Foosball Tables > Tournament Soccer
Tournament Soccer Foosball TableS
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In May 1972, Lee Peppard, an owner of a tavern in Missoula, Montana, ran his first big table soccer tournament on German-made Deutcher Meister tables and offered prize money of $1,500. In May of 1973, he introduced his very own table called "Tournament Soccer" that was manufactured in Taiwan at a $5,000 tournament. The logo had a rainbow that ended with a hand gripping a rod over the top of a foosball player.
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The success of his Montana tournaments convinced Peppard that the best way to market his table was through tournament promotions. One year later, in May 1974, he organized the Tournament Soccer $50,000 International Championships in Denver, Colorado at Elitch Gardens. Due to the incredible purse for those days, the best players from all over the US attended and the winners established themselves as table soccer legends. The first TS tables used the German Deutcher Meister waffle foot men with a green playing surface (later the blue and brown surfaces were introduced when they updated to the Million dollar branding) and their cabinets were made in Taiwan.
From their new headquarters in Seattle, Peppard and his staff launched the first US professional table soccer tour, the 1975 Tournament Soccer Quarter Million Dollar Tour. The logo on the tables sold from this era was updated to include "The Quarter Million Dollar Game" at the center of the field. Each year for the next five years, the Tournament Soccer tour increased in prize money, with a million dollars in cash and prizes total during the tour being awarded across 1978-1979. With this larger prize money they also updated their logo on the table and in their marketing promotions to be the "The Million Dollar Game" and tournaments took place from west coast to east coast of the US in luxurious ballrooms of first-class hotels. An elite group of professionals toured the country making their living by playing the game. In a classic case of working in the business versus on the business, the glamorous years of the Tournament Soccer tours ended abruptly in 1981 when the company declared bankruptcy.
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Finding Tournament Soccer Replacement Parts
In 1981 when they went out of business, no company bought the rights to continue to manufacture their tables. Because so many of these tables were sold and played on during the 1970s, there were many customers who were left hanging when they had a broken part. Even today there is still demand for these products and people have tried to maintain and even restore them. It is almost treated as a collector's item within the old school table soccer community who understand the deep history of foosball. Luckily there are still two places you can find replacement parts for the men, handles, balls, washers, bumpers, bearings and rubber end caps online: |
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