The problem with risk is that people aren't willing to do it. We have roughly 11000 players in the U.S. that fund our USATT organization every year. 3000 are international players so that's 8000 domestic players who play. Sure we spend money on products and tournament fees and we even have a few professional players that can make a living through coaching and tournament prize money. The average tournament to club ratio is usually 20-30 percent that attend tournaments so if we fluctuate the number for 8000 domestic t0 30-40000 players total around the country. That's 40000 players a little over 0.1 percent of our population that buy TT products and play at clubs generating some income.
If we grew that number to 1000000 that would be a phenomenal amount of growth of over 2500 % that would mean 2500 % more sales and economical growth for the sport in the U.S. That kind of growth would create new jobs, new companies, and most of all new players for the sport. Now imagine if we grew that number to 10,000,000. That's 25,000 % increase in income and resources to help the sport of TT in the U.S.
If people can't see the vision of where TT could go in the U.S. and in Europe then we'll never beat the Chinese. I'm tired of hearing people saying until this happens, and until that happens when the reality is that you need to make it happen. That 1 Million is never gonna happen until the 40,000 do something about it. So for Europe if you guys want the growth that you say you do. Just Do something. Bring 1 person to your club next week. Have them bring a friend the week after that. Get your club of 40 people to bring a person and double in a week. That'll be huge. Imagine in a few weeks you could have over 150 people in your club if you all agreed to bring someone new each week.
Here's some food for thought. The kind of vision that TT needs right now from the non Chinese is this. Would you rather have $10,000 a day for the next 30 days or would you rather have $0.01 doubled each day for the 30 days.
What do you think the difference would be? $10,000 x 30 days is $300,000 for one month. That's a bunch of money right? But guess how much you'd lose.
Over $20,000,000 difference between the $300,000 and the $0.01 doubled. That's the kind of vision we need. And if you don't believe me here's the math.
Day 1 - 0.02, 0.04, 0.08, 0.16, 0.32, 0.64, 1.28, 2.56, 5.12,
Day 10 - 10.24, 20.48, 40.96, 81.92, 163.84, 327.68, 655.36, 1310.72, 2621.44, 5242.88,
Day 20 - 10485.76, 20971.52, 41943.04, 83886.08, 167772.16, 335544.32, 671088.64, 1342177.28, 2684354.56, 5368709.12
Day 30 - 10737418.24
@ Scylla - I don't really think that it had anything to do with drugs. But however minimal the weight on his bike over a trek of 100 miles it does make a difference. I've hiked the Appalachian with 60 lb packs and when you're doing 30+ miles and you have to make certain headway to get to each shelter or campground every little bit of weight that can be spared is huge. We've consolidated weight to the point where we find the cheapest packaging for our ramen noodles or taking the inner tubes out of our TP rolls. Weight over a long distance does make a difference because you just don't understand it until you do it.
I'll give you an example hold your arms out parallel to the floor for 2 minutes one without a book/magazine in hand the other with. Then relax for 1 minute. Then hold your arms out again. This time switch the book/magazine. You should notice a huge difference in your arms when they switch. Now imagine doing that for 1 hour or more.
As for Lance, I would say his physiology and the fact that his body processes lactic acid so much faster than the normal person that has a huge factor on why he won, but I also have to say that no one else trained as much as him. So therefore I venture to say that no one should have beaten him if they didn't put the effort into it. I mean he was training twice as much as everyone else in the tour and I think him winning wasn't a stroke of luck or use of drugs I believe it more to be his work ethic. I've seen time and time again in sports where the person who puts the most amount of efficient work in is the guy who is standing on the podium/winners circle.