After a topsy-turvy 2006 season, the Chinese Table Tennis Super League aims to build on its strengths this year.

Last year saw teams forking out millions of yuan to sign up China's premier paddlers, but poor attendances and sponsorship revenues meant the strategy was a costly failure.

World No 1 Ma Lin's transfer to Shaanxi Yinhe for over 5 million yuan (US$645,000) rattled the sport to its foundations. Ma himself received the maximum of 1 million yuan (US$130,000), while the other 4 million yuan (US$510,000) were divided between his former club Shantou and the Chinese Table Tennis Administrative Center.

His Shaanxi adventure was short-lived since Ma last Friday announced his switch to Ningbo Haitan for just 1.3 million yuan (US$168,000), including his 1 million yuan salary.

"Everybody is more conscious now and everybody knows what they want. It is a good sign for the players and also for the league as a whole," Liu Fengyan, director of the Table Tennis Administrative Center, told China Daily.

Other big-name transfers included Wang Liqin, who moved from Bayi to Zhejiang for 2.45 million yuan (US$316,000), and talented Ma Long, who joined Sichuan Quanxing for 1.39 million yuan (US$180,000) from Beijing.

"Personally I cannot say if the prices are high or low. It's the market that is deciding the price this time," said Liu.

According to Liu, the record fee for Ma Lin was due to the intense rivalry between Shaanxi and Ningbo, and thus dwarfed his real market value.

In on respect, the huge investment appeared to pay off for Shaanxi who were crowned league champions, but the brutal financial reality soon became apparent.

"I realized we were over-budget after winning the bid," the club's general manager Li Yihong said. "We were in debt even though we won the league."

Realizing their debts were beyond its ability to repay, the club sought to renegotiate eventually being granted more television coverage and advertising opportunities by the Administrative Center.

According to Li, the club's average annual revenue stood at 2 million yuan (US$260,000), thus making paying half that sum to a single player utterly impractical. With Ma now gone to Ningbo, Shaanxi will not recruit any national team players this season.

"We have to cut expenses this year if we want to stay in the league," he said. "I don't expect anything like a top three finish this year. This is payback for what we did last year."

Ma, meanwhile, is unfazed by his plummeting value.

"For me there is no difference," he was quoted as saying on Sina.com. "No matter who I compete for, my target is to win the league title."

The league will begin in June, with 10 teams from 20 cities around China aiming to be crowned champions in September.

Despite dominating international table tennis, China has struggled to organize a viable league system for several years.

The sport was played on a provincial level until 1998 when the Super League was established. The league has been crippled with issues from early on. Among these, scheduling clashes with international competitions, team venue changes, absence from top players due to other commitments and falling sponsorship revenues have contributed to capsize the fledgling competition.

Originally planned over 22 rounds, the infamous 2003-04 season plodded over 14 months with just 10 rounds played due to Olympic preparations interrupting the schedule and angered sponsors withdrawing their funds.

Others hold up the example of Germany, home to the most successful professional table tennis league.

A total of 15,000 teams compete at various levels under the German Table Tennis Association, which further oversees three popular professional tournaments- the League Cup, League A and League B.

Top players there have an earning potential of over two million yuan a season, compared to the maximum one million yuan payment in China.

Chinese paddlers have dominated global competition in recent years, sweeping the medals at the Olympic Games in Atlanta and Sydney, and are favorites to win again at the 2008 Beijing Games after winning the first four International Table Tennis Federation tournaments in 2007.

(China Daily March 6, 2007)