Why Catering For Spectators Has Backfired

I realise some of my blog posts can take on a very cynical and negative approach to some things but after seeing the two toned ball in the super league semifinal I felt like writing this!

Anyone who is not blindfolded can see that the popularity of table tennis in live arenas is decreasing. While the World Championships have drawn reasonable crowds, most World Tour Events, particularly those not in the Super Series, have a pretty poor showing. Once upon a time table tennis was a hugely popular sport. Now our proud statistics are distorted by enormous numbers of players within China. The truth is table tennis was (and still is) a great sport, it drew great crowds and was a popular game.

Lots of empty seat at Athens 2004 Olympics

Then somewhere along the line things started to change, the crowds were there already but other indoor sports were starting to compete and table tennis had to change to survive. To please the spectators the ball was changed to a 40mm ball, they wanted to slow the sport down and also make the games shorter. You ask any international players from that era and they will tell you they preferred the 38mm ball and the game to 21. In my recent interview with Petr Korbel he also states this fact. The game was faster and fiercer. But ITTF catered for the spectators instead of the players. What happened? The number of players decreased, people were drawn to other sports, spectator numbers fell.

China were the first to ascend through the phase of the new game and their dominance began, a dominance people grew tired of. As magnificent as the Chinese are to watch and admire, nobody wants to see the same country win over and over again without so much as a challenge, sport is about seeing competition especially on an international level. So excitement dwindled, what's the point in watching if you already know which country is going to win the World Champs, Olympic Games, World Team Champs etc. Then move along a few years and speed glue gets banned because it's toxic. Another measure to slow the game down and bring in water based glue which offers no speed effect at all. Players like Kreanga, the big hitters, take a long period of time to adjust. China excels again, mainly for their creativity in discovering means by which to boost their rubbers which spread eventually around the globe. Once again ITTF tried to make these methods illegal also. They want the game to be slower so that people can watch. Who suffers? The players.

Are we heading back to this?
Maybe the next rule will be to wear long pants again

Now we come again to a new phase of the game, the plastic ball, we are slowing down again. For the spectators. While there are other factors in play like the nature of shipping flammable celluloid balls, the players will again take the hit and the game will slow down again. There are active players who will have to suffer through 3 different phases of the game in their lifetime, possibly even 4 at this rate, all for the spectator. So we will all go back and adjust to the plastic ball and it's slower and lower bounce, less power and speed and spin. Why don't we just go back to playing on a dining room table with sandpaper paddles?

The sport is growing online, viewership is growing online, but not so much in venues where it still suffers. On the internet, slow motion replays can be employed to help spectators see what is happening. Different camera angles and make rallies easier to watch. Higher quality streams and replays will ultimately feed the growing number of fans online. Why do we need to continually slow the game down for the spectators? Take the hint, it's not working. Events like Kuwait and Qatar Open bolster a handful of mildly excitable fans clapping...in the finals.

Table Tennis was a game of speed and spin, we are gradually degrading to a simpleton sport of hitting a ball back and forward, the skill is diminishing. The focus on promoting the sport for spectators is wrong, sport is for playing. How many sports have we seen make this many changes in equipment and rules in the past couple of decades? I think just 1, table tennis.

The Two-Toned Ball

Now CTTA are proposing to introduces a two toned ball, half orange, half white. This is...for the spectators. We want to help them understand spin. Imagine playing with a two toned ball. You serve and your opponent can see the spin on the ball. You try and fool them with no spin, too bad, they can see the ball rotation. I was just watching the Super League semifinals, you can't even see the colours of the ball on the live stream, let alone the rotation. I doubt anybody watching live will be able to see the detail of the ball either. So why are we doing this again? The players are constantly losing out to cater for spectators, the numbers of which are continuously falling and the sport is becoming less popular. It is not the sport it once was.

ITTF should be using speed and spin as it's headline marketing campaign, they should be showing the skill and reflexes of the best players in the world and building up the reputation of the sport. Also they should stick to one equipment regime so that we don't have to keep changing all the time. Every time we change, China gets one step ahead because they already have a new generation of players in the wings ready to adapt to any new systems, rules or equipment changes that can be thrown at them. The popularity of the sport depends entirely on image and big events. Build the grandeur of the events and people will come to watch them live.