Firstly....Kudos and "hats off" to anyone who is willing to put their money and time on the line in order to promote table tennis in the USA or in any other country.
I am trying to figure out how this league is going to make it financially....unless the backers are willing to continue to put a lot of $ into this league for a very long time. By international standards, the player level is not super high. How many current men's world top 100 players are playing? Any at all? The number 1 draft pick is a good player...currently ranked about 262 in the world and about #40 in the French leagues (according to the FFTT). A really good player...but nobody is going to get him confused with Timo Boll or Dima.
I hope they can succeed in selling a lot of tickets...It would be awesome if there was a packed house of paying customers. At the WTT Feeder event last year in Florida, there were very few paying spectators. From what I understand, of the approximately 100 spectators at the final of that WTT event, the vast majority were players and coaches that participated in the event and volunteers. I think the organizers actually sold a few dozen tickets....and you had a ITTF world top 50 player (and formerly a top 10 player) playing !!!
It would be even better if they got HUGE sponsors and TV contracts...I hope they do...I just dont see how that is going to happen.
I want to see this thing succeed in a big way. I am happy to see that some high level individuals are involved in organizing the league. Can someone please explain the path to success? Ticket sales? Pay-per view? National TV contracts? Other?
For table tennis to take off and ticket to be sold:
The fix is if Kanak start trash talking. It doesn't rile up the crowd when players are respectful to each other and quiet. I know some might not agree with me but that's how it works in America.
The trash talk has to be done by kanak for it to potentially work. That is because America is extremely racist against chinese-enthic group especially men(Every american system out there has been specifically designed to put down chinese-ethnics; from education such as college admission, plethora of negative stereotypes from media, job markets, dating, ability to obtain visa etc...) ; the population will not be inspired if the face of the sport is of chinese descendent. Kanak even tho he Indian he does look middle eastern or diverse enough to make American feel he is American. So yea if he start trash talking, making controversial take, table tennis could take off and make people want to come watch.
Just look at the more popular sports in america such as boxing and basketball. There's lots of trash talk going on, big ball dance, insulting etc... floyd without the trash talk won't be selling as much ticket.
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