Killerspin's Robert Blackwell speaks

Killerspin's Robert Blackwell visits the Valley of the Sun Table Tennis Tournament

Robert Blackwell Speaks - RealPlayer Videos

Part 1 - Focus (30:35 minutes, 79 Mbytes)

Part 2 - Arbitration (18:50 minutes, 49 Mbytes)

Part 3 - Final (4:12 minutes, 10 Mbytes)

(Right click on the link and select "Save Target As..." to download the Realplayer video. Then click the "Open" button to play.)

Part 1 topics include:

Robert Blackwell talks with Len Winkler, Derrick Cone and Robert Trudell.

Topic in this first video include:

Chicago

Phoenix is the 5th largest US city

Derrick asks Robert now he’s on the board, what is he going to do?

Robert talks about focusing the USATT, defining the Mission , what does the USATT want to accomplish?

He say’s they should treat the USOC as a sponsor and provide them with benefits.

He states if they focus on popularity, everything else will take care of itself.

He comments that currently the sport is for old, over 40 year old guys, which group he includes himself in.

We talk about personalities in sports.

Robert says they have to have a financial model.

He says he wouldn’t bring sponsors to a bad event since it would leave a bad impression.

Table Tennis is suffering. Why? Because they are not focused on the entertainment around the sport.

It’s not much to do with the sport, but the experience.

There’s money, what they need is focus.

Mark, Biba and Blackwell will be in Miami on Monday.

Skateboarding has a million dollars in shoe sponsorship. ESPN and MTV culture…

Money isn’t the problem. USATT needs to articulate their plan and the value to sponsors.

Table Tennis image is a joke. Extreme Table Tennis? There’s a mindset that it’s not a real sport. It’s dominated by old people.

Nobody thinks about the stud factor. Wang Liqin has the body of Bruce Lee.

It’s not a hard sport to watch.

Part 2 topics include:

Arbitration

Bussing players to Spinvitational

This is just my opinion, USATT sees sponsors as a source of money or a way to defer costs.

We had the Spinvitational scheduled at 5 pm . There were busses lined up to take all the players to the event and the USATT started events at 6 pm and 9 pm that night.

We had Wal-mart and McDonalds there and reserved those tickets for USATT players and a friend. We could have sold those tickets.

Is it important for table tennis to have those events held after 5?

They think I’m difficult. If they dealt with someone else they would have cut their throats.

I don’t think you can do 50 things.

Table Tennis doesn’t need to be in schools.

It needs to show it’ll bring families closer together.

Tony Hawk makes a bazillion dollars a year. Skateboarding doesn’t have high tech.

Butterfly makes 50 to 80 million a year. Japan doesn’t invest in the popularity of the sport nor does Germany .

Women dress to look like men in Europe .

Men yell, “I want to marry you Biba” and scream her name. She has a incredibly high hits on the website.

When asked at the Spinvitational, Biba was #2 in popularity after Johnny Huang.

Anna Kornikova makes tons of dough. Lindsey Davenport…

If you look at martial arts, what made it take off? It was Bruce Lee.

He was a personality.

Chuck Norris, Steven Segal didn’t have nearly as much impact.

Bruce Lee was cool.

Women were nuts for Bruce Lee.

Lupi is a far better player. Who could be a good personality? Mark Hazinski – maybe – but he’s not that good of player.

What’s Ali with no boxing or Jeff Gordon without a racetrack?

Look at skateboarding and see what happened.

TV was looking for the male 18-24 demographic.

...

Part 3 topics include:

Part 4 Doubles Match:

Robert Blackwell Jr. and Derrick Cone vs. Jerry Boerwinkle and Rick Massoth

Comments:

2 of 2 Posted Jun-28 9:16 PM	Msg 18814.2 reply to 18814.1
From AgentHEX (AgentHEX1) To Robert Trudell (mesapong)

Man, that was horribly mic-ed. I had to EQ out everything outside of 5/600hz to hear anything at all.

Anyway, he had good business advice for TT. Focus on the experience, not the game. People'll pay to watch the Cubs play, and companies'll pay for people who pay to watch the Cubs, haha. 8^)

kimei

Advanced user

Joined: 05/08/2004
Posts: 52

Posted: 06/28/2005 at 6:42am \| IP Logged \| Report Post

i wish they would come out with a transcript, because it's way too difficult to hear what they are saying.

Here's what I heard in Part 3:

Len Winkler: … It’s absolutely nothing. There’s absolutely nothing in there. You got to train for a year with these guys…

Robert Blackwell: Yeah, but all those guys… The U.S. is a dumping ground for old guys who were Asian. …. But, I’m saying they’re old guys.

Lupi for example is a far better player than I think anybody else that has been here. Maybe Cheng and Joe (Gao?).

Len: Fan …

Blackwell: Fan is not that good. ….But Fan is you know, Fan is built and he’s got some good things but he doesn’t have personality. Lupi is, you know who could be good but they’re not that great of a player, uh, Mark Hazinski, I think if he, but you have to position him.

Len: Mark … he’s a very lanky, not lanky but he’s

Derrick Cone: Tall

Blackwell: He’s a big good looking kid. He’s a big good looking kid. Who, but you have to train him.

Len: You’d have to send him to …

Blackwell: You got to train him.

Derrick: You got … the problem is…

Blackwell: Well, I…

Len: That’s why I’ve blown him off because here’s a kid who was emotionally uh, uh, Hazinski is not emotional…

….

Jim Butler used to do that. And he created a sensation. And there was a little interest in him.

Derrick: So you want someone who’s really not.. Someone who’s really kind of an entertainer, right?

Len: I would think you do, but what Robert wants…

Blackwell: No, I think you have to... First of all, you have, to have. It’s like Jeff Gordon, but he doesn’t have his whole racetrack. So where are you (framed)? You know. You could get like, Bo Jackson. Right? Just like having Ali with no boxing ring. The problem is that whoever you get, there is no vehicle for them to shine. So imagine Ali

Len: So how are you going to get them?

Blackwell: What I think you got to do is you got to... You have to invest in the popularity of the sport. You have to put on events so they’ll be on television. You have to feature personalities so that people will have a mental picture… I think we could, what did skateboarding do? I think you could go back and figure out what skateboarding did and see where the model…

Len: Well, my gosh. ... Let me ask you how did skateboarding get on ESPN?

Blackwell: Yeah. Well I guess skateboarding got on ESPN, because, I think it was a combination of things, manufactures invested in,

Len: What they want their products…

Blackwell: Manufacturers and ESPN went to ESPN and someone talked about these eXtreme sports. They were trying to figure out the male 18 to 34 demographic.

Wayne Johnson: ….

Blackwell: Well I’m going to play with a partner? Well I got to glue up..

Wayne: Well, you don’t have to worry about anything because this guy is a 2000 player, he’s a 2000 player…

Blackwell: Well he’s a lot better than me.

Len: What is this the Under 3500?

Wayne: 3600.

Len: Wait a minute. What is Robert’s rating?

Wayne: 1500.

Blackwell: It’s a thousand (smiles).

Len: Is it?

Blackwell: Yeah. It’s, it’s 3 years old.

Len: And it’s gone down since then?

Blackwell: I haven’t played in a tournament..

Len: Ha, ha, huh, ha, hee, ha, ha, ha, hee… Ah, good luck. Ha, ha, huh, hu, he, he, ha. Oh, who’s your first team to play?

Blackwell: You got a locker room or something?

Derrick: Ah, umm, hmm… You know actually

Randy Rainbolt: You guys seeking a small privacy area to change, you can go right in this room here (pointing).

Blackwell: I also have to glue in there.

Len: Good luck. You could win. You could win.

--Rob

4 of 7 Posted 5:54 AM	Msg 18814.4 reply to 18814.3
From Nitrx2 To Robert Trudell (mesapong)

Some things in the translation of my conversation were taken out of context and I think mis translated. I never said Fan is not a good player, he is. I may have been comparing him to some other international players, I don't remmber the context.

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5 of 7 Posted 6:51 AM	Msg 18814.5 reply to 18814.3
From willy32 To Robert Trudell (mesapong)

It seems to me, from this conversation (which is terribly confusing by the way) it seems that the sport would propser from an "image everything" conscious entertainer like Andre Agassi was in the old days of Tennis. His long hair and brashness along with his talent won him alot of fans and enemies in the same light, but I think the attention garnered by those outside of the hard core Tennis outfit helped the sport further rise up thru the ranks.

I remember playing tennis in highschool and college and Agassi's attitude, demeanor, dress and play were very influential on us all.

Just my take

Willy Leparulo

USATT College Representative

www.usatt.org/college

NCTTA Recruitment Director

www.nctta.org

For questions about USATT please visit the USATT forum: www.usatt.org and clicking forum

http://www.ping-pong.com/cgi-bin/redirect.cgi?goto=/shopping.php&code=nctta_pres

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6 of 7 Posted 6:56 AM	Msg 18814.6 reply to 18814.5
From FRIENDofMONKEYNIP (PQspin) To willy32

I couldn't follow the conversation. After a few minutes, I had to shut it off.

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7 of 7 Posted 7:50 AM	Msg 18814.7 reply to 18814.4
From TTFAN5 (TTFAN51) To Nitrx2

I was told that an interview with you was aired recently on Fox News. The piece on CBS' Early Show featuring the Brewer brothers was very good. Any other Killerspin-related TV news spots coming up?

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8 of 8 Posted 8:40 AM	Msg 18814.8 reply to 18814.4
From grxymkjbm To Nitrx2

"I never said Fan is not a good player, he is."

Mr. Blackwell, are you now or have you ever been a member of The Communist Party?

Chip Gilchrist

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9 of 9 Posted 10:39 AM	Msg 18814.9 reply to 18814.8
From Nitrx2 To grxymkjbm

I am a member of the Martian Party

Options

kimei

Advanced user

Joined: 05/08/2004
Posts: 55

Posted: 06/29/2005 at 11:16am \| IP Logged \| Report Post

thanks for that, rob,

but what i was really interested in was the arbitration w/USATT and his side of what happened (and what is happening) with that. i watched that video (part 2) and cuz it was done so badly, 90% of it was unintelligible, even with the volume turned all the way up!!

a lot of people out there are totally in the dark about this whole thing between him and usatt and would like to hear his side of the thing. up to now, we've only heard usatt's side.

now, this video has come out and, though he spoke at length on this and other things, we still literally can't 'hear' what he has to say!!

backhandloop
Standard

Joined: 05/23/2005
Posts: 44

Posted: 06/29/2005 at 2:21pm \| IP Logged \| Report Post

>>a lot of people out there are totally in the dark about this whole thing between him and usatt and would like to hear his side of the thing. up to now, we've only heard usatt's side.<<

You're just reading the wrong forum. He was fairly candid a while back at about.com.

kimei

Advanced user

Joined: 05/08/2004
Posts: 55

Posted: 06/29/2005 at 2:25pm \| IP Logged \| Report Post

backhandloop wrote:

oh wow!! i didn't know that!! you're talking about sean o'neill's website, right?

i have to take a look at that--hopefully, it's still there...

you don't, by any chance, remember when that was, do you??

backhandloop
Standard

Joined: 05/23/2005
Posts: 44

Posted: 06/29/2005 at 2:52pm \| IP Logged \| Report Post

If I remember correctly, it was shortly after the article announcing the arbitration went up on the USATT site.

Robert Trudell
Super user

Joined: 05/22/2004
Location: United States
Posts: 177

Posted: 06/29/2005 at 8:42pm \| IP Logged

kimei wrote:

but what i was really interested in was the arbitration w/USATT and his side of what happened (and what is happening) with that. i watched that video (part 2) and cuz it was done so badly, 90% of it was unintelligible, even with the volume turned all the way up!!

a lot of people out there are totally in the dark about this whole thing between him and usatt and would like to hear his side of the thing. up to now, we've only heard usatt's side.

now, this video has come out and, though he spoke at length on this and other things, we still literally can't 'hear' what he has to say!!

Last week, I heard the USATT and Killerspin spent $150,000 on the arbitration over a total disputed amount of $5000.

I also heard there is one key sentence on the Part 2 video that helps USATT's case.

I was attempting to do the transcripts in pieces and Part 3 seemed the easiest to handle first.

--Rob

kimei

Advanced user

Joined: 05/08/2004
Posts: 57

Posted: 06/30/2005 at 9:09am \| IP Logged \| Report Post

if that's true, that's outrageous!! fighting over what will end up being a drop in the bucket!!

Tournaments

Have a talk with Robert Blackwell!

Discussion 16685

1 of 4 Posted 11/20/04 8:49 PM	Msg 16685.1
From wjohn52 To ALL

The Phoenix Table Tennnis Club is happy to announce that Robert Blackwell will be at the Valley of the Sun tournament December 4 & 5 to talk to people about table tennis. We feel this is a great opportunity to be able to sit down an carry on some good conversations involving the sport.

So get your entry forms in! The entry form can be downloaded from the club's web site at www.phoenixtabletennisclub.org or you can use the online registration option also!

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2 of 4 Posted 11/20/04 10:33 PM	Msg 16685.2 reply to 16685.1
From Sean P. O'Neill (ab_tabletenn) To wjohn52

Get someone to audio tape it and I would be happy to stream it!

Sean P. O'Neill

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