Ghana recorded its first ever win at the ITTF World Championships as the duo of Derek Abrefa and Celia Baah-Danso defeated Mauritius’ duo of ARNACHELLUM Allan & RAMASAWMY Caroline 3-1 in the preliminary round of the mixed doubles event. Playing on centre court at HungExpo in Budapest, the Ghanaian pairs who are combining for the […]
via Ghana Records First Win At ITTF World Championships In Budapest — finixsportsblog
The Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) has named a strong seven-man team for this year’s ITTF World Championships holding in Dusseldorf, Germany on May 29 to June 5. According to the federation, Africa’s highest ranked player – Aruna Quadri and seven-time Olympian – Segun Toriola will lead the men’s team while African champion – Olufunke […]
via Nigeria Names Team For 2017 ITTF World Championships — newfanzoneblog
The continental powerhouses in table tennis – Nigeria and Egypt will lead 14 other African countries to this year’s International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Championships holding in Dusseldorf, Germany. The qualification of the participating teams was based on their attendance of continental tournament held in Agadir, Morocco last year while other African countries that […]
via Nigeria, Egypt, 14 African Countries for ITTF World Championships — newfanzoneblog
International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) today announced it has signed an exclusive deal with Lagardere Sports brokered by TMS International to sell the media rights to all its events worldwide (excluding China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan). The multiyear deal will run from 2016 to 2020.
Bringing their knowledge, expertise and vast network to the table, the agreement will see Lagardere Sports sell the media rights to ITTF events including the ITTF World Tour, ITTF World Cup (Men’s, Women’s & Teams), ITTF World Team Championships, ITTF World Championships and the ITTF Junior events.
David WHITE, President – Media, Lagardere Sports said: “We’re delighted to be working with the ITTF once again, and look forward to building our relationship with them over the next four years. There is a great appetite for the media rights to the ITTF’s exciting roster of events across the world, and we’re excited to be able to use our expertise to maximise distribution and give these events the visibility they deserve.”
Thomas WEIKERT, President, ITTF said: “The ITTF is pleased to partner up with one of the big global sports marketing players Largardere. We look forward to working closely with Lagardere to develop ITTF’s TV product and increase our already healthy TV distribution world wide. This will complement our existing successful social & digital strategies to ensure the most number of people are watching table tennis around the world.”
With an experienced Media Sales management team Lagardere Sports is able to service territories around the world and provide solutions to package and monetise rights efficiently and effectively to complement ITTF’s already strong digital media global presence.
The Perfect 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships to be held from 28 February – 6 March 2016 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is set to be the most social table tennis event of all time.
The 54th edition of the ITTF World Championships will be more active, especially on more social media networks than ever before.
Commenting on ITTF’s social media plan for the event, ITTF’s Promotion & Media Manager Matt POUND commented: “At this year’s World Championships, we want to reach as many people as possible through our social media networks, which currently has over 1.3 million fans. The ITTF media team will be coming up with fun and creative content to engage our fans and to portray the world’s biggest table tennis event from a different perspective from what the hundreds of millions of fans around the world will see on TV.”
Snapchat (@ITTFWorld) will be also be used for the first time here in Kuala Lumpur as well as Facebook live to complement ITTF’s already established social media platforms:
Facebook.com/ITTFWorld
Instagram: @ITTFWorld
Twitter: @ITTFWorld
YouTube.com/ITTFChannel
FlickR.com/ITTFWorld
Weibo: @ITTFWorld
Wechat: @ITTFWorld2014
YouKu: @ITTFWorld
Tencent Video: @ITTFWorld
Just between ITTF’s Facebook, Youtube and Weibo, the ITTF expects over 10 million fans to see content on these platforms.
Adding to the engagement on social media, the ITTF will also be streaming eight tables LIVE on its online streaming platform ITTF.com/itTV. These eight tables of world-class table tennis is expected to get over five million live and on-demand views over the eight days of the Championships.
This exposure, in addition to the 500 accredited media on site, will ensure that the 54th edition of the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships will be one of the most followed table tennis event in history!
The Qoros 2015 ITTF World Table Tennis Championships held in Suzhou, China on 26 April – 3 May 2015 has been officially announced as the most followed table tennis event in history.
The world-s biggest table tennis event was followed by an estimated 450 million people across the globe, which is a record for a table tennis event.
330 million unique people watched the event on their TV s in 170 countries across the world.
In China alone, 252 million tuned into the ITTF World Championships, which means that 1 in 5 people in China watched the event on TV during the 50 hours of live coverage on CCTV-5 and 150 hours of coverage on other Chinese networks.
Data provided by CSM Media research-KantarSport shows that the Men-s Singles Final averaged over 16 million viewers every minute, and 40 million in total for what is now the fourth most-watched sports event of the year in China.
Managing Director of Media & Sports Research at CSM Media research-KantarSport Pierre JUSTO stated: “Such TV audience numbers clearly show clearly that table tennis remains a very powerful sport on TV in China and is able to generate numbers as big as football or basketball.”
“Throughout the rest of the world, the TV coverage of the World Championships was also on the rise. There was more TV news about the event in Germany than before, and the broadcast coverage was also larger in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and many other countries, ensuring more viewers than ever before” concluded Mr JUSTO.
In addition to record TV ratings, the event also surged on all of the ITTF’s other platforms.
ITTF.com’s servers were pushed to the limit, as 10 million unique people visited the official website of the ITTF. During the major matches, there were a staggering 20,000 people per second landing on the front page, eager to keep up with the live results.
ITTF’s free online streaming platform ITTF.com/itTV, which for the first time streamed eight tables live, had 1 million unique viewers watching the world’s best table tennis players live and on demand.
Nearly 3 million people saw content on ITTF’s Facebook page (Facebook.com/ITTFWorld), which boosted the fan base to 200,000.
The views on ITTF YouTube channel nearly doubled from a year ago, with 7 million people from 231 countries tuning into YouTube.com/ITTFChannel to watch content from Suzhou.
The conversation about the World Championships went viral through twitter (@ITTFWorld) and instagram(@ITTFWorld), with 30,000 mentions of the official hashtag #ITTFWorlds2015.
The 1,000 accredited press in Suzhou spread the word about the event through the written press, as over 11,000 articles were written about the Championships, reaching hundreds of millions of people.
All these factors together brought the Qoros 2015 World Table Tennis Championships to more people than any table tennis event ever before.
These figures will be the target to be beaten at next year’s ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships to be held in Kuala Lumpur on 28 February to 6 March 2016.
#ITTFWorlds2015 Media Stats:
Countries that broadcasted the event live on TV: 170
CCTV viewers: 252 million
World wide TV viewers: 330 million
ITTF.com unique visitors over 8 days: 10 million
itTV unique viewers over 8 days (live and on demand) :1 million
440 matches on itTV
Countries that watched itTV: 179
People who saw content on ITTF’s Facebook:3,000,000
YouTube views: 7 million
Countries that watched content on YouTube: 231
Minutes watched on YouTube: 25 million
Accredited media: 1,000
Media articles: 11,000
Impressed with the giant stride made by Nigeria in recent times, the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA) yesterday donated equipment to the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) to support its youth development programme.
The donation was facilitated by the Chinese Ambassador in Nigeria, Gu Xiaojie and the equipment was received in Suzhou at the just concluded ITTF World Championships by NTTF President, Wahid Oshodi including members of the national team led by Segun Toriola.
According to the representative of CTTA, Su Yang Yang, the donation is part of the efforts by the Chinese Government to support Nigeria following the efforts of the country in the sport.
The equipment are table tennis blade (30), rubber (140), racket case (20), sports towel (20), sports bath towel (20) and sports backpack (10).
For the NTTF boss, the equipment would surely help, while commending the envoy for the gesture, saying, it is another way to promote the sport in Nigeria.
“We are grateful to the Chinese government for this gesture and we hope this will surely our efforts to unearth and groom world class players in the sport. There is no doubt that China is on top of the game globally while their players have remained role models to a lot of players across the globe including Nigerian players and we hope that this will also blossom into a mutual relationship that will help us in Nigeria to develop the game.
We will put this equipment into use and we hope to continue to partner them and we believe our players will benefit from using it. We once again thank CTTA and the Ambassador for this,” Oshodi said.
Four days to the commencement of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Championships in China, there are doubts that Nigeria will be present at the global tournament due to lack of funds.
Only last week, Nigeria failed to take part in the ITTF African Junior Championship following the inability of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) to secure funds from the National Sports Commission (NSC).
Despite efforts by the Wahid Oshodi led NTTF board to return Nigeria to the zenith of the sport in Africa, there has not be commensurate backing from the NSC and this has become a source of worry to table tennis buffs.
In February the NTTF had informed the NSC about the country’s participation in the championship but up till now there has not been any concrete assurance or approval from the NSC that the team would feature in the competition.
Also the singular effort of Aruna Quadri to put Nigeria on the world map by winning the ITTF Star Player of the year has not received any formal support from the commission.
However, Nigerian players have also been considered as title contenders at the global championship holding in Suzhou, China but the recent development may prevent the team from taking part in the event.
Effort by NTTF to secure fund from NSC has been frustrated by the office of Federation and Elite Athlete Department (FEAD) headed by Khalid Gidado.
It was learned that NTTF has written to the commission in February to be part of the competition with all the necessary documents provided by the federation backing up the country’s participation in the championship while the Director General (DG), Gbenga Elegbeleye has also given his verbal approval but the inability of FEAD to make the file available to the DG for final approval has stalled the release of fund.
This development has made it impossible for the federation to get the fund on time to travel to Suzhou in China for the competition.
Also the federation has also made effort to secure a one-week training camp for the team and this has received the nodding of the Chinese Table Tennis Association but the fund to get the flight ticket for the team may have stopped the team from flying to China last week.
Also the federation intends to use the tournament to tune up the team for the African Cup in Cameroun as well as the All Africa Games in Congo Brazzaville but this development may halt the federation’s plan.
It will be recalled that Nigeria failed to make it to the last ITTF African Junior Championships held in Mauritius over paucity of fund. A development the Africa Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) believes would affect the giant stride made by NTTF in the last two years.
The Qoros 2015 World Table Tennis Championships to be held on 26 April – 3 May in Suzhou, China is set to be the most followed table tennis event in history.
The 53rd edition of the ITTF World Championships will be seen on TV in a record 169 countries across the globe, an increase of 53 countries from 2014.
Commenting on the record numbers, ITTF Marketing Steve DAINTON stated: “In our effort to take the top events of the ITTF to more and more people and spread our great sport around the world it’s fantastic to be able to announce at a World Championships in China that will have unprecedented numbers of TV broadcasters, improved digital media offerings and tickets are nearly sold out!”
Complementing the viewership on TV, the ITTF will be streaming eight tables LIVE on its online streaming platform ITTF.com/iTV for the first time. These eight tables of world-class table tennis expect to get over five million live and on demand views over the eight days of the Championships.
A record number of fans will not just be watching on their TV’s and computers, with five out of the eight days of the Championships already being sold out!
ITTF’s social media platforms will be in overdrive, with Facebook.com/ITTFWorld looking to break the 12 million impression mark and YouTube.com/ITTFChannel expecting more than 5 million views on match highlights, features and more!
This exposure, in addition to the 1000 accredited media on site, will ensure that the 53rd edition of the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships will be the most followed table tennis event in history!
newfanzone 