This is part one of two. Part two, WTT's money, part two: where it comes from, and what the 2025 accounts show, covers the 2025 accounts, where WTT's revenue comes from and its plans for new markets.
On the first day of the 2024 WTT China Smash at Shougang Park in Beijing, more than 60,000 people came through the gates. On each of the next three days the figure passed 70,000. Those are park visitors rather than ticket holders, and the counts should be read with that in mind, but the scale is the point. In China, table tennis does not need explaining to sponsors or to crowds.
That is the first thing to understand about the sport's money. The second is that not all of the money China produces is WTT's revenue. The difference between where a sport's commercial value is made and where its governing company books its revenue explains most of what follows.
A sport organised before it was commercial
Table tennis was run as a federation before it was run as a business. The International Table Tennis Federation was founded in 1926, with its first international tournament held in Berlin in January that year and the first World Table Tennis Championships in London in December. Nine national associations were among its founders. For most of the twentieth century the ITTF was a body of rules and championships, and the sport sat outside the commercial mainstream.
Change came in stages. Table tennis entered the Olympic programme at Seoul in 1988, which gave it a global audience for a few weeks every four years without turning it into a television product. The ITTF introduced a professional circuit, the World Tour, in 1996. In 2017 the federation bought back its commercial rights from the agency that had been managing them on its behalf.
- 201916.0US$m
- 202120.2US$m
- 202236.8US$m
- 202452.8US$m
Eleven took the 2019 and 2024 figures from the ITTF's 2025 statement and the 2024 accounts, and the 2021 and 2022 figures from the 2022 annual report as reported by HK01. Revenue lines may differ slightly in definition between years.
Source: ITTF statement, 9 May 2025; ITTF consolidated statements 2025; HK01
On 30 May 2019 the ITTF announced a new commercial vehicle, World Table Tennis. The first event was held in Macao in November 2020, and in July 2020 WTT signed a long-term partnership with the sports marketing group IMG covering media rights, production, sponsorship sales and betting data. The federation's own account, in a 2025 statement on its accounts, is that WTT was created as a "strategic vehicle to capture the value of our sport and reinvest it for the benefit of all". The Singapore Smash, first held in 2022 as a Grand Smash, became the flagship event outside China.
China is the market
China's place in the sport's finances is not in dispute. At the 2024 ITTF Annual General Meeting, the minutes record WTT's chief operating officer presenting figures for China: US$34m of income, almost 200,000 spectators at WTT events in China in 2023, 546 hours of television coverage that year and a cumulative television reach of two billion. The minutes do not say over what period the US$34m was earned.
In December 2025 WTT's chief executive, Steve Dainton, told China Daily: "Without China as a huge market, it would be not easy for us to even develop the other parts of the world." He described China as the most significant and biggest market for table tennis.
- 2024 box office (close to)60RMB m
- 2024 sponsorship25RMB m
- 2025 sponsorship target (more than)100RMB m
Eleven put three reported figures side by side. They come from organisers, the city government and the press, not from one set of accounts, and the 2025 figure is a target rather than a result.
Source: Beijing government, 6 October 2024; Sohu
The commercial value is easiest to see at tournament level. The 2024 China Smash in Beijing was run at Shougang Park. The city government put total box office at close to RMB60m, excluding admission to the park itself. HK01 cites ticket revenue of RMB57m for the same event. Sponsorship was reported at about RMB25m for 2024, and a 2025 report put the sponsorship target for the following year at more than RMB100m. Those are substantial sums for a tournament, and they are reported figures from organisers and the press, not from audited accounts.
Box office is not WTT's revenue
A Chinese tournament's takings do not automatically belong to WTT. Local organising committees can keep ticket revenue, local sponsorship and other income, depending on the terms agreed with WTT. WTT's own income can come instead as a hosting fee paid by the city or organiser, a share of certain commercial rights, broadcast revenue and tour-level sponsorship. Which of these applies in a given case is set out in agreements that are not published.
Host cities often put public money into events, accepting a cost for the publicity, the tourism and the prestige, while WTT receives a hosting fee. How much of each event's income WTT keeps varies by agreement.
The ITTF's 2025 consolidated statements show total revenue but do not split it by country. The only geographic data is cash held in each currency, which is not revenue. So the published numbers do not show how much of WTT's revenue is earned in China. Eleven checked the statements for any breakdown by market and found none.
Building the circuit outside China
WTT has been building events in new markets. The Singapore Smash is the established flagship event outside China. A European Grand Smash was staged in Malmö, Sweden, in 2025, and a United States Smash was launched the same year. The US event is the newest of them. In June 2026, as it began again, the South China Morning Post reported that many opening-day tickets were unsold and that seats were empty even for the singles finals. Tickets started at US$40.50 and the tournament carried a prize fund of US$1.55m. In China, by contrast, events often sell out quickly.
The expansion is meant to create revenue that does not depend on China. The ITTF's own statement presents WTT as a way to capture the sport's value and reinvest it. Steve Dainton has said that newer markets typically need a two to three year runway to mature commercially, while Chinese events can achieve success almost at once, as China Daily reported. That fits the early US figures.
- 20195.3US$m
- 202410.0US$m
The 2024 figure is the minimum Dainton gave ('over 10 million USD'). Eleven calculates the prize fund has roughly doubled in five years.
Source: ITTF 2024 AGM minutes
What the figures show
China is the market that makes WTT's product look credible. It supplies the crowds, the sponsors, the television figures and the best players. The published accounts show that WTT's revenue has grown fast, from US$16m in 2019 to more than US$52m in 2024. They do not show where that revenue was earned.
A breakdown of revenue by market would show how the growth outside China is progressing. Part two looks at the accounts themselves: where the money comes from and how the 2025 figures compare with 2024.
