Ideas for the Maccabiah Games
I'm in Israel right now for the Maccabiah Games (think, "Jewish Olympics"). One of my daughters is playing ping pong for the US team. Today was the first day of games. There are over 100 countries here and the opening ceremony the other day had 30,000 people (including President Biden).
Was very surprised how little the Games seemed to cater to the audience. A lot of the time we had no idea what was happening, what country was playing who, who was winning, what it was all for, what the schedule was, etc.
I felt with more attention paid to the audience they would have the potential to get greater sponsorships, more people from around the world paying attention, etc. Not sure if this was the case in the other sports but it was certainly true for ping pong.
So I wrote some ideas down about what they should do at relatively little cost.
(Sarah on back left)
1. Standings
Basic: at any given moment, what teams/individual scores were. Or at the very least, what were the prior matches and players and who won.
2. Who is playing now
At any given moment, there might have been 20 matches going on, But each country seems to have a variety of shirts and colors so I couldn't tell who was who.
So there should be some sort of electronic wall scoreboard. telling me who is on which table, what's their team, what the score is, etc. If they could even tell me their international rating (for the players who had one) that would be great.
3. The rules
Since I had never watched a professional-style ping pong match, I would've liked to have known the rules. For instance, I didn't know that in doubles you switch sides every hit. It could be either on the wall or in a pamphlet or even online.
Then I, as an audience participant, could've enjoyed it a bit more.
(Biden at the opening ceremony. Robyn took the photo).
4. Who's Up Next?
Sometimes a match was over and a table would be empty. I was always left wondering, what's going on now? There should be some visible schedule of matches so I don't have to be confused as to who was battling who for what medal, etc. I couldn't even figure out when my daughter was playing and she didn't know either.
5. An announcer
This might be over the top but it still wouldn't be hard to do.
Have an announcer who announces maybe the top game being played at any given moment. Would be fun, as a ping pong player but not an experienced one, to understand a bit better the strategies and ideas being used at the top tables.
Also, sometimes tables were playing for medals, sometimes not. An announcer would let the audience know what was at stake at the tables around the floor.
6. Streaming
Would be great if the top tables (or all of the tables) would stream on Twitch. Not for me (since I'm there) but since this is an organization that thrives on international support for participation (again, thousands of athletes are here and 100 countries) plus donations, let people be more aware of what is going on.
Even just the US could've hired a team based here to set up some cameras and stream on twitch. There are plenty of worldwide ping pong fans and some of the best players in the world are here. they can buy a few ads on twitch and start streaming and get people aware. As well as get more sponsors.
Also, it's divided into Juniors, Open, and Seniors. The Seniors are of very varying ability so would be fun to solicit more older people, regardless of skill level. Would greatly increase the amount of money made both with registrations and donations.
7. The website
For the life of me, I can't figure out how to find the other sports that are being played. Ping pong was in a high school gym in a nearby suburb of Tel Aviv.
Chess is being played here. But there was nowhere on the site I could find the chess schedule to go and watch their games. Finally I found some other site that showed me where chess was being played in Jerusalem (about an hour away) but I still don't even know the schedule.
The website doesn't have a link to the schedules! Or to the individual teams or sports. Maybe it does. But since I couldn't easily find it that's a problem no matter what.
8. The other sports
I dont know if ideas #1-6 apply to other sports but they probably do.
If so, these games, which attract already a lot of attention worldwide, could probably great benefit and make a lot more money.
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