As a kid, I played a lot of ping pong, usually in the basement of a friend's home or in a cluttered garage. The sport seemed to fizzle over time until a new interest in ping pong emerged when Tom Hanks became a world table tennis champion in the movie, Forest Gump. Now, Anheuser-Bush has plans for taking this sport out of the basement and are putting it where it belongs - in bars across America.
That's right, the brewer has placed 4,600 ping pong tables in local taverns across the country. The Bud Light Hard Bat Ping Pong Tournament may be coming to a bar near you. It's the nostalgia factor their marketers feel that could bring this sport to be the next Texas Hold 'Em. With a cash prize of $100,ooo, no doubt, there will be some interesting play during the national finals that will take place in Las Vegas in late June.
So, dust off your paddles, grab your balls and head down to your local pub to register for one of the regional tournaments. Oh, and while you're there, don't forget to order up a Busch. Who knows, you could very well be the next table tennis champion of the world.
