Hello from ITTF President

[adham]

Zitat von buddywow

Hello Adham,

re: table tennis on tv: how big/important is the money argument?
do we have to get tt on tv so that companies give money to ITTF?

Till

Actually it is very very important for two reasons. First, to popularize the sport and present it to a large audience. Second, in order to get sponsorship, the sponsoring companies will only sponsor in lieu of advertising if the event is on TV.

[adham]

Zitat von buddywow

"ARD reports in his program over more than 30 sports. Unfortunately, not every sport to the same extent taken into account, because the airtime for sport is limited. Football and winter sports are popular with viewers still very front. "

from the above answer of 1.German tv station on my inquiry about the tv presence of tt and the mentioning of winter sports you can also conclude the following:

currently ski jumping and biathlon are winter sport # 1 - i would say - regarding time on tv

so (excluding great sports like downhill skiing):
it doesn't matter how boring the sport is - see ski jumping: every jump looks the same - or how few people are actively doing the sport - see biathlon - what counts is how attractive the tv appearance of the sport looks on tv,

here tabletennis has probably much room for improvement


Till

Actually the reality is different. The programming on TV depends on the "ratings" of audience numbers and popularity (requests by viewers) and by advertising (selling the advertising time during the programme.). You as a table tennis player can influence 2 of the above factors (audience and demand). If it is true that there are more than 600,000 players in Germany, if only 10% would call the TV once a day, or send an e-mail every day, then the TV will receive 60,000 requests per day, and for sure they will put more TT on TV. But it has to be a spontaneous move and not an organized campaign that the TV will immediately detect. So perhaps it can start as a chain reaction. Everyone in this Forum does it and asks one or two TT friends to do it, etc. It works.

[Nullinger]

Zitat von adham

If it is true that there are more than 600,000 players in Germany, if only 10% would call the TV once a day, or send an e-mail every day, then the TV will receive 60,000 requests per day, and for sure they will put more TT on TV. But it has to be a spontaneous move and not an organized campaign that the TV will immediately detect. So perhaps it can start as a chain reaction. Everyone in this Forum does it and asks one or two TT friends to do it, etc. It works.

The problem I see here is that a large number of players (at least in my club) prefers to watch football on TV and is not particularly interested in Table Tennis there.
Another phenomenon to observe in this forum: once a TT event is shown on TV, users start complaining about how badly it is done and that they prefer watching something else over this badly shown TT...

I very much respect and like your vision of Table Tennis as being one of the top sports on TV world wide (and as an ITTF president it is almost necessary to have this vision ), but I think on TV it won't be even close to football within the next 10-20 years. I don't even believe that this changes after that time, but who knows, that is very far away.

But I enjoy Table Tennis on TV every once in a while. Especially the Pro Tour tournaments and European/World championships.

[mithardemb]

Zitat von adham

.... If it is true that there are more than 600,000 players in Germany, if only 10% would call the TV once a day, or send an e-mail every day, then the TV will receive 60,000 requests per day, and for sure they will put more TT on TV....

German TV stations have long time experience with showing table tennis and they’ve received bad results in the viewer statistics. Some years ago the premiere league has paid the sports channel DSF, but even then the viewing rate was quite low.

We can learn from this experience that TT hobby players are not interested in watching their own sport on a professional level. The public audience does not regard TT as a competitive sport, it is more a tricky hobby for them that is practiced in garages and on schoolyards.

This image problem will not be solved by any reform on TT regulations. It does not depend on friction factors and long pimples, it does not depend on the speed of the ball or on the length of a rally.

What are your future plans for work on this image problem?

[Cheftrainer]

Zitat von Nullinger

...but I think on TV it won't be even close to football within the next 10-20 years...

10-20 Years??? Maybe Adham can influence that.

Following the very sophisticated "way of change" of the last decade he could have some new ideas:

a) Change the Ball size to 44mm
b) Limit the height of the net to 17cm instead of 15.25mm
c) Change the rules for service so that only backhand-services are allowed
d) Prohibit Players using any other material as normal rubbers (no pimples, anti or so allowed in future) with max 1,8mm (3,5mm as a limit for the complete rubber)
e) Limit a winning set to 9 Points. 9:8 would end a game, no 2 Point rule...

All other changes in the past had tremendous effects at least in our country. We never had so less people playing tabletennis. We never had so less time on TV for our sport...

But as Adham stated earlier that is only a local problem of germany. Tabletennis seems to be a "success-story" if you see it worldwide

[Mighty]

Zitat von mithardemb

...We can learn from this experience that TT hobby players are not interested in watching their own sport on a professional level. The public audience does not regard TT as a competitive sport, it is more a tricky hobby for them that is practiced in garages and on schoolyards. ...

I fully agree with that.

[adham]

Zitat von mithardemb

German TV stations have long time experience with showing table tennis and they’ve received bad results in the viewer statistics. Some years ago the premiere league has paid the sports channel DSF, but even then the viewing rate was quite low.

We can learn from this experience that TT hobby players are not interested in watching their own sport on a professional level. The public audience does not regard TT as a competitive sport, it is more a tricky hobby for them that is practiced in garages and on schoolyards.

This image problem will not be solved by any reform on TT regulations. It does not depend on friction factors and long pimples, it does not depend on the speed of the ball or on the length of a rally.

What are your future plans for work on this image problem?

The first step is that I have to work on you. YOU have to watch your own sport and support it more. YOU have to call your local newspaper and ask them for the results of the German players at the Slovenia Open. YOU have to call your local TV station and tell them you want to see Timo Ball in action. YOU have to inform everyone in your club that TT is on the ITTF's itTV regularly and they can watch it. YOU have to ask your club mates to call the local TV station and ask for TT. YOU have to convince your club mates to write or call the local newspaper and ask for TT results. YOU have to sell our sport to everyone you know. YOU are a TT fan, so YOU have to promote our sport.

Now if I can convince just 10% of the German TT players like YOU, then I have reached my goal.

OK, now can you convince 10 people to do so?

[adham]

Zitat von Cheftrainer

10-20 Years??? Maybe Adham can influence that.

Following the very sophisticated "way of change" of the last decade he could have some new ideas:

a) Change the Ball size to 44mm
b) Limit the height of the net to 17cm instead of 15.25mm
c) Change the rules for service so that only backhand-services are allowed
d) Prohibit Players using any other material as normal rubbers (no pimples, anti or so allowed in future) with max 1,8mm (3,5mm as a limit for the complete rubber)
e) Limit a winning set to 9 Points. 9:8 would end a game, no 2 Point rule...

All other changes in the past had tremendous effects at least in our country. We never had so less people playing tabletennis. We never had so less time on TV for our sport...

But as Adham stated earlier that is only a local problem of germany. Tabletennis seems to be a "success-story" if you see it worldwide

Did you ever consider that there would have been even less players? Did you compare with other activities in Germany? Did you know that the ITTF's website gets more visits than the IOC's website except during the Olympic Games? Did you know that TT is in Eurosport because of the ITTF? And did you know that including Eurosport you never had so much time for TT on TV?
It would be intersting to compare the number of players in Germany in Tennis, TT, Squash and Badminton over the last 10 years, what is the result?
And the last 2 questions I have for you: Do you still play? And have you introduced someone new to our sport in the last month?

[akosch]

Zitat von adham

YOU have to call your local TV station and tell them you want to see Timo Ball in action.

Sorry for this correction, but Timo's family name is Boll, not Ball.
You wrote the wrong name many times before...

[Cheftrainer]

Zitat von adham

...Do you still play? And have you introduced someone new to our sport in the last month?

Yes and Yes! I still play 2-3 times a week. Iam still a trainer (coach) and in my case I lead some international training camps in europe with players of almost all skill levels. In the past I trained some players that played in international championships. One of my former players has won some medals at european youth championships some years ago. But why should we talk about me?

Has my oppionion another value if I can prove a TT specific background???

I only wanted to state that some changes missed their goal. And I want to discuss about the recent changes of the ITTF. Maybe we could achieve that the ITTF discuss some topics with tha base in front of such major changes not afterwards like now...

I believe, that all the current problems with the tuners and boosters are selfmade. The AGM has made a decision without thinking of the consequences. We never had something like a real doping problem in our sport. Now we have something similar. I do not agree that we should live with that till you have some new test possibilities with something like Enez 2.0.

That was the real major mistake the ITTF made in the last years. I never have seen such an incompetent action like banning all boosters and tuners without a real possibility to test this.

I know that your intention was to stop the development of the last decade leading to more and more speed in this sport. But it would have been much better if the AGM had waited till it is possible to test this.

I think that more and more players starting to cheat because of this situation. Iam not saying that cheating is acceptable. But it is a situation that has disadvantages for our sport.

To many players (and here Iam talking from profis, from the top players) are still using tuners because it is an advantage and no one can really detect the use. In the last years, table tennis was known in public as a very fair sport. But we might loose this property in future.

I know that you always had good intensions. But the problem is that it seems to be that the AGM never thinks of how something should be done. They only know what they want to change, but no one seems to think about practical consequences of the decisions they make...