After a topsy-turvy 2006 season, the Chinese Table Tennis Super
League aims to build on its strengths this year.
Last year saw teams forking out millions of yuan to sign up
China's premier paddlers, but poor attendances and sponsorship
revenues meant the strategy was a costly failure.
World No 1 Ma Lin's transfer to Shaanxi Yinhe for over 5 million
yuan (US$645,000) rattled the sport to its foundations. Ma himself
received the maximum of 1 million yuan (US$130,000), while the
other 4 million yuan (US$510,000) were divided between his former
club Shantou and the Chinese Table Tennis Administrative
Center.
His Shaanxi adventure was short-lived since Ma last Friday
announced his switch to Ningbo Haitan for just 1.3 million yuan
(US$168,000), including his 1 million yuan salary.
"Everybody is more conscious now and everybody knows what they
want. It is a good sign for the players and also for the league as
a whole," Liu Fengyan, director of the Table Tennis Administrative
Center, told China Daily.
Other big-name transfers included Wang Liqin, who moved from
Bayi to Zhejiang for 2.45 million yuan (US$316,000), and talented
Ma Long, who joined Sichuan Quanxing for 1.39 million yuan
(US$180,000) from Beijing.
"Personally I cannot say if the prices are high or low. It's the
market that is deciding the price this time," said Liu.
According to Liu, the record fee for Ma Lin was due to the
intense rivalry between Shaanxi and Ningbo, and thus dwarfed his
real market value.
In on respect, the huge investment appeared to pay off for
Shaanxi who were crowned league champions, but the brutal financial
reality soon became apparent.
"I realized we were over-budget after winning the bid," the
club's general manager Li Yihong said. "We were in debt even though
we won the league."
Realizing their debts were beyond its ability to repay, the club
sought to renegotiate eventually being granted more television
coverage and advertising opportunities by the Administrative
Center.
According to Li, the club's average annual revenue stood at 2
million yuan (US$260,000), thus making paying half that sum to a
single player utterly impractical. With Ma now gone to Ningbo,
Shaanxi will not recruit any national team players this season.
"We have to cut expenses this year if we want to stay in the
league," he said. "I don't expect anything like a top three finish
this year. This is payback for what we did last year."
Ma, meanwhile, is unfazed by his plummeting value.
"For me there is no difference," he was quoted as saying on
Sina.com. "No matter who I compete for, my target is to win the
league title."
The league will begin in June, with 10 teams from 20 cities
around China aiming to be crowned champions in September.
Despite dominating international table tennis, China has
struggled to organize a viable league system for several years.
The sport was played on a provincial level until 1998 when the
Super League was established. The league has been crippled with
issues from early on. Among these, scheduling clashes with
international competitions, team venue changes, absence from top
players due to other commitments and falling sponsorship revenues
have contributed to capsize the fledgling competition.
Originally planned over 22 rounds, the infamous 2003-04 season
plodded over 14 months with just 10 rounds played due to Olympic
preparations interrupting the schedule and angered sponsors
withdrawing their funds.
Others hold up the example of Germany, home to the most
successful professional table tennis league.
A total of 15,000 teams compete at various levels under the
German Table Tennis Association, which further oversees three
popular professional tournaments- the League Cup, League A and
League B.
Top players there have an earning potential of over two million
yuan a season, compared to the maximum one million yuan payment in
China.
Chinese paddlers have dominated global competition in recent
years, sweeping the medals at the Olympic Games in Atlanta and
Sydney, and are favorites to win again at the 2008 Beijing Games after winning the first four
International Table Tennis Federation tournaments in 2007.
(China Daily March 6, 2007)