PingPod is a company that runs table tennis venues, nicknamed "pods." Most pods are operational 24/7 and operate without on-site employees. [1]
Founded | July 31, 2019 in New York City, New York, United States |
---|---|
Founders | David Silberman, Ernesto Ebuen, Max Kogler |
Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Key people | Max Kogler (Co-Founder, CEO) David Silberman (Co-Founder, CFO) Ernesto Ebuen (Co-Founder) Ilya Rivkin (CTO) Ben Borton (Chief Strategy Officer) |
Services | Table tennis clubs |
Website | http://pingpod.com/ |
David Silberman conceived of the idea and pitched it to two individuals: Ernesto Ebuen, a former U.S. table tennis player who took on the role of Chief Product Officer, and Max Kogler, a former Goldman Sachs employee and businessman, who joined as the CEO. [2] PingPod's first location was opened in 2020 on the Lower East Side in New York City. [1]
Locations are equipped with features like automated scorekeeping and the capability to replay moments in a match, called PodPlay. [3] [4] PodPlay licenses its reservation management software and instant replay and scoreboard system to other venue operators, namely in the pickleball space. [5]
PingPod runs several locations across most of New York City, Brooklyn, [6] New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, [7] Chicago, [8] Miami, as well as internationally in Bristol, UK [9] and the Philippines. [5]
Pong is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released on 29 November 1972. It is one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
Table tennis is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of two, players take alternating turns returning a light, hollow ball over the table's net onto the opposing half of the court using small rackets until they fail to do so, which results in a point for the opponent. Play is fast, requiring quick reaction and constant attention, and is characterized by an emphasis on spin, which can affect the ball's trajectory more than in other ball sports.
Beer pong, also known as Beirut, is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of opposing teams of two or more players per side with 6 or 10 cups set up in a triangle formation on each side. Each team then takes turns attempting to throw ping-pong balls into the opponent's cups. If the team "makes" a cup - that is, the ball lands in it, and stays in it - the contents of the cup are consumed by the other team and the cup is removed from the table. The first team to eliminate all of the opponent's cups is the winner.
Ping-pong diplomacy refers to the exchange of table tennis (ping-pong) players between the United States and the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s. Considered a turning point in relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China, it began during the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, as a result of an encounter between players Glenn Cowan and Zhuang Zedong. The exchange and its promotion helped people in each country to recognize the humanity in the people of the other country, and it paved the way for President Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972.
Hard Rock Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in Miami Gardens, Florida, United States. The stadium is the home field for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL) and the Miami Hurricanes, the University of Miami's NCAA Division I college football team.
Ping Pong is a 2002 Japanese sports film directed by Fumihiko Sori. It is based on Taiyō Matsumoto's manga series of the same name and is about the friendship between two high school table tennis players. The film concentrates on these two friends, their two mentors, and three players who they encounter at high school table tennis tournaments. It explores the different motivations and philosophies that they have towards table tennis and tries to portray the excitement and subtlety of the sport.
Colette Hiller is an American film, theatre and television actress. She attended the Performing Arts Academy in New York as a teenager, and appeared in the original musical play of Annie, and in other films and plays such as The Lonely Lady, Ragtime, Strong Medicine, and Birth of the Beatles. She played Corporal Colette Ferro in the 1986 film Aliens. Hiller has also worked for the BBC, creating documentaries such as Too Clever by Half and the children's music cassette Applehead.
Louis Pagliaro was an American table tennis player who won the United States national championship on four occasions, include three consecutive years in the 1940s. His small stature — he was just over five-feet tall and weighed under 120 pounds in his prime — and exciting style of play led to such nicknames as "Bullet Lou", "Dynamite Louie" and "Giant Killer", he was said to have "the hardest forehand in table tennis".
USA Table Tennis, colloquially known as USATT, is the non-profit governing body for table tennis in the United States and is responsible for cataloging and sanctioning table tennis tournaments within the country. It was founded in 1933 as the United States Table Tennis Association. In addition to processing tournaments, USATT maintains a national rating and ranking system. It also oversees the USA National Teams. In total, USATT has over 9,000 members. The headquarters of USA Table Tennis is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, which is also home to the United States Olympic Training Center. USA Table Tennis offers a $100,000 incentive for American Olympic table tennis athletes, though no American athlete has ever won a medal for table tennis.
Comet Ping Pong is a pizzeria, restaurant, and concert venue located on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C.'s Chevy Chase neighborhood. Owned by James Alefantis, Comet has received critical acclaim from The Washington Post, The Washingtonian, New York magazine, the DCist, and Guy Fieri of Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
studioMDA is a multidisciplinary design firm, based in New York and founded in 2002 by Markus Dochantschi. studioMDA has worked extensively across the United States, and internationally in countries such as Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Germany, Peru, Chile, Cambodia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Turkey and Malawi.
Soo Yeon Lee is a South Korean former table tennis player, model, actress and coach. Lee started playing table tennis at a very early age and was also trained extensively in the sport by an Olympic gold medalist Jung Hwa Hyun in South Korea. Soon thereafter she went on to successively win the Korean National Junior Championship six times since the age of 12. She has been featured in advertisement campaigns for a number of prominent brands including Nike, Adidas, K-Swiss, Red Bull, and Target. She is the brand ambassador for SPiN, a chain of table tennis restaurants and bars.
SPiN is an international chain of franchised table tennis clubs and bars. The company was founded in 2009 by Jonathan Bricklin, Andrew Gordon, Franck Raharinosy, and Wally Green.
Amazon Go is a chain of convenience stores in the United States and the United Kingdom, operated by the online retailer Amazon. The stores are cashierless, thus partially automated, with customers having the ability to purchase products without being checked out by a cashier or using a self-checkout station. As of 2023, there are 43 open and announced store locations in Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, London and New York City.
Robert Blackwell Jr. is a Chicago-based American businessman and “a savvy and successful entrepreneur” according to the Los Angeles Times. He is the founder and CEO of EKI-Digital, a technology consulting firm. He is the CEO of Killerspin, a manufacturer of table tennis equipment that hosts internationally televised tournaments. Blackwell is also a former employer of then-state Senator Barack Obama, as well as a political supporter and personal friend of Obama.
The annual U.S. Open is the oldest currently running table tennis tournament in the United States. It attracts over 600 athletes annually. The first events were actually run by either the New York Table Tennis Club or the American Ping Pong Association. The first USA Table Tennis (USTTA) tournament was held in 1934.
Wally Green is an American table tennis player. He has played for the U.S. in more than 35 International Pro Tour competitions.
Rogelio Martinez is an American playwright, screenwriter, translator, actor, theater educator, and arts advocate, best known for his Cold War trilogy of plays. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. His plays have been workshopped, produced, and commissioned in theaters across the United States and worldwide.
Eleven Table Tennis is a virtual reality (VR) table tennis game developed by For Fun Labs, Inc., and available on Steam, Pico, and Oculus gaming platforms. Eleven Table Tennis was included as exhibition sport for the inaugural Olympic Esports Week, which took place in Singapore from 22 to 25 June 2023.