Be warned, citizen: change is afoot. The signs are unmistakable. The latest harbinger of disruption comes from the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). In his press release yesterday, ITTF CEO Steve Dainton addresses the far-reaching implications of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Dainton, 42, has occupied the CEO seat since 2017. Before that, he worked for nine years as the ITTF Marketing Director. His climb up the corporate ladder has been characterized by generous helpings of optimism and ambition. Long before the world ground to a halt due to COVID-19, Dainton had been planning major structural changes in both the ITTF and its tournaments. His overarching ambition is to grow the ITTF by running it less like an international governing body for table tennis and more like a corporation marketing a product. Dainton was instrumental in the creation of "World Table Tennis" (WTT), the new corporate entity overseeing the new tournament structure and marketing scheme. One hallmark of the bold new plan is the creation of four "Grand Smash" tournaments every year, modeled after the Grand Slam tournaments of golf and tennis. Now, with the ITTF's 2020 calendar in shambles and the future in doubt, Dainton is sanguine as ever. Quoting Winston Churchill in his press release, Dainton advises that we “never waste a good crisis.” Instead, Dainton exhorts us to see this as the perfect opportunity to rebuild table tennis as we know it in his image. "These are very hard days, but this also gives us an immense opportunity," says Dainton. "This crisis places us in an unprecedented situation where we can reflect and work on all the areas that we know have been underperforming, needed to change and adapt... Now is the time to act." This rhetoric again echoes Churchill, who said, "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty." As previously noted, Dainton is optimism incarnate. After making the pitch for change, Dainton then lobs an atom bomb. What if, he asks, we did away with the individual world championships, which date back to 1926, and just did the Grand Smash tournaments instead? "Why do away with the World Individual Championships, you ask?", poses Dainton. "The idea is simply that in WTT we plan to eventually have 3 to 4 'Grand Smashes' per year. These events will be equal to or larger than a World Individual Championships. "The 3 to 4 major events held on the International stage throughout each year will reach a larger audience and will perform much better than once every 2 years," he continues. "From these events, we would also be able to define an Individual World Champion." There have been changes to the World Championships before, of course. They were suspended entirely during World War II. They changed from annual to biennial after 1957. Starting in 2000, the team event was held separately in even years, with singles, doubles and mixed doubles remaining in odd years. Nevertheless, the crowning of an individual World Champion in a single tournament is a sacrosanct tradition. Along with the Olympics and the World Cup, it forms the holy trinity of table tennis known as the Grand Slam. Turning the World Championship into a season-long quest for points like the NASCAR Cup Series would fundamentally alter the essential nature of the title. While Dainton may ultimately be vindicated if his corporate strategy bears fruit and grows the sport, he and the ITTF executive board would do well to consider this parting thought from Winston Churchill: "Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old."

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