Brown is a qualified and experienced strategic leader with proven success in growing sports organizations.
Now his attention is on table tennis.
He leads Business Services and driving growth as the Chief Operating Officer at World Table Tennis (WTT). The role involves spearheading the development and execution of operational strategies across Finance, Legal, IT, Translation, and General Operations.
Focused on key initiatives such as:
– Driving commercial revenue growth
– Ensuring effective management of commercial rights and intellectual property
– Developing strategies for data collection and monetization
– Managing the due-diligence process for potential third-party investment
My involvement in Table Tennis after completing 3 years of an economics and financial analysis degree has led me into more online fields and digital methods of marketing and promotion, going from small contracts working in building online sales platforms to lead roles in table tennis marketing for USA Table Tennis and now JOOLA both in the USA and Global.
Established in Germany in 1952, JOOLA has dominated the professional table tennis scene in the United States for over 15 years. Partnering with North American Table Tennis (NATT) early on, JOOLA established a strong presence through the North American Tour and NATT‘s flagship event, the North American Teams Championships. Each event in the Tour generally drew in 200 to 300 participants and showcased about 30 JOOLA tables, while the Teams event exposed the brand to nearly 1000 players, who competed on about 150 JOOLA tables. With each successful event, JOOLA grew its fan base and eventually became the most visible table tennis brand in US table tennis.
JOOLA later served as the Official Table Sponsor of USA Table Tennis’ (USATT), the national governing body for table tennis, major tournaments from 2012 until 2019. This included the US Open and US National Championships.
In 2019, Sport Squad, Inc., the US-based distributor and licensee of JOOLA for the North American and Brazilian market., announced its acquisition of JOOLA Tischtennis GmbH. Established in 2006 and based in Rockville, MD, Sport Squad, Inc. was founded by Richard Lee out of a love for table tennis. Sport Squad eventually expanded to include 4 different brands dedicated to offering interactive and immersive games and gaming equipment. It is the parent company to JOOLA, iPong, Sport Squad, and Hit Mit. In 2022, JOOLA launched JOOLA Pickleball and immediately took the sport by storm as the sponsor of pickleball world #1 Ben Johns and a partner of USPPA.
Rick is joined by American table tennis player, Lily Zhang at the US Smash in Las Vegas.
Zhang is one of the American hopes at this big World Table Tennis event.
A six-time US national champion in women’s singles. Zhang has won the US national championship in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022. In 2011, she was a bronze medalist in women’s singles and women’s team at the Pan American Games and won the women’s doubles title at the Qatar Peace and Sport Cup. She is currently a member of the United States National Women’s team.
From a young age, Zhang showed promising skill. When she was 7 years old, Dennis Davis, the president and head coach of the Palo Alto Table Tennis Club and the North American representative of the junior commission of International Table Tennis Federation, began training her. When she was 11, Zhang made the U.S. Cadet Team. By age 12, Zhang became the youngest player to ever make the U.S. Women’s Team.
