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Chat Area => Archives => Topic started by: invisiblesmoke on August 09, 2008, 10:53:09 PM
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For the game of foosball to mainstream and obtain Olympic approval it may be necessary to upgrade to a regulation golf ball. A golf ball is a bit bigger than an ordinary foosball, necessitating a slightly larger playing field. This, in turn, would make the game a bit easier to televise. And the sponsors of golf equipment might start funding foosball coverage. Any thoughts? What say you on it?
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If curling is an olympic sport as it is now, why can't foosball remain the same. With the developments in technology I have no doubt that you could get great television quality. Not on everything, but after a shot for example they could slow-mo it to show how it went in. The same with a lot of passes. I think it's not a matter of bigger balls or a bigger playing field, rather allowing time to show a replay of the pass and subsequent shot after each goal.
This would drastically slow down the pace of the game, but as far as televising foosball it seems like the most sound option, rather than trying to change the mechanics or table that it's played on. What you're asking for is like asking basketball to make their hoop 11' instead of 10' regulation.
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no
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a bigger ball and a bigger table is a terrible idea, i don't like it at all anyway. I agree that slow motion and higher speed cameras would be the best way to do it. Having a yellow ball and yellow man on warrior is a bad idea for viewing too. I like the idea of getting foos to the Olympics obviously, I think we have a better chance of that than of getting it televised. might be wrong on that though as I havn't looked into how hard that would be. Golf and foosball are unrelated, the best funding we could get is definitely from beer companies and energy drink companies. Guaranteed if Red Bull put on a big foos tourney it would have WAY more people at it than any current tour, and it would be mostly either newbie or college players. Get sponsorship like that and we might see foos make a breakthrough to the general public.
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I have been fortunate through my association with Inside Foos to be sitting next to Fox Sports and Mr. Savage, the guy who made the necessary changes to poker which has made it famous on tv. at one of the last worlds in Dallas. It seems their biggest worry was the speed of the game and being able to see the ball on tv. They were amazed at the skill level of play. One match they saw was Rico vs. Tommy.
At the World Cup in Germany, we witnessed on of these slo mo cams in action and for sure would be needed to televise. But at 30 or 40 grand at least, it's gonna take a large operation at a large price tag to pull it off.
Sponsorship is a must for anything to happen. Companies like Corona are a step in the right direction. An adjustment of attitude is gonna have to take place. When we are overseas the sponsorship is very evident, Radio stations, beer companies, casinos even. But their culture is football driven and table soccer is just an extension of it. In America, it's just a bar game. Redbull would be great because it is devoured in Europe also.
If we Americans can get over the "bar mentality" of the game and see it more as global sport, maybe we will in the future, see it televised. Until then.........
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I have been fortunate through my association with Inside Foos to be sitting next to Fox Sports and Mr. Savage, the guy who made the necessary changes to poker which has made it famous on tv. at one of the last worlds in Dallas. It seems their biggest worry was the speed of the game and being able to see the ball on tv. They were amazed at the skill level of play. One match they saw was Rico vs. Tommy.
At the World Cup in Germany, we witnessed on of these slo mo cams in action and for sure would be needed to televise. But at 30 or 40 grand at least, it's gonna take a large operation at a large price tag to pull it off.
Sponsorship is a must for anything to happen. Companies like Corona are a step in the right direction. An adjustment of attitude is gonna have to take place. When we are overseas the sponsorship is very evident, Radio stations, beer companies, casinos even. But their culture is football driven and table soccer is just an extension of it. In America, it's just a bar game. Redbull would be great because it is devoured in Europe also.
If we Americans can get over the "bar mentality" of the game and see it more as global sport, maybe we will in the future, see it televised. Until then.........
In Holland it's the same problem, table soccer is seen as a bar-or coffeeshopgame, same like darts use to be until Van Barneveldt won the Embassy and took darts to a higher level of interest for dutch sponsors and now its seen as a big sport in Holland or even Europe with big tournaments.
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For the game of foosball to mainstream and obtain Olympic approval it may be necessary to upgrade to a regulation golf ball. A golf ball is a bit bigger than an ordinary foosball, necessitating a slightly larger playing field. This, in turn, would make the game a bit easier to televise. And the sponsors of golf equipment might start funding foosball coverage. Any thoughts? What say you on it?
Adjusting the camera zoom (remotely via BlueTooth even, if you wish) at the right angle can make the table field as big as your typical soccer stadium, so why would we change the ball size or other dimensions? I believe the golf world would be more interested in a table or garage/basement floor golf game, rather than a table soccer game.
Sponsorship is a must for anything to happen. Companies like Corona are a step in the right direction. An adjustment of attitude is gonna have to take place. When we are overseas the sponsorship is very evident, Radio stations, beer companies, casinos even. But their culture is football driven and table soccer is just an extension of it. In America, it's just a bar game. Redbull would be great because it is devoured in Europe also.
I completely agree with the sponsorship need, myself having run a small no-entry weekly local with tri-annually sponsored larger tournaments for years with good sponsors. These were all at a local hip college/downtown bar, called the Lost Weekend, in West Palm Beach with the downtown crowd and Palm Beach Atlantic University supplying the players. Getting NewCastle Ale and later Grolsch to pitch in signs, hundreds of giveaway soccer balls, shirts, caps, etc., and BOTH prep & prize money really made promoting & running them a breeze. Unique prizes like the Jupiter table from Grolsch and official NewCastle United (their Premier Soccer League team's) $300 Goalkeeper jackets really sweetened the pot. They and the bar paid me well, too.
And yes, Red Bull or Monster would be the same type marketing-hungry entities today.
But what is this about slo-mo and replays? Who's been hiding in a hole and doesn't know about YouTube, MySpace, FacePage, etc???? Haven't these people heard of Google? A considerable number of the foosball vids on YouTube and Yahoo! or AOL Videos already incorporate slo-mo replays and different view angles! Putting slo-mo replays on online vids for entertainment or training purposes has already been done for years! It's a trivial effect done by hundreds if not thousands of uploaders in their bedroom, home office or wherever. 11yr olds, for chrissake!
Any football or basketball playoff or championship game already has its crucial or notable plays immediately shown in slo-mo. And I do agree that it is high time that Jim Stevens or any other foosball videographer put them in. Hi-res hi-speed minicams mounted on the table ends or on the lighting support arms can easily be incorporated for closeups at different angles.
In fact, I am curious as to why Jim Stevens and others do not do just that, now that hi-res minicams are extremely affordable, since they would certainly make his vids that much more valuable as training aids, with two or more viewing angles. Their basic DVD mastering programs already incorporate mixing synchronized tracks that allow you to switch or splitscreen combo multiple video streams AND slo-mo from multiple cams, and I mean dirt cheap basic freebie progs!
But then again, DVD's and even Blu-Ray are getting obsolete, so Jim & Inside Foos will probably concentrate on live and archived hi-speed vid feeds, less & less on DVD's but more towards selling subscriptions and/or downloads. They don't really have any choice, anymore than BlockBuster or Sony Music or any number of porno publishers.
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Amen, is about all I can say to your post. I think the game, with major sponsorship, would be very easily televised. It's just a matter of getting ESPN or somebody to cover it. They cover bowling, billiards, and darts which I would consider to be in the same 'league' as Foosball. Sure they probably would only be interested in filming Pro Dbl/Singles at a large venue, such as the world cup or the worlds in vegas. What's needed isn't modification to playing, rather the drive to find these larger sponsors and to spark interest in television.
Even in poker what you usually see mass video of is the No-Limit Hold 'Em, even though the world series of poker has a multitude of games at different pay-in/out levels. Granted the amount of money paid out is more appealing than say, a sport like foosball. But with a big sponsor payouts for champions could be increased. I also believe that something as simple as a "table jacket" for sponsors could be employed. That way whatever table was used, they could simply slip some signage on the table. Only concern with that would be to make sure that the signage in no way obstructed the rods and gameplay.
I think that Foosball is generally unknown to the masses as well, the best thing that people can do is try to show people. Drag some friends to the bar to your local tournaments, or even try to get local people out to watch larger tournaments. You don't necessarily have to play foosball to have an appreciation for it, and I think even people who don't play could have an appreciation for the level of skill involved. Having not attended a major tournament, does the general public usually know that a tournament is going on? Are signs hung around the town and community?
I would honestly probably subscribe to something like Inside Foos, especially if it offered matches and training videos. That way, you can watch what you want, when you want... and don't have to fumble through a DVD to find the match or information you're looking for.
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But what is this about slo-mo and replays? Who's been hiding in a hole and doesn't know about YouTube, MySpace, FacePage, etc?Huh Haven't these people heard of Google? A considerable number of the foosball vids on YouTube and Yahoo! or AOL Videos already incorporate slo-mo replays and different view angles! Putting slo-mo replays on online vids for entertainment or training purposes has already been done for years! It's a trivial effect done by hundreds if not thousands of uploaders in their bedroom, home office or wherever. 11yr olds, for chrissake!
Any football or basketball playoff or championship game already has its crucial or notable plays immediately shown in slo-mo. And I do agree that it is high time that Jim Stevens or any other foosball videographer put them in. Hi-res hi-speed minicams mounted on the table ends or on the lighting support arms can easily be incorporated for closeups at different angles.
What we are talking about is instant replays, not after the fact. This takes a special camera that is the size of a great dane and special software. Anybody can do a slo mo replay a week later. We were talking about as it is televised. This cannot be done with consumer equipment available today. Professional, yes. And like I said before, this is a 30 or 40 thousand dollar camera.
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If you look at alot of other secondary sports, they are rarely televised as a live feed. World Series of Poker is a prime example. They film thousands of hours of film, just to snip it apart and show the highlights. The same could be applied to foosball. Of course all of us here would LOVE to see Live foosball as it was being played, this however isn't as probable as the second situation. Take a lot of video and use what you can. Show the key matches, the quarters onwards. I think Foosball is at a point where any publicity is good publicity. I'm fairly certain that most of us talking about replay and slow-mo are under the assumption that an event could be recorded and then later televised. This would give time for editing, and picking out the exciting or more memorable matches, which would also make the game more appealing to new players.
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If they can follow a hockey puck they can follow a foosball
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remember the "streaking" hockey puck of the mid 90's. HAHAHA good stuff.
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well put my friend
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Steve hit on what I was going to say. Make the ball glow on screen and then when a shot is made capture the "streak" of the shot so as to show how the shot was made and the shape of it. I'll talk to my son, he is a videographer for a local TV station. He has a HD camera and does all the computer generations and such. It would be interesting to see how many frames per second that would be needed to show a quality replay.
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well considering the speed of the cameras and everything that they use for other events, I don't think it'll be any problem; they're pretty well-equipped.
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well with Bigger Balls and Heavier Rods we will definately attrack certain groups of people
some people like the pink fuzzy balls and others the smooth yellow ones...hard to pick isn't it?
heavy solid rod, hollow rod, "telescoping" rod ... so many rods to choose from but people seem to like the first rod they played with best
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The Olympic sanctioning committee is not going to qualify a sport where people all over the world have to buy balls or tables from one United States company who has patents on the equipment or is the only manufacturer. There is going to have to be an official standardized table for people of all countries to practice and get good on. And there must be a standard ball, like a golf ball, that is available all over the world. If the current top players are going to get a shot at big money and product sponsorships, it will be because some insightful players have a vision and design a standardized table and equipment, and make the plans available free, in the public domain, for anyone to make and sell officially sanctioned top-notch foosball tables anywhere in the world.
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the ITSF is working toward standardization...it needs to be someone like the ITSF who is independent from the table manufacture so there isn't a conflict of interest
i think with foosball, the standards will be within in ranges and per table...like a ball used on Garlando has to be within certain tollerances (weight and size) and limited to certain materials but Tech Ball would have a different set of Tolerences
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The Olympic sanctioning committee is not going to qualify a sport where people all over the world have to buy balls or tables from one United States company who has patents on the equipment or is the only manufacturer.
I don't know if that's even a prerequesit for qualifying any sport.
.....There is going to have to be an official standardized table for people of all countries to practice and get good on.
Why? No sport is like that....other than having a standard set of rules and a standard for playfield or court dimentions and equipment maximum and minimum tollerances.
Although the rules of foosball can require some interpretation, they are standardized. And I would tend to believe that most tournament tables are within the same dimentions as well. Give or take.
.......And there must be a standard ball, like a golf ball, that is available all over the world.
If you're suggesting that all golf balls are the same, then you obviously don't play golf. Other than being the same weight and circumference, it's incredible how much different they are from each other. This one is softer, that one is harder, the other one generates more spin and the other generates less spin. Also some are designed to travel further, some less. Some fly higher for less roll and others fly flatter for more roll.....The same goes for tennis too....some tennis balls travel faster and have less bounce, while others travel slower with more bounce.....
I could keep going, but Im sure you get the picture.
.....If the current top players are going to get a shot at big money and product sponsorships, it will be because some insightful players have a vision and design a standardized table and equipment, and make the plans available free, in the public domain, for anyone to make and sell officially sanctioned top-notch foosball tables anywhere in the world.
If the plans were not paten protected and made available for free to everyone, then who would buy one when you can just make your own? If everyone could make their own then anyone trying to sell them would be going broke.
Thank God For Commerce!
I get where your going with that though. And your right about being more standardized, just not so much to the extreme.
That could drive the game right out of existence.
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I still like my idea of a table that allows quick lock in placement of your own personal rods with your own selection of men and handles, even bushings. The table play field and the ball would be standard.
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back to the original topic, does TecBall use a bigger ball? no matter what, the white ball is WAY more video friendly, if someone was a non fooser the best game to watch on tecball... except for those stupid washers that rattle around making the clicking noise. watch yore vs saban on tecball to see what i mean
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back to the original topic, does TecBall use a bigger ball?
No. Same size as the T-ball.
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With speeds of a tiny fraction of a second, foosball tolerances mean more to a dedicated pro than to the weekend hacker. In order to allow for fairness with people traveling around the world to participate in international events, it is only fair that table and ball standards are equal everywhere. For professionals from afar to show up for a big event and have the equipment changed from what they practiced on is totally unacceptable. Foosball demands greater standardization than most other sports because it is such a precision game.
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The Olympic sanctioning committee is not going to qualify a sport where people all over the world have to buy balls or tables from one United States company who has patents on the equipment or is the only manufacturer. There is going to have to be an official standardized table for people of all countries to practice and get good on. And there must be a standard ball, like a golf ball, that is available all over the world. If the current top players are going to get a shot at big money and product sponsorships, it will be because some insightful players have a vision and design a standardized table and equipment, and make the plans available free, in the public domain, for anyone to make and sell officially sanctioned top-notch foosball tables anywhere in the world.
Excuse me for asking this invisi, but .... honestly, what planet are you posting from?
As in the case of Olympic tennis (thats over 10 years now, in case you went "Castaway" on us :D)... There is a standard surface, standardized acceptable parameters for the rackets and all equipment, standardized rules and codes that every Olympian has to follow, FOR OLYMPIC PLAY ONLY.
There are no declarations OR sanctions about what each country or federation or international body like the ATP, can use. Each group, for example Western Europe, the grass courters like Wimbledon, and the hard-courters like in the US and many other world regions, go happily chugging along with THEIR standards, and noone is idiotic enough to suggest they standardize. Matching surfaces OR the balls between the three is as LUDICROUS an idea as you can hope to come up with. You wanna play the clay court tour, you play with their balls!
Olympic Basketball, Soccer, Table Tennis and Badminton are very similar! Standardized (or approved) Olympic balls, bats, and shuttle***s made by any f*ck*ng manufacturer are required in the Olympic events, but as with Table Tennis Manufacturer Nittaku (Japan) or Friendship (China) or Sportcraft, they have equipment for standard play in their region and those that are Olympic or World Championships certified. For US brands, Penn and others are similarly structured in their market segments.
And just as ThisWeekInFoosball described, international golf, tennis, foosball, or whatever is NOT helped by exclusively using Olympic or international standards. In fact, many players and promoters have come to the conclusion now with Tornado is that its 10year effort to get ITSF-cloned has been for the most part either no help or actually harmful to the US foosball players. Just like that idiot Stern's 10year struggle to get NBA basketball globalized has helped everybody else's basketball programs, but certainly hasn't made any extra incursions into helping local US programs. Oh yeah, they expanded their market, but for their own wallets and nothing to do with US players, urban and suburban communities or interests, as you can see from the horrific results of the last decade after the initial "Dream Team", until the publicity changed their efforts.
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With speeds of a tiny fraction of a second, foosball tolerances mean more to a dedicated pro than to the weekend hacker. In order to allow for fairness with people traveling around the world to participate in international events, it is only fair that table and ball standards are equal everywhere. For professionals from afar to show up for a big event and have the equipment changed from what they practiced on is totally unacceptable. Foosball demands greater standardization than most other sports because it is such a precision game.
Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal arrive in Europe for the clay court tour major events after coming from an almost "alien" different set of conditions from the Aussie Open. After several weeks of this, they then arrive after the French Open in England and other places to start playing on grass court events with absolutely different strokes, footwork, balls, and surfaces. Then they start the hardcourt events in switching to the US Open tour!!!
Tiger Woods, Lefty, and Vijay Singh go to England in the middle of the PGA tour to play on the hard, almost billiard table-like surfaces of the British Open to play, then they continue on. UNACCEPTABLE? WTF are you talking about? Professional foosball players merit more consideration than these guys? The best players like Rico adjust to any table, and all conditions! The differences and the ability to overcome them is the hallmark of all great players! No injustice to Joe Foos or Pepe bebefoot or Hans kickerman, because they don't have to leave their region!
The best professional (top 15 of 20) table tennis players in the world grew up practicing with super heavy Friendship balls on concrete fr*gg*ng tables all over China. You hear them complain when they play on Stiga or Yasaka tables in the Asian or European tour? Ok, so, let me ask again, which GALAXY and which dimension of reality are you from? : ;D 8) :P
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What we are talking about is instant replays, not after the fact. This takes a special camera that is the size of a great dane and special software. Anybody can do a slo mo replay a week later. We were talking about as it is televised. This cannot be done with consumer equipment available today. Professional, yes. And like I said before, this is a 30 or 40 thousand dollar camera.
Ice,
As this typical link from the first pull on Google:
http://www.sjmediasystem.com/buf-sport40.html (http://www.sjmediasystem.com/buf-sport40.html)
Instant slo-mo has been available for years, under $7000 for professionals (available used, too in the $4K's!), is smaller than a notebook or laptop, and is pretty much standard with even the vantrucks for any major cable or newschannel. Works with any standard input, even Al Jazeira camera crews! Sat feeds show that the former soviet Eastern Europe channels and South American and Asian crews all have them. It's a ... L-I-V-E !!....
So you think even a local sports cablechannel or network like NESN or Raycom or other would have a problem with this? You're saying Jim Stevens or ThisWeekInFoosball couldn't incorporate this tax-deductible, expensable item in their live feeds? Brah, you been hangin' with invisitoke? :D
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I can see you have put some effort into your reply, but it would most likely not appeal to the real decision makers. I enjoy the passion with which you put forth your one-sided opinions, but the Olympic committee wouldn't. Rather, they would think that you are attempting to grab the spotlight and show off some obscure facts you happen to know about different topics.
Try thinking about how to persuade a bunch of bureaucrats who don't give a damn about foosball to give our sport a chance. Once you can see things from their perspective, you will gain some insight into how foosball as a community needs to portray itself to the elite. Within your discussion lies a kernel of truth that agrees with my proposition, but I believe there is also a fallacy at the core of your argument.
Let's see how well you can argue the other side of the coin. Your assignment, if you chose to accept it, is to set forth acceptable guidelines as can be expounded to the Olympic committee. The goal is to spawn acceptance of foosball as an Olympic sport, and give clear guidelines to standardized rules and equipment for Olympic athletes all over the world. The rules part we pretty much have down. But the equipment standards need some work.
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Long time no posting but i cant help but hear the people at tourneys blaming the fact that the table at their home doesnt play the same as the table in that bar they stopped in at in germany as an excuse for getting murdered by a local. The fact of the matter is you wont ever hear the pros that play for a living bitching about bonzini being different than tornado...they dont care...they are so good it doesnt matter and if they dont practice on the table that the upcoming event is played on then tough sh**. Excuses are like assholes..we all got em and they all stink. Quit bitching about the table diversity. Next year I hear that wimbledon will change their surface to clay and the us open to grass....no wait all courts need to be the same..
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I can see you have put some effort into your reply, but it would most likely not appeal to the real decision makers. I enjoy the passion with which you put forth your one-sided opinions, but the Olympic committee wouldn't. Rather, they would think that you are attempting to grab the spotlight and show off some obscure facts you happen to know about different topics.
One-sided opinions? I just illustrated how ridiculous your arguments were about having to standardize to one set of equipment as necessary or even helpful to the sport. Of course there has to be a standard for Olympic play! Millions of players across our planet, Earth (which one's yours?), go happily playing with the local equipment, often from several manufacturers, in tennis, basketball, hockey, badminton, table tennis, and a myriad of other Olympic event sports. AND Olympic players know they have to adjust to the set of approved Olympic competition equipment and locations. This becomes very important in strategy and pretraining, of course, as when a host country selects a location or playing field, as well as supply equipment that favors them. If your tennis players favor hardcourt, your country will select the approved hardcourt surface for venues. Next Olympics, it could be on clay, with the appropriate clay court balls used by that country's players. GET THE CLUE... YOUR COUNTRY's PLAYERS WILL USE WHATEVER ACCEPTED and APPROVED EQUIPMENT IS FURNISHED AND AVAILABLE. Do you for one minute believe that in Olympic Ski Jump they clone the ramps ? Or even the newest one, BMX racing?
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Try thinking about how to persuade a bunch of bureaucrats who don't give a damn about foosball to give our sport a chance. Once you can see things from their perspective, you will gain some insight into how foosball as a community needs to portray itself to the elite. Within your discussion lies a kernel of truth that agrees with my proposition, but I believe there is also a fallacy at the core of your argument.
Thinking? No mystery about adding an Olympic event! Get a consensus of regional org in your country, create a national org, probably with most officials from regional orgs, & create an Olympic homologation committee. Then get consensus of national or Olympic committees from as many Olympic nations as you can. Have 1 or a thousand meetings to agree on player qualifications, the SET of standardized equipment and venues ACCEPTABLE, & FUNDING. Obviously ITSF is in the forefront. If the Olympic events committee agrees with arguments & PROOF of participation among countries, they can put it on the slate for exhibition, and they battle it out with all the others. It certainly helps to have a mature amateur/pro league, or even better, many leagues, with creditable audiences. Then, besides the effort and work, you have to PAY MONEY. MONEY. MONEY. MONEY. For dues, officiating, awards, et al.
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Let's see how well you can argue the other side of the coin. Your assignment, if you chose to accept it, is to set forth acceptable guidelines as can be expounded to the Olympic committee. The goal is to spawn acceptance of foosball as an Olympic sport, and give clear guidelines to standardized rules and equipment for Olympic athletes all over the world. The rules part we pretty much have down. But the equipment standards need some work.
The previous World Cup had more tables, if I recall. Now it's 5. Olympic tennis allows a standardized clay/sandshell, grass (for London), and several artificial "hard" surfaces, & one set of "Olympic" rules. Using the same foosball World Cup format, bringing 5 sets of tables & balls is just as practical, and even more egalitarian and fair, which is a lot harder to do in tennis. It also guarantees interest from several dozen nations that prefer one or more of the tables. No need to affect the tables currently in use in all those countries! One or more manufacturers may add an Olympic "approved" table and balls and men, if desired, to their line of products, but that's all! But that has absolutely nothing to do with getting Olympic status. At least on this planet.
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Be careful to weed out marketing myths that have no basis in economic reality. The big money comes to other sports because there are equipment standards defined enough to allow independent companies to produce accessories, e.g. balls, racquets, etc., profitably, and to demand star players for endorsements. That will happen only when certain changes take place on the foosball landscape.
Being an expert or professional foosball player does not necessarily qualify someone to make determinations about the future of the sport. At present it appears that many top foosers either don't realize what is in their best interests, or have knuckled under at the threat of being blackballed from participation.
That said, we must give credit to some elite players who have tried to make changes, and some of you know who they are. Certain steps could be taken that would not only make the current foosball industry much more profitable, but would make some of our top athletes very wealthy men. And money at the top would resurrect our sport, causing an influx of players like happened in the seventies.