August 24, 2006

P. O. BOX
343292, BARTLETT, TN 38184   USA

ATTENTION:  NEWS, EVENTS, SPORTS
EDITORS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TABLE SOCCER SEES
SIGNIFICANT WORLDWIDE GROWTH

- Recent World Cup of Soccer Ignites Enthusiasm for “Foosball”
-

Denver, CO - In parallel with the four-year
long build up to this year’s FIFA World Cup of Soccer, the International
Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) has aggressively been working with over 35
member national federations and associations around the world to maximize
exposure for the game commonly known as “foosball,” seeking to gain
greater recognition as a sport by the public, news media, national sports
ministries and worldwide sports organizations. The results have been
impressive, with the total number of local, national and international
tournaments and leagues growing significantly, right along with media and
sponsor interest (not to mention manufacturer sales)!

For example, the ITSF’s World Cup of Table Soccer tournament
recently came to a close on Sunday, May 28, 2006 after a four day roller
coaster of intensely competitive and emotional match play. Held at the famed
Fischauktionshalle in Hamburg,
Germany, about
200 of the world’s most elite “foosball” players competed as
part of a 20-nation team playoff for the World Cup title. Each nation, having
selected eight to ten of their country’s best players, competed in a
combination of doubles and singles events for both men and women. With media
promotions tied directly into FIFA’s World Cup of Soccer, also hosted in Germany,
over 60 television and other news media covered the tournament throughout the
weekend. In all, over a thousand spectators and millions of TV viewers
witnessed a weekend full of twists, surprises and upsets as each of the
world’s top-ranked teams fell to highly charged and aggressive
challengers.

Sponsors of the event included Carlsberg Brewery, Argo Personal,
Sportstadt Hamburg, Fabula-Film and the DEHOGA Hamburg hotel and restaurant
association, while sponsors of the U.S. National Foosball Team, among others,
included Nike™, Brunswick’s Tornado Table Soccer™,
Bonzini™ USA, Tornello Enterprises, Foosball.com, Rod-lock.com and TTR
MasterWraps.

In a true test of all around foosball skills, the competition took
place on five different ITSF “Official” styles of tables: Tornado
Table Soccer™, Bonzini™, Garlando, EuroSoccer, and Roberto-Sport.
Often regarded as the “big five” of foosball manufacturing, these
traditional home recreation and coin-industry companies have been riding the
wave of re-surging sales growth, each with their own “ITSF
Official” models built to conform to new international tournament
standards. Said Dave Courington, of Brunswick’s
Tornado Table Soccer, “The work of the ITSF is potentially of great
benefit to our worldwide sales. Our table has been considered as the industry
standard in the USA
for thirty years, so we were pleased to find that though we don’t even
have a European table soccer distributor, our table was selected as the
“home” table by the majority of nations competing at the World Cup.
I’d say the added exposure from ITSF’s promotions and sanctioned
tournaments has been a huge plus for us, and we fully support their continued
efforts.” Other manufacturers echoed similar supportive sentiments,
noting upsurges in sales to more and more new countries where the ITSF had
established ties.

The ITSF, based in Nantes,
France and run
by its President, Farid Lounas, has further extensively worked to regulate the
sport in accordance with international Olympic standards. ITSF has established
a single codified set of playing rules for all tables, quality standards and
measurements criteria for participating manufacturers, a worldwide player
ranking system and a development fund to help establish and guide organizations
in new member countries.

“ITSF is a non-profit, all volunteer ruling body and
organization, but the active work of Farid, his staff and the ITSF Executive
Commission has meant a whole lot more than that to the game and the
sport,” said Larry Davis, Executive Director of the United States Table
Soccer Federation (USTSF). “We’ve witnessed growing excitement all
the way from the grass-roots video arcade, youth center or sports pub levels up
to professional competition for hundreds of thousands of dollars in a
tournament.”

“Indeed,” Davis continued, “over the last four years
we’ve seen a massive increase in the number of foosball websites,
bulletin boards and ‘blogs,’ TV spots (such as on ESPN, Fox Sports,
popular TV shows and commercials for Pepsi, MTV, and Right Guard) and charity
involvement via benefit tournaments. There are even a number of films and
documentaries filmed around the sport, either in the works or pending release,
while according to the USTSF’s tracking service our last four tournament
press releases alone have received nearly a million hits and been picked up by
over 2,000 media outlets worldwide. And now more than ever before you can see a
huge variety foosball tables for sale at places like Sears, WalMart, Sportmart
and even on eBay, so there must be a corresponding and significant increase in
market demand.”

The enthusiasm doesn’t stop there -- more of ITSF’s
sanctioned World Tour events have been taking place in Canada, the Czech
Republic, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, United
States (including Minnesota and Texas), the UK and more. Having already
finished the World Cup in Germany and “World Series” events in
Belgium, France and Austria, the 2006 tour will culminate this fall with the $100,000
Tornado World Championships Series tournament at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas
(September 20-24). The traditional season-end finale will then be the ITSF
World Championships Masters Playoff in St. Vincent, Italy (November 4-8), a
“best of the best” playoff of all the year’s top male and
female tour champions in singles and doubles. All told, this year’s tour
will be the largest worldwide table soccer pro tour ever!!

For additional
details about these events and the sport of table soccer, please see the
following websites:

www.tischfussball-wm-2006.de/eng_teams.html - Official World Cup of
Table Soccer results

www.table-soccer.org - Official ITSF web site,
international rankings and tour schedule

www.ustsf.org - Official U.S. Table
Soccer Federation website and tour schedule

www.foosball.com - General information about
the sport of table soccer

www.vifa.com - U.S. Tournament and
International League information

For more
information, photos, or for an electronic version of this release, please
contact:

Larry
Davis, Executive Director, USTSF

Tel:
1-563-580-9485; Email: [email-masked]

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