Table Tennis North America to Bid on 2020 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships

Table Tennis North America, a partnership which includes USA Table Tennis (USATT) and Table Tennis Canada (TTCAN), announced that the group has submitted a Letter of Interest to host the 2020 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships in San Jose, CA. In accordance with the hosting requirements, interested bidders were required to submit a non-binding Letter of Interest by October 15, 2017.

“With table tennis exploding across North America, we felt strongly that now was the time to bring a World Championship event to our continent,” commented USATT CEO Gordon Kaye. “With the success of last year’s Seamaster Women’s World Cup in Philadelphia and the much-anticipated Uncle Pop’s Women’s World Cup presented by Polar Naturals in Toronto later this month, there is absolutely a strong interest in North America for world-class table tennis.”

Last year’s World Table Tennis Championship, which was held in Dusseldorf, Germany, was watched by over 355 Million people worldwide, including over 320 million fans in China. The 2018 World Team Table Tennis Championships will be held in Halmstad, Sweden. The ITTF has only held one world championship outside of Europe or Asia (1939 - Cairo, Egypt).

“We are excited to be working with the team at USATT to explore opportunities like this to continue the growth of our sport,” added TTCAN CEO. “We believe hosting the 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships in North America will provide our venture a unique opportunity to capitalize on the added interest in table tennis that naturally grows during an Olympic year.”

Located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, San Jose is a diverse community that is home to over 40 Fortune 500 companies, including many of the leading technology companies in the world (Google, Facebook, Apple, Adobe, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo!, PayPal, SAP, Cisco Systems, and more). The Bay Area is also a hotspot for table tennis in North America, with over 10,000 active players and several top USATT clubs located within a 30-mile radius.

“The seeds for this opportunity were planted in 2007 when we hosted a very successful World Junior Championships at Stanford University,” said USATT Chair Anne Cribbs, who is also a Director with the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee (BASOC). “There is no doubt in my mind that, if awarded the opportunity to host the 2020 Championships, the Bay Area will come together to put on an amazing event for the world.”

For more information about the bid process for the 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships, please visit https://www.2020ittfworlds.com/.