It’s probably too late to see another Las Vegas Hardbat Classic in July from the folks at Bud Light, who last year sponsored Table Tennis’ biggest ever prize along with a huge national competition plus a very fine Las Vegas style tournament and parties. But rumor has it that there might be one in Miami this year – perhaps in the fall.
Gossima, the Table Tennis blog, suggested Miami may be the next venue about six weeks ago http://www.gossima.info/2010/02/hardbat-classic-2010.html. However I’ve heard nothing since even after contacting the Hardbat Classic via Twitter, Killerspin (a sponsor last year), and the tournament director by email.
If Bud is going to host this great touranment again I hope they’ll consider doing more with social media – at the very least keeping folks posted better about what’s going on. I think a lot of potential buzz was missed last year because the tournament details were almost impossible to find online until late in the process. In fact many probably didn’t find out until they watched the finals on ESPN months after the event.
Table Tennis is a “cool” sport everybody knows and plays, and Bud’s idea of pushing it into a new type of competitive realm with paddle and play restrictions is great – even for “real” tournament play where the paddles and play is both too good and too fast to ever attract a huge American TV audience.
Bud please bring on the Hardbat Classic!
Joe Duck 