World Table Tennis
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Poster
Established
2019 (6 years old)
First Recorded Event
Current Season
2020-2021
Current Round
Sport
Table TennisLocation
Worldwide
Gender
Male
TV Rights
| Upcoming |
| None... |
Results |
| None Found... |
Description
World Table Tennis, stylized as WTT, is an organization created by the ITTF in 2019 that runs commercialized table tennis tournaments. Its inaugural tournament was held in November 2020 in Macao. It is distinguished from the predecessor ITTF World Tour by various rules changes and big prize money for commercialized purposes. The head of its council is Liu Guoliang, a former Olympic gold medalist and former head coach of China.
Background
In 1926, the ITTF was founded by William Henry Lawes of Wymondham, England. The nine founding members were Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, India, Sweden and Wales. The first international tournament was held in January 1926 in Berlin, and the first World Table Tennis Championships was held in December 1926 in London. It was the only event for over 50 years that was run and managed commercially by the ITTF.
In 1980, the ITTF World Cups was introduced, followed by the ITTF World Tour in 1996. Until 2003, commercial rights for these events were passed on to the local organising committees (LOC) but a different approach was taken to centralise rights through the creation of TMS. TMS was tasked to manage these rights on behalf of ITTF, until 2017 when ITTF decided to buy back the rights to be taken in house.
In 2018, professional consultants Deloitte and Withers were engaged to assist with remodelling the way that the ITTF does business. Through full models and financial understanding of our events and other worldwide properties, ITTF sought to understand the untapped commercial potential of table tennis. One key finding led to the idea of separation between the management of the professional and institutional structures of table tennis.
On 30 May 2019, ITTF announced the idea of World Table Tennis (WTT), a new commercial vehicle for table tennis. To launch WTT, the ITTF executive committee appointed a selection panel. The panel included ITTF President Thomas Weikert, ITTF Deputy President Khalil Al-Mohannadi, ITTF Executive Vice President for Finance Petra Sorling, ITTF CEO Steve Dainton, and ITTF Marketing Director Matthew Pound.
Seasons
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Teams
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