Topic: Bigger Balls

[bbtuna]

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

[invisiblesmoke]

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.

[bbtuna]

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

[This Week In Foosball]

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.

[Old Meister]

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.

[Will17]

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

[thebodygroove]

back to the original topic, does TecBall use a bigger ball?

No. Same size as the T-ball.

[invisiblesmoke]

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. 

[foozkillah]

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 )... 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.

[foozkillah]

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? :

[foozkillah]

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

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?

[invisiblesmoke]

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.

[chance37]

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..

[foozkillah]

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?

[foozkillah]

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.