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There were a lot of bad feelings after the 1991 Tournament, a number of
players were not paid for money. I heard that when Jim Wiswell
killed
himself, that TS owed him a sizeable sum of money. I would have
hated
to be in Lee's shoes when Jim committed suicide. Enough of that.
WHY DID TS GO UNDER? My opinion, based on the facts I know
(remember
TS was a Seattle based company), is that Lee was a fast and furious
gambling sort of guy. He bet the house on the tour, and as long at
the
table sales kept going he was fine. The philisophy of TS was that
the
promotions DROVE sales. The pattern was (1) give out some money, (2)
get it back from table sales, (3) give out some bigger money, (4) get
it back from table sales, (5) give out some even bigger money, (6) get
it back from table sales. Interimixed in there somewhere was some
borrowing to get the money to give away for the next round.
In order to keep this up, TS had to change their
product every
couple of years significantly enough to require the vendors to purchase
new tables: thus the standard green top in 1973, the lime greenie in
late 74/early 1975, the "Quarter Million" Greentop in mid 1975
to about
early 1977, the "Bluetop" in 1978/79 and finally the browntop in
1979
(?) through 1981.
What killed TS is a combination of (1) Their marketing
strategy of
expensive promotions that they didn't have money for that WOULD BE
FOLLOWED by the Table Sales to pay for that promotion, or at least
enough success so that they could borrow more money for the next
expensive promotion. The business philsophy set up a foundation that
was a house of cards waiting for someone to pull the bottom card out.
(2) A horribly cheap product. The old TS
Tables were built in
Taiwan out of the worst crap available. The men broke all the time
and
vendors only bought them because they thought they might make money on
them.
(3) The planned obsolecesce of Green Top, Blue Top,
"Get Down
Brown" Top, etc. Vendors saw the pattern and were not pleased.
(4) Going to 50 cents a game from 25 cents in 1978 or
1979. A
dramatic move at best, but one that needed to be made, but one that
couldn't be made at the same time.
(5) Pac Man saw that house of cards and gobbled the
bottom card up:
in other words, when the video craze hit, a good video game would
earn
$300/week and take up a quarter of the space of a foosball table did
that earned between $40 & $80 a week tops. Let me see should I
get
$1200 a week, or $40 a week? Tough decision. Thus in order to
be
competitive, the attempt was made to charge 50 cents for a game of
foosball--an attempt that failed miserably.
When the Video Craze hit, Tournament Soccer's sales
went from over
1000 units per month to less than 100--virtually overnight.
(6) Now for the juicy stuff. Because of the
marketing success (?)
of TS, it decided to do two things: Start building dart boards and pool
tables and air hockeys, and to align itself with Atari Corporation in
Sunnyvale, CA. Notice that Atari was in Sunnyvale, CALIFORNIA, not
Chicago, Illinois, where all the other game manufacturers were (until
Donkey Kong came out, anyway).
With both moves, developing new games and aligning
themselves with
Atari, TS was stepping on some mighty big toes of some mighty nasty
people. From the grapevine, I've heard that one (or more) of the
feet
that those toes were attached to lifted up and squashed TS. It
wasn't
tough becaus TS was in it's death throes anyway.
I've heard it was an orchestrated combination of deals
being made
with TS and then suddenly being pulled out from under them, and
lawsuits from various directions that were expensive to litigate.
Add this to the fact that the company was highly
leveraged and
based on a house of cards foundation which was quickly tumbling because
or lack of sales and you have a not so happy picture.
I'm not sure of just how much of what Todd says is
true, but I know
that Lee lost his family (by divorce, not death), his livelyhood, his
house and his car after TS went under--which wouldn't happen if he was
taking the foosball players for a ride.
The TS years were some of the best years of my life,
and I owe it
to Lee. Sure I was following a dream that suddenly faded, which
might
have been detrimental to me overall, but it wasn't Lee's fault that the
sport died--it wouldn't have got to where it was without him.
Sometimes, though, I wonder just where I would be if I
hadn't
played foosball--I'd probably have done better, I guess, but who knows?
Mind you I prefer Tornado's philosophy--build a good
product and
let the product drive promotions--a much more conservative
approach--and one that has been proven in the test of time. Tornado
was around when TS started and they are still around.
By the way, TS tables are still made, but few are sold,
and they're
still as cheeply made as ever, perhaps a little more so. They new
ones
are "Black tops".
I guess I've babbled enough, but I hope I've told a
good story.
Todd saw it from one side. Sounds like you were partying with staff
at
TS, eh, Todd. I saw it from another side--I was in the amusement
industry at the time.
Any other perspectives out there?...................................Rocky