Category: MOBP

Four drinking straws together weigh .28 ounces. One and a half wooden pencils weigh .28 ounces. A plastic spoon and a plastic fork together weigh .28 ounces.

If you were playing an intense game of beer pong, would you be distracted by someone throwing drinking straws at themselves? Would you be distracted by someone hitting themselves in the head with a plastic spoon and fork? Probably not.

So, what’s your point, you ask? Well, a regulation BPONG plastic cup weighs .28 ounces. And for some strange reason, countless beer pong players have convinced themselves that taking a BPONG beer pong cup, smashing it against their own head and throwing the cup onto the ground is an amazing distraction technique. This folks, is why the media portrays beer pong players to be a community of alcoholic douchebags.

We are all adults. We may not act like it from time to time, but by definition we are adults. I would hope that we could get past certain childish thingslike smashing beer pong cups over our heads, but I’m not so confident that we can. Newsflash: We are not impressed.

Have you ever walked into the practice area at the World Series of Beer Pong, hoping to get a few shots in before your next round? You finally find an open table to play on, except all that’s left is a an empty rack and a few overturned cups on the table. You try and gather the cups that you can off the ground, finally find ten and then fill them up with water. Except most of the cups start leaking out because some tough guy thought they would impress someone by smashing the cups.

This is why we can’t have nice things, guys.

Do you ever wonder why some tournaments drag on and on and you can’t figure out why? Because half the tables don’t have enough cups or water left to play a game. You shouldn’t have to hunt and gather enough cups and water to play a game of beer pong in a tournament.

And let’s be honest. BPONG cups aren’t exactly expensive, but they aren’t cheap either. When you play at home do you smash cups and throw water around like a gorilla? No, you don’t. You probably use the same cups you have been using for the last couple of years. We’ve all been there. You wash a few dozen of your BPONG cups and then stack them up like a pyramid on the kitchen counter to dry out. Just because you are in Vegas or in some ballroom of whatever hotel agreed to hold a beer pong tournament, you should have a certain amount of respect.

I know it’s easy to get into the emotion of the moment after hitting or missing a big shot (I have more experience with the latter, personally) but enough is enough. People need to stop smashing cups, literally.

In football, if a player kicks or throws the ball away like a dickhead it’s a penalty. The same in basketball. In baseball, if a player throws his helmet like an asshole onto the field of play he’s likely going to get tossed. If you guys ever want beer pong to be taken seriously, smashing cups isn’t helping.

Save our cups!

With its unique characters, soap opera storylines, and high stakes competition, it seems only a matter of time before beer pong becomes a popular televised event. Even the lamest weekly tourney has better storylines than some of the crap that runs on cable television.

So what’s the hold up?

Many players feel that with the focus on beer, it’s a tough sell to advertisers. I can kind of buy that. I know that several major beer companies have steered clear of local beer pong events due to the association with binge drinking. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering that most television shows use sex and violence to earn better ratings.

An argument can also be made that the heated trash talk may scare potential advertisers or networks. Since trash talk is such a big part of beer pong, it would be a shame to deny that to the viewer. Some of our most beloved players are just that because of their trash talk. Sure, you can bleep out the F word a dozen times, but where’s the fun in that?

In my opinion, beer pong will only become as big as its sponsors. Bottom line, we need more companies involved to help grow the sport and get it on television. Most TV networks would air footage of sleeping cows if it made money. For some reason or another, beer pong organizers around the country have had a difficult time locking in event sponsors.

The real question is, what kind of sponsors make sense for beer pong? You won’t find a more hardcore group of (mostly) 21-34 males that spend money than a major beer pong event. Most players spend upwards of $1,000 just to travel and play in the World Series of Beer Pong, not including the food, beer and money they gamble away. Seems like a pretty solid market if I’m an advertiser looking at that demographic. And buying into an event sponsorship such as the World Series of Beer Pong is far cheaper than a traditional advertising campaign.

I’m also surprised that no major companies have stepped up to sponsor individual players. There are certainly a few that are “household” names in the beer pong world that would be great for a cutting-edge advertiser. I recently watched “Lords of Dogtown” (great flick, by the way) and it reminded me a little of the beer pong scene. In that movie, you could see how several skateboard companies fought over signing the hippest young skaters.

We’ve seen some small-scale sponsorships before, but nothing from a big company. Who will be the first? In the grand scheme of things, giving a top player $10,000 a year for pushing its name/product is a great deal. The player could enter and travel to every major during the year, proudly pimping the product or its name, or both. In return, that sponsor gets all the name recognition that goes along with associating itself with a top player. Tons of social media exposure, interviews, photos, etc. It makes so much sense to me, but maybe I’m just taking crazy pills.

What kind of companies do you think would be great beer pong sponsors? What would you be willing to do as a player to be sponsored?

You wouldn’t guess there would be much strategy involved in a game of beer pong. It’s just the first team to hit ten cups first, right? How much strategy could you possibly need except to hit more cups?

To answer the question: There is a lot of strategy that goes on into a typical game of beer pong. And there are some big decisions to make even before the first ball is thrown.

When we arrive at a beer pong tournament, we usually find an empty table and start shooting around. Depending on how the venue is set up, you may develop a “comfort level” with a certain side of the table. Maybe there is more space to move around, maybe it’s less congested and there is less of a chance of being bumped into while you shoot, but some sides of the table offer a distinct advantage to a team. A lot of teams will get so used to playing on one side of the table, that when they are put into the position of playing on the other side, it throws them off a bit.

Usually, we use rock, paper, scissors or a coin flip to determine who shoots one ball first or two balls second. A forgotten option is to also choose sides instead of choosing shots. It’s kind of like deferring a kickoff in the NFL. I will almost always choose balls if I win, sometimes when I lose I will ask the team if they want balls or sides. A team that you know doesn’t want to switch sides will sometimes give you the balls and keep the side they are on, which allows you to have balls first even though you lost the toss. Sometimes, getting to the table first and taking the preferred side will help increase your chances of earning balls first.

Another element of strategy is choosing one ball first or two balls second. To me, it’s a no brainer to choose two balls second. You can start the game off 3-1 and can immediately back your opponent into a corner. But especially this past year at the World Series of Beer Pong, I noticed more and more teams choosing the one ball first. I don’t know why someone would choose this except if they know they will be shooting 100% and ending the game first, but to each their own. For those of you who choose to shoot one ball first, why do you prefer that?

Another big decision to think about is who shoots third shots? Some teams like to give these shots to the “hot” player or the one who just shot, but others like to play the percentages and give it to the better player. When I play with a player better than me (almost all the time since I’m terrible) I always let them take the third shot. Even if I am having a better game, the odds still favor him making the cup more than me.

Lastly, a decision needs to be made when shooting rebuttals. Do you organize rebuttals so a certain player will be shooting at final cup? Do you let a specific player shoot at a specific rack? There’s a lot to think about.

What are some of the strategic moves you make on the beer pong table?

One of the best parts of playing beer pong is the trash talk. It’s something that draws us to the game time and time again, keeps it interesting and fun, and provides an extra element of intensity that most of us don’t experience in our daily lives.

When I first started playing, I loved talking trash to people. I think I enjoyed the trash talk more than the beer pong itself. I tried to be as funny and clever as I could, with my main goal trying to get the other team to miss. Sure, I got branded as an asshole by most people, but those who knew me off the table knew it was all in good fun and didn’t take it seriously.

Somewhere along the line, however, the line between acceptable trash talk and getting too personal became blurred. Now, it seems like there is nothing sacred on the beer pong table. You can talk about someone’s wife, child, girlfriend, etc. all in hopes of them getting to miss one shot in a game of beer pong.

I realize that, as a society, we have become desensitized to what is considered right and what is considered wrong. It’s easy to spew a bunch of foul shit off on Twitter and Facebook and act like a complete asshole and troll everyone because there are no repercussions. It’s the reason why horror movies have become more graphic, and movies like “The Hangover II” were terrible, because everyone is trying to “one up” everyone else. So your opponent didn’t miss his shot when you made fun of his haircut, so why not make fun of his girlfriend and see if you can get a reaction?

At what point do we say, “Enough is enough?” I mean, we are mostly all grown men and women. Most of us have careers, families, and lives outside of major beer pong tournaments to think about. Aren’t we all past the point where we have to prove our toughness to each other? I mean, people still do that? I’ve been punched, slapped and spit on, and I have just stood there and laughed because I am not going to jeopardize getting arrested or going to jail over a, in the long run, meaningless game of beer pong. Not to mention, I would probably get my ass kicked.

Someone made a Facebook post this weekend about how the crazy beer pong drama and trash talk doesn’t occur as much on the West Coast. I don’t know for certain, but it makes sense. You see those guys at the World Series of Beer Pong and it really looks like everyone is just having fun and getting along. Sure, there are always exceptions, but why is everyone else so damn mad?

I’ll be the first to admit that I am certainly being a hypocrite. I have crossed the line more times than I’d like to admit. I’ve said some things in the heat of competition I certainly regret and am embarrassed of to this day. I’m sure I’ve lost some friendships and people look at me differently as a result, and I understand those are the consequences of my actions.

At the end of the day, though, it’s just beer pong guys. One of the reasons we are all here is because we like competition, we like drinking, and we enjoy the community we’ve all helped build. Can’t we all just get along?