Though there was not much pre-event promotion done for the World Table Tennis Forum, a record number of over 800,000 attendees tuned in live to catch the live stream  of the Forum on Douyin, Toutiao and Xigua platforms.

The Forum was a huge success for both athletes and fans, as reflected in almost all major sports media, who covered the event with details about the major topics of discussion. These included the following topics:

1. Ma Long & ITTF CEO Steve Dainton using both English & Chinese to communicate during the forum.

2. Steve using both English & Chinese to introduce World Table Tennis (WTT).

3. China’s Ma Long mentioning that he will not retire after 2021 Tokyo Olympics & joking with Steve about the playing WTT events as a possible wildcard in the future.

4. ‘Queen of Hearts’ Ding Ning spoke about her future targets and putting all her focus and attention on the separate WTT Women’s Tour next year.

5. Topics surrounding the next major steps for Japan’s Kasumi Ishikawa & Tomokazu Harimoto.

6. And finally, Steve confirming that there are no plans from the ITTF to cancel the 2020 ITTF World Championships, and that the Federation is working it’s hardest to bring it back to a viable date.

All the photos that have been used over various media sections were screenshots taken from the Forum itself and “WTT” was mentioned heavily in all reports about the Forum. The Chinese media coverage saw the likes of CCTV5 News which showed a clip of the WTT Forum where the players and administrators were discussing the future of table tennis during the Forum.

Furthermore, Xinhua News Agency first reported about the WTT Forum, followed by reports on the individual players’ clips from the Forum, which were very accessible over various search engines.

Other official media such as People’s Daily, China Sports News, Titan Sports, Beijing Daily, Xinjing News, Guangzhou Daily, Xinmin and Tencent Sports all provided detailed coverage of the Forum, which then pulled focus from other news as it was widely discussed on social media from different angles.

The response from the wider section of fans showcased a very positive message and optimistic lookout on the future of table tennis.

In conclusion, the WTT Forum was a huge success in promoting positive messages about WTT in China, especially during this period of difficulty where all sports events were suspended, it’s a great push in building the WTT brand in China.