Reporter | Shi Yiying
Edit | Ren Cedar
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With the last two Olympic Games, table tennis twice to meet the traffic carnival, 2016 Rio created Zhang Jike to ride the dust, became the hottest male athlete at that time, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in the summer of 2021, so that Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu and other people, Qi Qi became a hot search regular on major social media, occasionally losing and even reaching the top of the hot search.
As the 109th world champion of Chinese table tennis, Fang Bo's popularity was once second only to Zhang Jike and Ma Long. The former Rio team first went to São Paulo to prepare for the battle, and fang bo after sparring, tested the waters live, outstanding eloquence, and contributed many "famous sayings" that are still circulating on the Internet today. After the Spring Festival Gala of National Table Tennis, Fang Bo failed to escape the performance imitation show, and his imitation of the "famous scene" of his supervisor coach Xiao Zhan was named "Is It Bad to Live" by the fans, which was widely circulated.
There are always people who say that Fang Bo is a "comedian", in fact, he was born in 1992, and his career as a national player has been quite successful. Similar to football, tennis and other sports, the "post-90s, pre-95" group of athletes face the "post-85" generation of multi-person domination for a long time. For the Chinese table tennis team, Fang Bo is the only world champion of this age group, and he also reached the men's singles final at the 2015 Suzhou World Table Tennis Championships.
2015 Suzhou World Table Tennis Championships Men's Singles Final. (Image source: Oriental IC)
In the six World Championships since 2011, Zhang Jike twice, Ma Long and Fan Zhendong have locked the "Bride Cup" (the World Table Tennis Men's Table Tennis Trophy St. Bold Cup) twice, and Fang Bo is the only Chinese male team member outside of these three to have reached the final, which is a height that Xu Xin and the young sub-main players have not reached. Unlike the Olympic singles, in which only two Chinese athletes play, the singles of the World Table Tennis Championships, in which the largest number of Chinese athletes participate, are considered to be one of the two most difficult table tennis events in the world, the other being the National Games.
To some extent, Fang Bo's table tennis career is only one Olympic Games away. In the summer of 2021 in Tokyo, Fang Bo went to witness the final opponent of the Suzhou World Table Tennis Championships Ma Long winning his fifth Olympic gold medal, and witnessed his sister Wang Manyu become the Olympic P card (substitute) for the first time used by the Chinese table tennis team... At this point, it had been a year since he had begun to think about what he was going to do when he left the national team.
Fang Bo told Interface News: "In July 2020, because of the epidemic, the Olympic Games were postponed, and the team has been closed training. At that time, I thought every day, lying in bed at night, thinking, 'I'm almost leaving the national team in these two years, so what am I going to do next?' ”
Despite being a "national ball" team, most athletes leave the national team and retire from the country, and the way out is nothing more than studying, working in the system, or transforming into a coach, or opening a club. In Fang Bo's view, he wants to try something different, and this time, he wants to be a "pioneer".
Fang Bo said: "Not only can I go to be a coach, I can also go to entrepreneurship, I think I can fight, try some things, do some things." Hope can be used as a representative of an athlete's transformation attempt. ”
In October 2021, Fang Bo officially left the national team. On February 8, 2022, the "whole world explosion" was officially launched, a company and brand name that sounds "very generous" - backed by the general trend of national fitness, using the professionalism of table tennis and the scientific and technological application of smart sports, integrating industry resources, and truly establishing an industrial map around table tennis.
"National ball" ping-pong, traffic feast under the imbalance between supply and demand
At the end of April 2022, the Chinese national table tennis team completed the quarantine and began a holiday after playing the Singapore Grand Slam tournament in March. The scheduled two-week holiday may be the longest holiday for the main players of the "national ball" before the Paris Olympics.
The fan groups accumulated by the Rio and Tokyo Olympic Games sighed in unison - "I want to watch the game!" ”
In the first quarter of 2022, the main players of the national table tennis team played only two matches in total, the Macau tournament less than a week at the end of January and the Singapore Grand Slam in the two weeks of mid-To-March, the most matches were Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin, and the two matches were a total of 7 singles and 11 doubles/mixed doubles. The most singles match was Wang Manyu, playing two full legs and 9 singles matches. In the case of a difficult match in the second quarter, such a number of games obviously cannot satisfy the appetite of fans.
Group photo of national table tennis after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. (Image source: Weibo)
"National Ball" table tennis has always been the flag of the highest place in Chinese sports, and the birth of the first world champion of New China. Since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics began to become an official event, the Chinese table tennis team has lost only a few gold medals. Especially since the Beijing Olympic Games on the doorstep of 2008, it has won four gold medals in singles and teams for four consecutive years, and only lost one gold medal in the mixed doubles of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
However, there is no direct connection between the excellent performance of professional competition and the industrial formation of mass sports. After the Tokyo Olympics became popular again, the demand of fans to watch the game changed from watching and liking to the demand for practice, the need to learn to play table tennis and play table tennis, the International Table Tennis Federation and the WTT (World Table Tennis Professional League) were powerless.
In a way, in the spotlight is the top competition, and mass sports is the basic stage. Traffic realization requires the formation of the table tennis industry and the formation of a business model.
"There are many people playing table tennis, there are many clubs and stadiums in the country, some need to make an appointment system, some coaches are not enough, and then for example, children learn to play, parents want to record the whole process," Fang Bo said, "these are the needs, the market for national fitness is very large, tens of thousands of table tennis clubs in the country, if 20% of the clubs, the introduction of our system, operation, is a very large volume." ”
Professional also need to combine technology to open up links
The club venue operation management system of The World Explosion, including the professionalism of table tennis teaching and the technicality of Baidu's cooperation ai smart sports, is the core competitiveness of the World Explosion. However, to really build up the industrial map, it is necessary to integrate the resources of the industry and open up all links.
After the 2021 Western Security Games, the national table tennis changed blood, in addition to the main Olympic players, the veteran players born before 1995 have left the team one after another. These athletes, who have just retired from the first team, are the guarantee that the whole world can provide professional table tennis teaching, which includes the curriculum system and coach training.
"For example, to teach the serve, we will recommend to the children who have just started to learn the ball, on the serve machine, one is because the ball sent out by the serve machine is stable, and correspondingly, the beginner's catch action can also be stabilized as soon as possible," Fang Bo explained, "then a coach originally had to serve, to watch the child's movements, can only use language guidance, up to four children who can only stare at a table, now not only can get started guidance, but also can watch eight children on two tables at the same time." In this way, the energy efficiency of the coach is improved. ”
March 2022, Singapore, WTT's first Grand Slam event. (Image source: Weibo)
The gym lacks fitness instructors, and the table tennis hall actually lacks table tennis instructors. For table tennis, ridicule is always Chinese will play table tennis, the boss may be stronger than the national hand, but in fact, the gap in the coach is not the boss can concurrently, the professional threshold of the grass-roots enlightenment coach is very high.
Laying a good foundation is not only important for children who are new to table tennis and only regard table tennis as a hobby, but also very important for them to become top athletes and play in the final of the World Table Tennis Championships. In recent years, when Deng Yaping, the "first great demon king", explained on CCTV, he mentioned countless times that "basic skills are too important."
The introduction of AI technology cooperated by Quanshibang and Baidu is in line with the current trend of "high-tech technology" competition in sports competitions and the radiation of comprehensive fitness from professional competitions. In the past Olympic cycle, the kayak team's achievements and breakthroughs based on technical means have been the most remarkable. Previously, Baidu and diving teams and short track speed skating teams have cooperated to help athletes optimize technical movements and improve training efficiency through AI technology.
Compared with the fully specialized project of short track speed skating, table tennis, which is more popular sports, is easier to promote in terms of Baidu sports and technology combination attempts, and has a considerable user market. The image record that represents Fang Bo's own "thoughts" will also be part of this user database.
Fang Bo said: "On the B side, we mainly cooperate with the club, and the users on the C end, if they can reach our ideal volume, 100,000 members, will have symbolic significance for table tennis teaching and the formation of the entire industry." ”
After the Tokyo Olympics, table tennis became popular again, from the rice circle to countless sports fans, fans claim to find a variety of videos to watch repeatedly, but there has been an interesting story that can not be verified - in 2009, 17-year-old Fang Bo and 15-year-old Chen Meng had partnered to play in the Asian Youth Championships mixed doubles, how the ball played shoes are off, on the great Internet, there is no video to prove...
Guarantee supply and quality, the future or the whole people ping-pong
With the system in place, the world began to "run data".
In the past month, dozens of clubs across the country have begun to introduce this operation management system, conduct experiments, and then roll it out. Large and medium-sized cities, including beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as Zhejiang, where the ball market is extremely popular, are all key points.
Fang Bo said: "In fact, it still depends on the demand, some club owners think that I only need to do one or two clubs well, then there is actually no need for this operation and management." But if you want to expand your business, if you want to scale up your club, you need to introduce this system to optimize and improve the energy efficiency of your operations. ”
At present, about half of the revenue of table tennis clubs actually goes to coaches, and the profit margin of the club is not high in addition to removing large blocks such as origin costs and equipment costs. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of coaches and expanding the scale can indeed directly increase the benefits of the club.
After the Rio Olympics, table tennis also had a wave of heat. Fang Bo and Zhang Jike at the 2017 National Games. (Image source: Oriental IC)
According to reports, the team of the whole world explosion not only sells services like consulting agencies, but also helps the club system to be implemented. The win-win point is that the club and the members it brings are equally important to the world's explosive table tennis user database.
The industrial landscape around a project, Canada's curling industry, is a very interesting example. In Canada, there are tens of thousands of curling clubs, each club has one or more curling teams, clubs organize leagues together, and league operations are quite mature from the aspects of organization, investment promotion, production and broadcasting. Eventually, Canada's curling teams for the Winter Olympics were also produced from the league.
With tens of thousands of table tennis clubs as the base, the whole world does have the opportunity to create such an industrial territory. At present, there are many various types of table tennis events in China, but most of them are independent and there is almost no linkage.
Once the world-wide system links these clubs and the user base reaches the corresponding scale, it is entirely possible to create a large league with the highest level of the Table Tennis Super League, several levels under it, and can also include student events. There can be promotions and demotions, and the folk masters can be given the opportunity to eventually challenge the national players. The setting up of mass table tennis at the National Games is obviously also an intuitive goal - after all, which boss does not want to compete with Fan Zhendong and does not want to prove that he is the boss who can play table tennis in China.
Preliminary Round of the 2021 Western Security Games. (Image source: Oriental IC)
Of course, this is the upper limit of the industrial map, for Fang Bo and the whole world explosion team test is not small, the introduction of the system, a large number of clubs to optimize the operation, and then in order to build the industrial map, and the organizational ability and investment ability in the process of layout formation, is a further test.
Under the general trend of national fitness, even if it can achieve more people, more times, more professional, more scientific participation in the sport of table tennis, it is a valuable "small goal".
With a large enough mass base and professional operation, the whole world can become the "pioneer" of the table tennis industry, then as long as the huge demand exists, it will attract the attention of capital. Once the capital enters and the cake is enlarged, there is obviously a possibility of challenging the formation of the "big goal" industrial map.
Years of hard training for the national team, can only win and can not lose the pressure of the "national ball", table tennis project on the physical and mental double test, Fang Bo has thought countless times, the first thing to leave the national team is to spend three months to travel around the world.
But now, the whole world explosion occupies all his time. This time, Fang Bo, who wants to be a "pioneer", is very serious.