by John Pahl

The Outlook
2006 was to be a great year for Charlotte ttc.
Our club would celebrate its first year at our new facility, all our tournaments were
successful to date with the help of our sponsors, membership is up, the US Open was
scheduled here for July, things were looking up!

The Deal
Ray Filz gets the medal for perseverence. His efforts were responsible in getting
the USATT and Visit Charlotte together in considering Charlotte for this years
US Open. Executive Director Doru Gheoghe made the trip here in March to meet with
Tim Morgan from Visit Charlotte, Ray Filz & John Pahl. The Charlotte convention
center met Doru's standards, Visit Charlotte became an official sponsor along with
the Hilton host hotel. Doru was assured Charlotte ttc would be active in promoting
the US Open here helping to acquire more sponsors, advertisers & media promotion.

The Support
The Charlotte ttc website was linked to the US Open homepage advertising local
attractions as well as tournaments & exhibitions planned during June. Our top players
including Nigel Christopher, Guillermo Rosales, Pablo Perez, Edem Komlanve, Van Vu
& Giancarlo Anselmo participated in the exhibitions, some of them covered by TV.
Champion sportswear, originally slated to sponsor our club members attending the
US Open, also became the US Open official clothing sponsor.

The Mess
A local sponsor stepped up to offer $10,000.00 sponsorship. This generous offer was
turned down because a national competitor was an official Olympic sponsor. The US Open
has nothing to do with the Olympics, yet our relationship with the USOC in support
of our elite athletes overshadows everything else we do, & is typical of the poor choices,
lack of vision & lack of intestinal fortitude usatt suffers from.
The next surprising disappointment came when we were asked to canvass the downtown
businesses in hopes of getting advertising sponsorships for the US Open program guide.
Ray & I did our best but got very few responses. The #1 reason is that we are not
salesmen, & the job requires a professional to do a professional job. When you don't
do a professional job, you are amateur, & that's the impression we & Charlotte
businesses were left with.

The Warm Up
The minute Charlotte was announced as the 2006 site, I received emails & calls from
all over North & South America asking if we were hosting a warm up tournament the
weekend before the big event as has been the custom. After reviewing past warm up
tournament results, I came up with a format for a $2000 singles tournament July 1 & 2,
and a $1000 doubles event July 3. Jillians Sports bar signed on as a sponsor in
exchange for hosting an amateur tournament and exhibition in their facility, as well
as listing them as sponsors on our website & tournament clothing.

Murphys Law: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
Soon after the US Open announcement, Ft. Lauderdale, the site of the last few US Opens,
announced they would be hosting a 4 star US Open warm up tournament July 1 & 2.
I immediately contacted USatt as this would obviously hurt attendance at my tournament.
I tried to explain my case: #1. My motivation was to enhance the US Open experience by
offering this event. #2. Players attending the Charlotte warm up tournament would be
buying more Hotel rooms & spending more money with our advertisers, thus making our
sponsors happier. Happy sponsors = more sponsorship in the future. #3. Florida had
their time. This should be Charlotte's opportunity. We should not have to compete any
more than the US Open should not have to compete. Imagine if the ITTF scheduled a
Pro Tour event in Toronto the same weekend. It is also a matter of courtesy for the
host club. We worked hard to supply sponsors, advertisers & promote the event. Never
mind being rewarded, we were punished.
I received very few mailed entries, even those who originally asked for the tournament
rescheduled for Ft. Lauderdale. Not only were they giving away more prize money than
my tournament, their 1st prize was more than the US Open winner prize.

The Death Blow
At this point I still wanted to salvage what I could from this mess. I planned on
cancelling the planned tournaments & offering a smaller event to accommodate as many
as I could. Then came the death blow. My contact at Jillians had left the company,
& with him went the sponsorship. We still honored our part of the deal to promote
the US Open by hosting an amateur tournament & exhibition.

Epitaph
We now had no entries & no sponsorship. I had successfully run over 20 tournaments
over the last few years & this was the first time I cancelled an event, & the
biggest event ever planned at that. I will ask the USATT board to support a motion
to reserve the weekend for future US Opens for the host city, regardless of the location.
Hopefully this will pass & no other club have their best efforts thwarted by
beaurocratic nonsense & typical USATT backwards thinking.

Post Mortem
As this is the first US Open I have attended, & the first major tournament held in
Charlotte, we will wait for the final results & judgements as to how well it goes.
I expect the actual tournament to be professionally run. USATT, NATT & Butterfly
are not strangers to running big events.
Propelling our sports biggest event of the year to the next level regarding player
participation, spectator attendance & media coverage however is a different story.
This is where our governing body has failed us in the past. With no local advertising
budget, few national sponsors, no media relationships, oppressive entry policies &
laughable prize money, the US Open is doomed to fail at the international level if we
measure success the same way our European counterparts do.

After the Fact
Participating in the US Open was a blast.
As far as tournaments go, it was very professionally run.
There will be players that complain about different aspects:
the cost, attendance, umpiring, more bang for the buck.
Bottom line: this is not a casual, local event & should not be treated as such.
The best players will succeed & rise to the top,
players with bad habits & careless fundamentals will have a hard time.
Many events are single elimination;
if you are looking to play a lot of matches, you may be disappointed.
If you are looking to participate in a prestigious event, witness top level
athletes & maybe improve your game & outlook, this is for you.
It was not as well attended as some previous Opens, mostly due to the
ITTF Pro Tour not included this year.
Wherever the US Open will be in 2007, Charlotte or another location,
be sure to support this event. Better participation from players & spectators
is the only way we will help make table tennis a sport on par with other
professional sports & respected by media & the public.