MUMBAI: International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) CEO, Steve Dainton believes that the game’s potential to attract Indian audiences has increased with the national team’s historic performance at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Press Trust of India reports.
“India has the 2nd largest population in the World, and TT is a relatively popular sport here. If the market is to grow in India, then we need more top-class players playing at the highest level,” Dainton was quoted as saying in an interview with PTI.
“Winning three gold medals at the CWG is a good start, it has really taken the imagination of the sport to the people and now we have to take the next step.”
Dainton considers India as the ‘dark horses’ of table tennis, lauding the 2-year existence of the Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) tournament.
“With Ultimate Table Tennis providing the exposure to the players, clubbed with high-performance programs with international coaches, the Indians have been on a roll.
“I really hope that UTT grows. However, UTT is still two years old, a baby, and to be able to execute an event of such a magnitude is a truly commendable feat. The level of players who are coming in is pretty good.” he added.
Dainton credit India’s head coach from Italy, Massimo Costantini for the team’s revival and hinted at the possibility of collaborating with him in the future.
“I really like the head coach from Italy, I hope we can work with him also in the future. He could maybe also help us with our future projects because there aren’t a lot of people that have been able to go outside their country and bring different styles and that’s really a successful story,” Dainton continued.
The CEO defended the format of the world rankings arguing that each event must be taken seriously to win the confidence of sponsors and broadcasters.
“The broadcasters want the best players, the sponsors want the best players and the new world ranking encourages the best to play at top events. It’s quite simple, you need ranking that supports your products, which are our major events.
“Our past philosophy provided a ranking at a technical level but that didn’t necessarily support our product because the former ranking meant that one didn’t need to play all the events, as soon as one got a high ranking they could miss events. And that doesn’t help grow the commercial products,” he explained.
Dainton was confident about table tennis’ growth prospects across the world courtesy social media as it seeks to take inspiration from the Badminton World Federation (BWF) and their strategies for the same.
“In the 1960s when television became a key part of how sports was presented around the world, we (ITTF) didn’t take the necessary steps that time to move on the new trend. However, we are catching up now in this new age of Social media. I believe Table Tennis is an extremely viewer-friendly sport and will gradually pick up like tennis and badminton,” he signed off.
