight off the press, from the factory, the way the pros do, the added colors will degrade on the shelf so the quality of the other colors, because of the oxidation that occurs to the rubber and sponge while sitting on the shelf in stores and warehouses.

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Okay, so here is a story. I have a friend who bought T05 and T05fx for his racket within days of when I bought the same. I got the rubbers from a friend who was, at the time, sponsored by Butterfly. He ordered them and had them shipped from Japan. My friend got his rubbers from Paddle Palace. When I felt my racket with my new rubbers, I could tell they were pretty much fresh off the press. That was the best set of Tenergy I have felt to date. The sponge felt alive and fresh. The topsheet too; it felt grippy and responsive.

My friend's rubbers, felt how Tenergy had always felt before I tried these rubbers shipped straight from Japan. But compared to the rubbers on my blade, his rubbers felt older, not as alive, less grippy, the sponge felt less juicy, the topsheet felt less elastic. The comparison was pretty stark. And I could tell my friend was upset at how much worse his rubbers felt in comparison to mine.

I may never have noticed this without him wanting to compare setups when both had fresh rubber on them. But, it was obvious that the rubbers I got were far less oxidized and felt far better than the ones that had been sitting for a few extra weeks or months on the shelf at Paddle Palace.

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Now, if people are consistently buying a black rubber and then, some random color, the people who are buying the same exact rubber (ie T05 on both sides) but different colors, they are going to notice how much worse the random colors feel than the black. And that will be because of oxidation during shelf life.

UpSideDownCarl said:

Now, if people are consistently buying a black rubber and then, some random color, the people who are buying the same exact rubber (ie T05 on both sides) but different colors, they are going to notice how much worse the random colors feel than the black. And that will be because of oxidation during shelf life.

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Again, only if you assume that the manufacturers will produce the same rubber in multiple bright variations. Which they may do, but it's also possible that, e.g., all Rasanters will use Green instead of Red and so there will still be only two colours to pick from.

It's the same argument about inventory issues from before, basically. So that's two reasons why multiple bright variations of the same rubber model are a bad idea. Hopefully they won't go down that route.

AndySmith said:

Again, only if you assume that the manufacturers will produce the same rubber in multiple bright variations. Which they may do, but it's also possible that, e.g., all Rasanters will use Green instead of Red and so there will still be only two colours to pick from.

It's the same argument about inventory issues from before, basically. So that's two reasons why multiple bright variations of the same rubber model are a bad idea. Hopefully they won't go down that route.

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I agree. And if the manufacturers follow your advice, I think it should be fine. It would even make different brands be able to stand out. It might even make the colored rubbers harder to counterfeit if brands choose somewhat unique color variations for their colored rubber. Trying to copy a unique lavender or pastel blue would be much harder than generic red.

UpSideDownCarl said:

I agree. And if the manufacturers follow your advice, I think it should be fine.

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We're doomed then. No one ever listens to me!

i don't see the bad part of this? can anybody tell me at least a negative side for TT?

chikuy said:

i don't see the bad part of this? can anybody tell me at least a negative side for TT?

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Maybe now they won't approve the yellow color for a ball which should have been approved before this.

chikuy said:

i don't see the bad part of this? can anybody tell me at least a negative side for TT?

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Anti players will never make a comeback?

UpSideDownCarl said:

However, from a manufacturing standpoint, there is a problem. The black rubbers will move off the shelf because, 50% of the rubbers bought HAVE to be black. But the rainbow of other colors all competing to be the second color will end up having a longer shelf life. Because the other 50% of rubbers will all come from that rainbow of color choices.

So, no matter what you do, unless you get the rubbers straight off the press, from the factory, the way the pros do, the added colors will degrade on the shelf so the quality of the other colors, because of the oxidation that occurs to the rubber and sponge while sitting on the shelf in stores and warehouses.

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I really could not care less about the colours, but exactly the shelf life is what worries me too. Rubbers are already quite expensive, and just continue getting more expensive. When buying something at a premium, the least thing I demand is getting good quality for the money. Anything else would be a ripoff. As of now, I do not really see how the added colours will add anything of value to me as a customer. Sure, now you can let a pro player show off some green and pink rubbers. "- Look Ma, it is Tenergy 05 because it is pink! Oh wait, it is probably just a custom rubber you won't get your hands on anyway..."

Happy for always using black on my forehand On a side note, now I suddenly know what Butterfly Dignics D09C and Tenergy 09C is all about! The C stands for Colour!

whocarez said:

Happy for always using black on my forehand On a side note, now I suddenly know what Butterfly Dignics D09C and Tenergy 09C is all about! The C stands for Colour!

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Light-bulb moment!

zeio said:

Light-bulb moment!

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Don't think it is, we know that T09C is already used by some pro players, but the rule won't take effect till after Tokyo Olympics, so the C can't be color since it will still be only available in black/red (for now), it won't make sense to name a product that is available right now with a feature that is only available in the future.

Who knows, maybe the R&D at Butterfly has secretly been working on colour combinations for years now? The rule change may be just a realization of long time lobbying for the breakthrough!

UpSideDownCarl said:

Now, if people are consistently buying a black rubber and then, some random color, the people who are buying the same exact rubber (ie T05 on both sides) but different colors, they are going to notice how much worse the random colors feel than the black. And that will be because of oxidation during shelf life.

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I agree, but as Andy wrote, I think this might be challenging but not unsolvable.

Anyhow, to me this seems rather to be the concerns of sellers and manufacturers and not so much the concerns of players and customers.

*****

People keep bringin up that other colours might look unprofessional and gimmicky, but I don't think so.

Here's the story:

When I was a teenager in the eighties our old coach' sometimes had his son visiting, who happened to be the former Bundesliga player Jörg Budszics. he came every once in a while either visiting his father or doing an hour of serve practice or smth.
Before the red+black rule came up his backhand rubber was a blue MarkV in 2.5mm.

Our neighbour town also had a Bundesliga club to that time and they had a young upcoming player named Christian Dreher who was about two years older than me and later became German National Team member alongside guys like Rossi (Jörg Rosskopf) and Speedy (Fetzner).
At some point he used an orange coloured Nittaku Milford in 2.5mm.

Whenever i had the chance to have a few hits, I can assure you that it wasn't the rubbers that looked unprofessional and gimmicky. Those guys could really make you feel like a total beginner.

****

the 'undyed' (or how they called it: 'natural' or 'honey' coloured) rubbers felt faster and more responsive than their red+black dyed counterparts.
One of the reasons why some players moved away from using Milford or Joola Stratos as the red+black rubber rule came up.

Then it would make sense if they use the name AFTER the rule take effect, not before. It's like I'm buying a new smartphone and in the name it says 5G, but then it says sorry but the phone doesn't actually supports 5G, but we do support 5G with the models that's coming out next year, that's called false advertisement at the least.

Oh, but the phone was never released when 5G was reality, it was just an innocent name. For all we know, it was just a fifth generation of the same phone. You never advertised it as having 5G support. So nothing about in the specs and you will easily get away with it even if 5G was released, and who knows, maybe when released it wasn't even under the 5G name but something else. But hey, it was suddenly released and you realize that you just need to change the color on the antenna to support it and as a bonus you can just keep the name, and make some cool adverts. Taking a chance was the risk needed to strike gold (or pink).

whocarez said:

Oh, but the phone was never released when 5G was reality, it was just an innocent name. For all we know, it was just a fifth generation of the same phone. You never advertised it as having 5G support. So nothing about in the specs and you will easily get away with it even if 5G was released, and who knows, maybe when released it wasn't even under the 5G name but something else. But hey, it was suddenly released and you realize that you just need to change the color on the antenna to support it and as a bonus you can just keep the name, and make some cool adverts. Taking a chance was the risk needed to strike gold (or pink).

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Exactly, you just confirmed my argument, that's why the C doesn't stands for color because it was already used when the coloring rule wasn't a thing yet.