![](//www.4rfv.com/images/no_image.jpg)
Fanatical fans: IMG on bringing the world of table tennis to a new global audience for WTT By Heather McLean
Monday, April 8, 2024 - 12:25
Print This Story
IMG works in partnership with World Table Tennis to create an exciting new broadcast for the sport
IMG is the production partner for World Table Tennis (WTT), an association that was created in 2021 to grow the sport internationally. While WTT developed the overall image of the series, IMG has been responsible for creating the production and bringing the sport to life on TV screens. From his base in Singapore, SVG Europe spoke to Rob Peile, vice president of production in Asia for IMG, to find out more.
When did you get involved with WTT and how do you work together?
We entered into our long term strategic partnership with WTT in January 2021. We actually did our first event for them at the tail end of 2020, which was in Macau, which is where it really came alive. We just wanted to help them grow the sport and see what the potential of the sport was, not only from a visual perspective, but from a distribution standpoint.
I think the great thing about our partnership is we really do work hand in glove. WTT, from a creative perspective, came out with a really great, strong brand for WTT, and they also had some really great concepts of how they were going to transform the arena experience what I would call the field of play and how it was going to look, the feel, the darker colours, and step away from always having four table tennis tables in a big sports hall together, to having one really incredible feature court.
As producers, as IMG, that's fantastic because that then gives you the ability to concentrate your cameras on what I would call a clean field of play. You don't have to worry about other games happening in the same hall. You can drop the lights, you can create a mood. And so when we came on board, hearing what WTT's plans were for the sport was really inspiring for us as producers.
Once we had the general look and feel of what WTT wanted to achieve, and the branding, and the colours and all of those things, we then spent a lot of time talking about how the arena was going to be laid out, what the entrances were going to be, where the screens were going to be, where our cameras could be. And it was really a collaborative experience right from the very beginning, and it was really rich and rewarding; as producers, a lot of the time, you just get given what you have to shoot, but we felt like we really added value and we were coming at it from lots of different angles.
We found a really fantastic consensus in how WTT could be presented to the global stage.
Read more Ping pong for the masses: Bringing an old sport to a brand new audience with World Table Tennis
What has been your overall goal with the WTT productions?
Table tennis, like every sport, has a lot of fanatical fans, and they'll watch table tennis regardless of how it's shot, regardless of who's playing. What we really wanted to do was open up table tennis to a brand new audience, an audience that maybe didn't really understand how fast-paced the game was, how agile the athletes were.
Very rarely, as producers, do you get a chance or an opportunity to reinvent a sport. We literally had a blank sheet of paper. And that was incredibly exciting to be a part of.
IMG uses its internal company, fibre service provider Cingularity, for distribution of signals from the WTT events via Cingularity's fibre and back to Stockley Park for global distribution on IP, as opposed to satellite, which has been very successful, says Peile. We've done that not only with WTT in the Asian region, but we've done that on our LPGA jobs as well. So delivering more of our signals via IP is an area that I think will definitely grow and expand in the future.
What is the most innovative thing you have implemented for this production?
So the big change that we made was the main camera, what we call the main camera angle, that the sport is presented. The sport was traditionally presented from a side-on camera, a little bit like tennis, so you see the length of the court.
Because we'd only really had exposure watching table tennis on the Olympics every four years, it wasn't something that was on our radar. What we really discovered with the camera angle that had been traditionally used year after year, decade after decade, is that a lot of the gameplay was actually blocked by one of the players; one of the players was always in front of a very small ball.
We started experimenting with moving that camera to a three quarter shot, and then to a side shot. Once we watched the game being played from a side shot, we were staggered ourselves at how much the players move around and how fast the game is.
We sold this idea to WTT that this really gives more onus on the athleticism of the athletes, because you can see it. You can really see how fast the game is. Also the distances and the reaction times that these guys and girls react to are staggering to watch. When table tennis is good, it is electric. And that's what it's really brought out to the viewers globally.
The arena for the Singapore Smash takes traditional viewing of ping pong and turns it into a spectacle for viewers
And what about the graphics? They are important to show new viewers what's going on in the game.
One of the things we really wanted to do was refresh the graphics to give them a much more modern and clean look. Once we had the field of play to work with, it was pretty obvious what we needed to do with the graphics. The good thing about having IMG work so closely with WTT and not an independent production company that doesn't have a really close relationship is we designed a set of graphics, and then we looked at how that was going to work
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
26/07/2024
by Ianeta Le'i
I honestly don't remember the first time I met Bryson Ch...
26/07/2024
(L-R) Louise (Karen Gillan) and Antonina (Margaret Sophie Stein) strike up an un...
26/07/2024
Last month, Spotify's annual Songs of Summer predictions made their return, ...
26/07/2024
Summer is peak season for some of our favorite sports and events. Whether you're rooting for the home team at the ballpark or cheering for your country as i...
26/07/2024
Nine talented young professionals completed their vocational training at SGL Carbon in Meitingen from the beginning of June to mid-July, achieving an overall gr...
26/07/2024
Orders1 of $5.2 billion; book-to-bill of 1.0x
Revenue of $5.3 billion, up 13%
...
26/07/2024
(Editor's note: TVTech reached out to several station groups to determine the impact of the CrowdStrike outage on operations. Many, including NextStar Media...
26/07/2024
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. Bitcentral has integrated Pixalate's ad fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics solution Post-Bid Analytics and Reporting i...
26/07/2024
Aldous Huxley's classic novel Brave New World is a science fiction thriller set in a murky future with a highly ordered society. While Huxley and other sc...
26/07/2024
Hollyland Adds Pyro 7 All-in-one Video Monitor, TX and RX to Pyro Series
Brie Clayton July 26, 2024
0 Comments
Seven-inch 2.4/5GHz wireless monitor wi...
26/07/2024
Geddy Lee Asks Are Bass Players Human Too? Graded Using DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton July 26, 2024
0 Comments
Blackmagic today announced that t...
26/07/2024
Another reminder of the popularity of ad-supported connected TV comes in a survey by Premion and Advertiser Perceptions which found that 61% of the marketers th...
26/07/2024
Nielsen's Gracenote unit said it is selling its metadata about the content of television shows and movies for use in targeting connected-TV advertising camp...
26/07/2024
CBS premieres 13 Days in Ferguson, a special about the aftermath of a police shooting of a young Black man in 2014, on Friday, August 9. The special features Ce...
26/07/2024
Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced the launch of their long-awaited premium streaming bundle for the United States. For $16.99 per month, subscribers w...
26/07/2024
It provides multi-voltage output (14.4V, 28V, and 48V) through two XLR4 outputs and one XLR3, offering power to cameras, monitors, and lighting equipment
By Je...
26/07/2024
The lawsuit submitted by investor Scott Baker claims the deal would cost Paramount shareholders $1.65 billion
By Jenny Priestley
Published: July 26, 2024
...
26/07/2024
Florida-based Video Village Miami provides on-set video assist for local commercials and music videos. Frank Collins established the outfit in 2019 after a 20-y...
26/07/2024
QuickLink, the leading global provider of multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, will present QuickLink StudioPro at IBC 2024 (Stand ...
26/07/2024
Relo Metrics (formerly GumGum Sports), the leading AI-powered sponsorship analytics platform for real-time data decisions, today launched an industry-leading in...
26/07/2024
Anton/Bauer, a leading provider of mobile power systems for the film and television industry, has announced the launch of the VCLX LI 1600. The latest evolution...
26/07/2024
Bitcentral, the leading provider of professional media solutions for broadcast and digital video, today announces that it has integrated Pixalate, the ad fraud ...
26/07/2024
Cobalt Iron Inc., a leading provider of SaaS-based enterprise data protection, today announced that Secure Automated Backup with Compass , a cloud backup-as-a-s...
26/07/2024
VisualOn IBC2024 Exhibitor Preview
Sept. 13-16
Amsterdam
Stand 5.A52
As video streaming consumption surges, service providers face significant challenges wi...
26/07/2024
Quanteec
IBC2024 Exhibitor Preview
Sept. 13-16
RAI Amsterdam
Stand 1.A05
Quanteec, a global provider of video delivery technology for broadcasters, will s...
26/07/2024
Witbe
IBC2024 Exhibitor Preview
Sept. 13-16
Amsterdam
Stand 5.F84
At IBC2024, Witbe will showcase the power of its automated testing and proactive monitori...
26/07/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The Federal Communications Commission has announced the launch of its new Mobile Speed Test app. The new app features an enhanced user interfac...
26/07/2024
LONDON In a notable landmark for the use of cloud-based services at the Olympics, Alibaba Cloud and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), has today announced the...
26/07/2024
NEW YORK As part of a $2.5 billion media rights deal with the NBA announced on July 24, NBCUniversal and the NBA have also announced an 11-year agreement for ri...
26/07/2024
BEAVERTON, Ore. Versatile Video Coding (VVC) promises to play a pivotal role in driving advancements in video compression technology, with organizations across ...
26/07/2024
COLUMBUS, Ohio The political news channel PurpleTV has expanded it reach with news that it has launched on Channel 25.1 in Columbus, Ohio on TV Station WXOH, wh...
26/07/2024
NEW YORK As part of a push into the contextual advertising business, Nielsen's Gracenote has announced that it is developing new contextual categories to gi...
26/07/2024
Puget Systems Returns to SIGGRAPH 2024 to Demonstrate its On-Premises Generative...
26/07/2024
Dreamtek Delivers Innovative A/V, Live Production and Post Workflows with Blackm...
26/07/2024
Dejero to bring even smarter' mobile internet connectivity solutions to IBC...
26/07/2024
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games are about to begin, and Capitol Broadcasting is rea...
26/07/2024
Berklee Alumni Nominated for 2024 Emmy Awards Twenty-one Berklee alumni received Emmy nominations this year for music composition, sound mixing, and sound editi...
26/07/2024
Jennifer Lyons, president and general manager of WBBM Chicago, is moving into a ...
26/07/2024
Kennan Oliphant has been named VP of news and station manager at WWJ Detroit. He will report to Jennifer Lyons, who has added a regional GM role that gives her ...
26/07/2024
Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose, a four-part docuseries, debuts on HBO and Max July 24. The series details the life of the baseball superstar, includin...
26/07/2024
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games present a unique and exciting opportunity for local...
26/07/2024
Paris 2024: V varo Providing Live Media Transport Services for Leading Internati...
26/07/2024
Paris 2024: BBC Sport on Its Remote Production Workflow for the Summer Games By Heather McLean, SVG Europe
Friday, July 26, 2024 - 7:31 am
Print This Story...
26/07/2024
Paris 2024: BBC Sport Unveils the Olympic Storytelling and Breathtaking Scenery ...
26/07/2024
Paris 2024: Taking a Step Forwards with BBC Sport's Olympic Studio Combining...
26/07/2024
Paris 2024: Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe Provides a First Look at Its Ol...
26/07/2024
Live From Paris 2024: NBC Olympics Set for Historic Opening Ceremony Unilateral coverage builds on impressive OBS production as NBC dives deep into Team USA cov...
26/07/2024
Live From Paris 2024: SVG's Onsite Editorial Team Breaks Down Opening Ceremo...
26/07/2024
True-crime documentary, The Body Next Door to launch on Sky Documentaries and NO...