Dan (TTD) and Matt (MHTT) Interview [VID]

[Matt Hetherington]

Hi all, here is the video from me and Dan's IG live. We tried to condense as much as possible into the 1 hour, could have gone on forever!

 

[Der_Echte]

12 hrs and NO COMMENTS? and a whopping TWO likes!

C'mon TTD, we put up a thread about global federation version of 968 blade and we have 32 comments in 1/2 a day !!!

When Dan is asked about a well funded from outside project, I was hoping he would say clubs... and his answer was close... several huge national training centers.

Here we have two of the forum's most prominent members doing something real good that benefits who watches, but their post gets the same amount of love that a post about grass growing gets... all the while, the off-the wall, baseless equipment fanboy drooling posts get nearly instant viral status. Shameful I say.

 

[Der_Echte]

SHAMEFUL.

over a day passed and zero comments.

Two of the best dude on this forum discuss valid stuff a full hour and zero discussion... all the while... all these crazy fanboy equipment discussions get dozens of comments.

Call me a Homer (if you can handle the goon squad) but man, this sure shows where we stand.

If this interview had the blade maker who supervises production of the 968 blade line, then the phone would be ringing off the damn hook.

 

[KMTT]

Enjoyed this but was thrown by the discussion over 'characters' in the sport. I have zero knowledge of the pro game so my viewpoint is worth little. I'd certainly appreciate more in depth / fun interviews like those Dan and Matt were talking about - the Calderano ITTF 'Outside the Venue' film was pretty good. However not sure if I want to see petulance and aggressive behaviour just to market table tennis.

 

[trumpet_guy]

I enjoyed the discussion, and I appreciate what Matt and Dan give to us on the TT community.

I didn’t have a meaningful comment, so I didn’t post anything.

I will say that they seem to have a good friendship, even long distance, and that’s cool. I also didn’t realize Matt still thinks about his one-set loss to Dan so much. They are both very good players. Losses happen.

Thanks for the interview, guys.

 

[Marko]

I really think they have touched an interesting topic with drama in sport when they talked about Zhang Jike. In football there is so much more drama and controversy. When players take their shirt of after they score and kick the ball in the audience, they only get a yellow card. Zhang Jike have gotten his title and prize money striped away for kicking a barrier and taking his short of. That is mad diffrence.

I think if ITTF didn't penalize Zhing Jike that much, there would be more of those crazy events in table tennis and with that table tennis would gain more popularity and would be more interesting for the people who are not table tennis fans.

Also I completly agree that there is too much competitions and big matches lose all the hype because you have too much of those.

This is very interesting interview and many important topics talked about.

 

[TTstyle]

Good interview. Would love to see a second match between you to!

 

[Matt Hetherington]

I enjoyed the discussion, and I appreciate what Matt and Dan give to us on the TT community.

I didn’t have a meaningful comment, so I didn’t post anything.

I will say that they seem to have a good friendship, even long distance, and that’s cool. I also didn’t realize Matt still thinks about his one-set loss to Dan so much. They are both very good players. Losses happen.

Thanks for the interview, guys.

Haha, I'm not the one thinking about it. Unfortunately it's the first thing that comes up when people search for me in YouTube and so a lot of people come up to me and say I saw your match with Dan.

I will say this, when we rematch I won't be overweight and in trackpants I have no intention of losing twice haha

 

[trumpet_guy]

By the way, Matt, your service videos are really well done. The detailed description of the mechanics is just what is needed, especially when I don’t have a table and can only visualize how to perform the shot.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

By the way, Matt, your service videos are really well done. The detailed description of the mechanics is just what is needed, especially when I don’t have a table and can only visualize how to perform the shot.

Thanks man appreciate that. Still got a dozen more days of videos to go and then beyond that will see how things go

 

[GusShnaps]

Really nice talk guys. I think a youtube livestream or a podcast could be cool too, there's so much you guys could talk about!
The "how to make table tennis more popular" question is really interesting.

 

[Dan]

12 hrs and NO COMMENTS? and a whopping TWO likes!

C'mon TTD, we put up a thread about global federation version of 968 blade and we have 32 comments in 1/2 a day !!!

When Dan is asked about a well funded from outside project, I was hoping he would say clubs... and his answer was close... several huge national training centers.

Here we have two of the forum's most prominent members doing something real good that benefits who watches, but their post gets the same amount of love that a post about grass growing gets... all the while, the off-the wall, baseless equipment fanboy drooling posts get nearly instant viral status. Shameful I say.

Hey Der this post cracked me up! Nothing beats some juicy posts about equipment! Yeah this was a lot of fun with Matt, it was super casual and we were just having fun, nothing to serious. Although our second match will be SERIOUS haha!

Enjoyed this but was thrown by the discussion over 'characters' in the sport. I have zero knowledge of the pro game so my viewpoint is worth little. I'd certainly appreciate more in depth / fun interviews like those Dan and Matt were talking about - the Calderano ITTF 'Outside the Venue' film was pretty good. However not sure if I want to see petulance and aggressive behaviour just to market table tennis.

Yeah the outside the venue series by the ITTF is a good one. More of these will really help build the personalities and characters in table tennis. Have you seen this we did with Maze, this was fun:

I really think they have touched an interesting topic with drama in sport when they talked about Zhang Jike. In football there is so much more drama and controversy. When players take their shirt of after they score and kick the ball in the audience, they only get a yellow card. Zhang Jike have gotten his title and prize money striped away for kicking a barrier and taking his short of. That is mad diffrence.

I think if ITTF didn't penalize Zhing Jike that much, there would be more of those crazy events in table tennis and with that table tennis would gain more popularity and would be more interesting for the people who are not table tennis fans.

Also I completly agree that there is too much competitions and big matches lose all the hype because you have too much of those.

This is very interesting interview and many important topics talked about.

Thanks for the comment Marko yeah I agree with you. The new grand smashers events will be interesting... looking forward to seeing if those will hype up the events. I think they have a strong chance.

Good interview. Would love to see a second match between you to!

Oh it's happening!

Haha, I'm not the one thinking about it. Unfortunately it's the first thing that comes up when people search for me in YouTube and so a lot of people come up to me and say I saw your match with Dan.

I will say this, when we rematch I won't be overweight and in trackpants I have no intention of losing twice haha

Best of 5?

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Best of 5?

Done, unless you want to do a best of 7 haha have you got the stamina young man?

 

[Matt Hetherington]

AND we are playing at sea level next time, no altitude!

 

[RIPPER]

I thought you guys raised some really good points here! Matt really agree with your views about marketing the sport more and trying to get more involvement from the crowd. Reminds me of our sports marketing classes days. In regards to exhibitions would definitely be good to get spectators randomly selected to play and interact with players. These kinds of things would give better exposure to the sport. How would you guys say ping pong worlds is marketed and what are some of the differences?

 

[Matt Hetherington]

I thought you guys raised some really good points here! Matt really agree with your views about marketing the sport more and trying to get more involvement from the crowd. Reminds me of our sports marketing classes days. In regards to exhibitions would definitely be good to get spectators randomly selected to play and interact with players. These kinds of things would give better exposure to the sport. How would you guys say ping pong worlds is marketed and what are some of the differences?

I haven't been to a WCPP so Dan would probably know that better than me. Mainly the thing that really grinds me about WTTC is that the audience is so far away from the table, it's really not that good a viewing experience. A lot of people say they would actually rather watch online and I think that's why table tennis has such a good digital audience. Firstly they need to do better to capitalize off their digital viewership and secondly they have to do something about the stadium atmosphere. Get people in closer around the table when it's time for the finals, get more crowd engagement and entertainment going and make it more of an experience so that you aren't relying purely on the table tennis to sell the tickets.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

sorry i just watched today the video; I saw it was 1hour long and i didn't have time to spend 1 hour for that.

its nice to hear Dan and Matt, especially to know a little more again about Dan.

Regarding what do with an unlimited TT budget, i would have given another answer, perhaps a techie one: TT for everyone in VR for example ! or make robots better than humans and have a league of humans v robots. lol

or something like making an NGO bringing the sports in poor countries...

Regarding the reform of the calendar, i'm a reactionary and against stupid changes; I hate T2. I think TTX is already forgotten by all. and this calendar change is probably making things worse...

What can make TT more popular ? i don't know, maybe it's not possible. young kids prefer playing video games. or play soccer because soccer stars make millions. But they make millions because everyone watches them... "vertuous" circle.

TT is a fun game, but its a difficult sports. it takes much effort to master just a little bit, and have fun, I think for beginners its not the easiest sport to pickup. I think you can have fun playing badminton much more quickly as a beginner for example.

There's many reasons why TT is not so popular outside Asia, and as a TT lover thats bad, but there can't be 50 equally popular sports , so...

maybe if ITTF is short of money, they should make less events. maybe we need better leagues and league games results should be taken into account in ITTF rankings and we should go back to some ELO like rankings and forget about the tour. I feel sorry for pro players who need to pay hotel and plane tickets and go around the world and losing money in the process just for playing 1 or 2 matches and get knocked out. its ridiculous. We would also avoid seeing every time MA Long v FAN Zhendong or XU Xin in every ITTF Tour final and MA Long v Timo in Semis or QFs...

Maybe it would be nice for Dan or Matt to do an AMA. There's quite a few questions I'd like to ask him

 

[Matt Hetherington]

sorry i just watched today the video; I saw it was 1hour long and i didn't have time to spend 1 hour for that.

its nice to hear Dan and Matt, especially to know a little more again about Dan.

Regarding what do with an unlimited TT budget, i would have given another answer, perhaps a techie one: TT for everyone in VR for example ! or make robots better than humans and have a league of humans v robots. lol

or something like making an NGO bringing the sports in poor countries...

Regarding the reform of the calendar, i'm a reactionary and against stupid changes; I hate T2. I think TTX is already forgotten by all. and this calendar change is probably making things worse...

What can make TT more popular ? i don't know, maybe it's not possible. young kids prefer playing video games. or play soccer because soccer stars make millions. But they make millions because everyone watches them... "vertuous" circle.

TT is a fun game, but its a difficult sports. it takes much effort to master just a little bit, and have fun, I think for beginners its not the easiest sport to pickup. I think you can have fun playing badminton much more quickly as a beginner for example.

There's many reasons why TT is not so popular outside Asia, and as a TT lover thats bad, but there can't be 50 equally popular sports , so...

maybe if ITTF is short of money, they should make less events. maybe we need better leagues and league games results should be taken into account in ITTF rankings and we should go back to some ELO like rankings and forget about the tour. I feel sorry for pro players who need to pay hotel and plane tickets and go around the world and losing money in the process just for playing 1 or 2 matches and get knocked out. its ridiculous. We would also avoid seeing every time MA Long v FAN Zhendong or XU Xin in every ITTF Tour final and MA Long v Timo in Semis or QFs...

Maybe it would be nice for Dan or Matt to do an AMA. There's quite a few questions I'd like to ask him

Honestly I find it quite refreshing to read this, because there have been plenty of times when I have also thought to myself maybe table tennis is just beyond help and it we need to make the sport bigger by focusing less on the professional side of it. I don't think the idea of having less events is too bad personally, but the players want to be competing regularly. It would certainly be interesting to see what ideas people have about merging professional leagues with the ITTF circuit somehow, intruiging thought!

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

what can make TT more popular long term?

unfortunately I think its about money. a think a good idea is to find bigger sponsors, and spend the money giving tables and bats to schools. Thats how you get kids to try and like the sport. it would help very much if the school has a coach of course

 

[yoass]

what can make TT more popular long term?

A partial societal collapse, fueled by series of pandemics for a bit but mainly due to the inevitable progression of the 6th mass extinction we’re undergoing might help, in the sense that the field of competing options for spending leisure time might shrink substantially.