What does Table Tennis Need to grow?

[YosuaYosan]

the scoring is different.
Its kinda team oriented. One team reachin 51 first won if I am not mistaken.
Player changes everytime one player reach 11 or 13 if deuce, etc like a normal game. Hope I am right tho lol

 

[Mr. RicharD]

Wow I'm surprised this thread has gotten so huge so quickly. Kudos to Matt for starting it.

You all know where I stand on this one, but here's a quick recap.

1. More Camera Angles both to slow down and get great rallies. The over the top angle exaggerates the players too much and makes them look like they're just jumping 3 feet every so often when they're actually covering 5-10 feet in 1-2 seconds.

2. More clubs and more growth in the communities. As it's a widely played recreational game it shouldn't be hard to gain interest from communities to start up small clubs all over the place. Set up 1-2 tables and you can easily get 10-20 people waiting to play a match. Find a good location that allows you to play for free or with a small monthly fee then you can get club members to pay the difference usually 1-2 USD in rural areas and 3-5 in Urban areas.

3. Get schools and universities to participate in leagues or start your own leagues. Grow the sport by getting more people interested in it. We have too many players regardless of how skilled they are that refuse to play new players because of two reasons. They either are too bored to play someone who is just learning or they view this new player as a future threat and then decreases the likelihood that they can win prize money. These mindsets have to be broken if you want to create a sport.

4. Stop assuming that the ITTF or your national programs are going to get the ball rolling. They won't they're projections are safe projections not risky ones and certainly not going to happen in this decade. So get out there and do exhibitions and create clubs, promote the sport, have ping pong themed parties or try to find venues where an exhibition match could be some entertainment for the crowd. If you can get 1 person a month to commit to growing the sport by getting another person a month and so on we could grow the sport by 50% in 1 year. Think about that. That's 2-3 more players from every league and nation that could potentially compete against the Chinese. Any one of them could be the next Waldner or Boll. You just gotta find them.

If we were all to do this and really make a difference we could easily create a huge industry. There are Billions of people who are not even tapped into the TT industry. That would mean more rubbers, equipment, sponsors, tournaments, and organizations could be created and potentially turn our favorite sport into something huge. Something far greater than Football/Soccer, or any American sport. So hopefully you guys can see the potential.

 

[Mr. RicharD]

what was the 41-point thing .. yousua do you know ?

Yes that is the 41 point system that Killerspin created. It's a team oriented teams game. There are 4 quarters. Basically first person to reach 10 points ends the first quarter. The next is first person to reach 20 points, then 30, then 41 for the last quarter. It's still win by two. And you can sub players into the court for like 3 or 5 points something like that. It's a very cool system and it's more for the American culture. We view sports in quarters or periods. By splitting up the game this way it's still just as fun to watch, but the scoring system is more familiar to the spectators.

I'm personally at mixed feelings with this system. It's great to show people our sport on television, but it's terrible to grow the sport of Table Tennis. It would just be the same thing we've done with American Football and the same thing we've done with Ping Pong Association during the early years of Table Tennis. We as Americans feel we need to adapt everything to our culture rather than the opposite when ironically our culture is simply a compromise of every culture we've come in contact with.

So I personally would rather grow TT rather than the 41 point, but both systems have merit toward growing the sport in general.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Thanks for the great feedback Mr. RicharD I think no.4 on your list is a really good point, if you want change and people aren't making it then get out there and do whatever you can to make things happen yourself or with others. We are all passionate for the sport right?!

 

[JonasB-72NORWAY]

I dont know about you guys, but in Norway, everyone (except does who play table tennis) have never heard of the beatiful sport. Table tennis has a thing that it is just a basement-sport. I think we need to get people to understand that its just not to hold a racket and start swinging.

 

[WiWa]

In any country you have TV shows that focuses on backgrounds. This goes for sports as well. I think it would be a big help for TT growth if some national players get interviewed regularly in those programs, so people get to know table tennis. There are enough interesting videos like that on YouTube like from Boll, Mattenet, Mizutani, Partyka and many more. But in most cases the players might need to offer to give an interview actively because the TV shows won't pick tt players as much as others. But everyone gets to know those players and might very well get interested in the sport.

 

[dici]

1. More Camera Angles both to slow down and get great rallies. The over the top angle exaggerates the players too much and makes them look like they're just jumping 3 feet every so often when they're actually covering 5-10 feet in 1-2 seconds.

2. More clubs and more growth in the communities. As it's a widely played recreational game it shouldn't be hard to gain interest from communities to start up small clubs all over the place. Set up 1-2 tables and you can easily get 10-20 people waiting to play a match. Find a good location that allows you to play for free or with a small monthly fee then you can get club members to pay the difference usually 1-2 USD in rural areas and 3-5 in Urban areas.

I know that they have few camera angles, but the most bothering me is during the live, they always stick to only one angle. They may need to get a more professional camera group to done this job.

As for point number 2, I found that getting the appropriate facilites would be the main issue. Over my place, we don't have any good room for TT, where the TT is played at a corridor between our basketball gym and squat. Usually the problem is the ceiling height is not high enough, and it is too narrow for me. I just told the club president that if he plan to organize a in school tournament again, try to get a reservation on our basketball gym so that we have more room lmao

 

[WiWa]

I know that they have few camera angles, but the most bothering me is during the live, they always stick to only one angle. They may need to get a more professional camera group to done this job.

As for point number 2, I found that getting the appropriate facilites would be the main issue. Over my place, we don't have any good room for TT, where the TT is played at a corridor between our basketball gym and squat. Usually the problem is the ceiling height is not high enough, and it is too narrow for me. I just told the club president that if he plan to organize a in school tournament again, try to get a reservation on our basketball gym so that we have more room lmao

Changing angle during a rally is one of the most horrible things in tt coverage. But it would help to at least always view the table from the fh corner, also when there is a lefty playing.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Okay, as far as broadcasting, I think they need to show more slow motion action from different angles in between games. I don't really think that they should give other angles too often during matches. Or perhaps part of the game from the angle they always use and for segments of the game give another angle or two other angles but one at a time. Without a lot of good slow motion video or even replay of good points at regular speed and then slow motion of the same point, the untrained eye will not see some of the more detailed things that happen in a point. You have to play to understand a lot of what happens.

Getting TT companies to donate tables to schools and rec-centers to get people playing would be one thing that would be useful. Getting an initiative set up where there were more public places to play with more access to playing would be important. As I see it, getting more people to start playing is the most important step. Once you start, regardless of your level or abilities, you get hooked because the game is fun and addictive. But the first step has to be, giving people more access to forums where they can play. I also feel this would be in the best interest of all the major Table Tennis companies. So, getting them involved in initiatives for getting tables, balls and inexpensive paddles to places where people could play would be a huge help. Funny enough, outdoor forums in NYC bring more new people to first try playing than any other method I know of. Table Tennis is NOT an outdoor sport but the outdoor places that have tables and free play time bring loads of people in who are sometimes willing to wait for over an hour to play for 10 minutes.

It does not matter to me how it happens but making it so that there are more places that have tables where people can play is key. I invite friends who like the game but don't play regularly to join me as often as I can. So one person at a time is better than nothing. Non-sanctioned competitions that do not cost anything to enter also bring people in, especially if they are run well. Sanctioned competitions are a lot of fun but it seems that only the people who know about the sport already and are already into it attend these.

And I definitely agree that the kind of events that Killerspin puts on where the playing presents the format of a competition, but where there is an element of showmanship as they are really exhibitions, are great for growing the sport because the untrained eye can see how much skill it takes to do what is being done in these matches where they jump over the barricades or make it easy to see how much side spin is on the loops. So getting all the top ranked players involved in events like that would be really cool.