The market failure in community table tennis

For a brief length of time, I considered wearing brand clothing to a usual hole-in-the-building table tennis place, like stiga socks, butterfly jersey / shorts. And then I realised I'd be the odd one out because the kind of TT players I really like - the academy trained, go all-out ones - don't even visit the place. And I think it's mainly because it suffers from a market failure of having too many poor players and too few tables - there's only 1 that's almost competition grade - so the provision of really good table tennis games is woefully limited, and the format is often forced to be doubles which gets old real fast. 

But this post is not so much about branded apparel as it is about the problem of "stayers" in community sports venues. Given the table tennis space I'm talking of is not a hall or room - there are no bookings - wearing branded apparel is like wearing a tuxedo to a cheap food night market. Sure, it can also be a statement that one is a real table tennis player with skills to match the title, someone who has some qualification or accomplishments in the sport. Someone who's not just a stayer because he attends regularly but because other community club members value his game, mentorship or character. 

The economics of this form of open community table tennis is also interesting when one looks at the rackets the players bring. $400 - occasionally $700 - Sgd rackets galore, where $275 can already get you a racket Olympic medallists will tell you is good enough - with enough power to make errant balls bruise your fingers. But because of the half-outdoor and windy nature of the place and the ageing and therefore inelastic tabletop, energy loss in the ball bounce makes the game less than academy-level crisp and controlled. Another reason why top players might not want to play there. 

The problem of not-so-great stayers affects players who want to play really good table tennis in the community setting without having to drive or commute to an academy. There might be those who spend vast sums of money on rubber, blades or lessons, and are therefore incentivised to selfishly hoard the place to train because they think after investing so much they must be quite the professional, with the right to be an antisocial space hoarder. And there are those who use such poor equipment that they bring down the standard of doubles games, yet refuse to leave after losing. Perhaps roomification, setting up private TT spaces in community clubs, is the best way for really good table tennis to happen. As they say, "get a room"; in addition to open tables, community table tennis can be so much more.