Tennis Channel to Broadcast Table Tennis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE TENNIS CHANNEL SIGNS DEAL FOR TELECAST RIGHTS TO

15 MAJOR TOURNAMENTS SANCTIONED BY THE

INTERNATIONAL TABLE TENNIS FEDERATION (ITTF)

Tabletennisvideos.com to Produce & Distribute Tourneys Airing on The Tennis Channel 

LOS ANGELES  -- The Tennis Channel announced today that it has secured the telecast rights to 15 major international table tennis tournaments sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), in a deal with Portland, Ore.-based Tabletennisvideos.com, the U.S. television rights holder of ITTF events. The specific schedule for each event will be publicized later. 

Under terms of the agreement, Tabletennisvideos.com will produce 15 tournaments in 90-minute time blocks for telecast on The Tennis Channel, including profile features on the competing players.  The telecast lineup showcases nine ITTF Pro Tour tournaments and the ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals, as well as the Men’s and Women’s World Championships, the European Championship and the 2002 and 2003 World Cup competitions, with all competitions featuring the world’s top 30 ranked players.  Calling the action will be Sean O’Neill, a five-time U.S. national table tennis singles, doubles and mixed doubles champion and two-time U.S. Olympian. The Tennis Channel also will telecast select Tabletennisvideos.com highlight shows and Sean O’Neill instructional shows.

“Table tennis is the No. 2 participant sport in the world behind soccer, and we couldn’t be happier to have locked up the U.S. telecast rights to these globally popular events on The Tennis Channel,” says Steve Bellamy, The Tennis Channel President and Founder.  “We are thrilled to be working with Tabletennisvideos.com and proud that The Tennis Channel can provide a U.S. television home for major professional table tennis on a regular basis.”

Adds Bruce Rider, The Tennis Channel Executive VP, Programming and Marketing:  “An important aspect of each tournament telecast will be the personality profile segments, that will help introduce these extraordinarily skilled table tennis stars to the American audience as a way of expanding the fan following.  Table tennis enthusiasts in the U.S. have been a largely under-served audience, and we’re excited to be able to bring these personalities to the forefront.”

"This television deal represents an extraordinary commitment by The Tennis Channel that is unprecedented in this country for table tennis, a sport played by millions yet rarely televised in the United States,” says Gary Ruderman, President of Tabletennisvideos.com.  “The Tennis Channel will be bringing this exciting sport to a broad American audience on a regular basis, which will help the public understand why literally hundreds of millions around the world are hooked on this sport, both as competitors and spectators.”

A popular, recreational sport, table tennis moved to the forefront of American culture in 1912, when board game giants the Parker Brothers introduced “ping pong.”  Currently, sporting goods industry figures estimate more than 27 million table tennis participants in the U.S. every year, with 300,00 table tennis tables sold annually.  However, according to the United States of America Table Tennis (USATT), table tennis is not just a social sport.  In fact, the sport boasts 7,000 national tournament players in the U.S., with a major tournament almost every weekend.  There are 230 affiliated clubs across the country, with the interest seen primarily on the coasts – in Florida, Maryland, Boston, New York City, the San Francisco Bay area and Southern California – and growing in Chicago and Texas.  U.S. enthusiasts range in age from 7 to their 70s, with tournament players typically in their 30s.

The Tennis Channel’s tentative schedule for table tennis tournaments includes the following events:

Tabletennisvideos.com, the foremost producer of table tennis videos, is a subsidiary of Portland, Ore.-based Reflex Sports Productions.  Tabletennisvideos.com was created for the express purpose of providing the production and sales of table tennis competition and highlight videos, and has an exclusive agreement with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) to produce videos covering the top World Championship events.  Tabletennisvideos.com productions include all World Championships from 1987 to the present, the 1990, 1992 and 1994 European Championships, and the 1992 and 1996 Olympic table tennis competitions.  In 1991 Reflex Sports created the first of its highly acclaimed highlight videos, “The Wonderful and Wacky World of Table Tennis.”  This one-hour production showed the best points and most humorous moments of international competition from 1985 through 1991.  The sequel, “More From the Wonderful World of Table Tennis,” covered the years 1991 through 1994.  The third of this series, “Table Tennis Beyond Imagination!,” is the all-inclusive record of the best in table tennis from 1985 through 2000.

The Tennis Channel is a 24-hour-a-day, traditional, ad-supported cable network.  David Meister is Chairman and CEO, and Steve Bellamy is President and Founder.  The Tennis Channel Board of Directors and investors include former Viacom heads Frank Biondi, Philippe Dauman, Tom Dooley, Terry Elkes, Ken Gorman, and Ed Horowitz, plus IMG, the world’s premier sports management and marketing agency, and Pete Sampras, tennis’s all-time Grand Slam champion.  The Tennis Channel’s Web site is located at www.thetennischannel.com.

Contact:           

Barry Smith / Bonnie Winings

Shepley Winings Hober Public Relations

(818) 760-7131

bsmith@swhpr.com / bwinings@swhpr.com