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TT Legend - Victor Barna |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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god forbid that I should ever agree with takaaki, but I think i agree with him here. |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14336 |
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I used to read this debate in the early 1970s, thought it was gone for good. It is an idiotic argument. The tectonic plates in the Atlantic ocean are moving away from each other. My hair is turning gray. A correlation! The moving tectonic plates are making my hair turn gray! Are we to conclude that inverted rubber with sponge has killed table tennis because watching Viktor Barna play while wearing a tie is somehow more exiting than watching Ma Long vs. Timo Boll -- well we must conclude that because it appeared a bit like more people were watching then. As somebody else mentioned, check out the crowds in major competitions held in China or Japan, people go nuts and there are lots of them. Truth is, people like their sports on TV, they like local winners, and they like drama. That is why people here watch Tiger Woods play a game that is about as exciting as watching cement dry. That is why Chinese table tennis draws a huge audience -- in China -- along with the drama of Ma Lin's divorce, Kong Linghui's new girlfriend (who is quite a hotty IMHO), and Wang Hao's dedication or lack thereof. None of this has anything to do with inverted rubber, glue, carbon, ball size, number of points in a game. |
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wturber
Premier Member Joined: 10/28/2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3899 |
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It was a response to a comment that in the poster's experience table tennis has never been spectator popular. And it points out his limited exposure. Sure - correlation does not prove causation. But correlation can be a good cause for investigation. And personally, I think there was more interest in the game in the past not because of longer rallies, but simply because the public could more easily relate to the game. They could relate more easily because the game was much more like the one that they played at home, schools, and clubs. The public has a much harder time relating to and even understanding the sandwich game. Tensor rubber? Reverse penhold backhand? Pendulum serve? It's all foreign to them and they have no idea what's going on until and unless players get into a counter-looping rally. Then it makes sense - for a moment or two. Actually, if you listened to the interviews during the Olympics in China, the youth is moving away from table tennis. They see it more and more as an older generation's sport. Also, the popularity of table tennis in China was due to huge government influences that made it cultural. Which gets to my main thesis. We have little cultural connection to high speed, high spin sandwich table tennis. We have a better cultural connection with less spinny hardbat. Sure. People like local winners. But more importantly, they like to relate to the sport. If you play weekend tennis and golf, it is fairly easy to relate to the pro versions. Sure, the pros are more athletic. But the action is easy to understand, follow and relate to your own experience playing. Go to a book or sporting goods store and compare the shelf space that is occupied by football, baseball, basketball, tennis and golf to the shelf space given to table tennis. Those five are sports that are ingrained into our culture. But table tennis in this country is not played in a manner that is very similar to what we see with elite play. There's a huge disconnect.
IMO, it comes down to culture. It is a bottom-up process. If you can get the U.S. culture involved in inverted table tennis, then spectator interest will rise. The same goes for hardbat. But failing that, it has been my experience that most non-table tennis folks find hardbat matches more compelling. That said, that won't be enough to build viewership. |
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Jay Turberville
www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |
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takaaki
Premier Member Joined: 05/07/2006 Status: Offline Points: 3089 |
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"Kong Linghui's new girlfriend (who is quite a hotty IMHO)"
any pics?? |
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takaaki
Premier Member Joined: 05/07/2006 Status: Offline Points: 3089 |
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nice glasses, baal!! where did you get 'em?? |
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igorponger
Premier Member Joined: 07/29/2006 Location: Everywhere Status: Offline Points: 3252 |
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It would be nice to get to know if they still go on with their "innovations" to the game, and how much success gained.
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