Play Meter

Coinmen
~
of the Month - ~
LEE PEPPARD
and CAL ROGERS
This month we've taken a slight departure from
our regular format. PLAY METER conducts its
first dual Coinman of the Month. Since this is our
Tournaments and Promotions Issue, we felt it was
high-Ume to interview Tournament Soccer's
"dynamic duo" - Lee Peppard and Cal Rogers. They
seem to be the experts in this field. After all, these
two men are the brains behind the largest purses
and the largest turnouts in foosball competition.
Their $250,000 national championships in St. Louis
this past November drew 4,700 participants.
Lee got interested in foosball when he came into
the ownership of a large tavern. At that time he
saw foosball as a promotional device to help him
pick up his tavern business. But the promotions, he
soon found out, did more than expected, and his
tavern turned into a real winner. So he diversified
and became a distributor for foosball tables in
Montana and Idaho. And when demand finally
exceeded supply, he decided to try markeUng his
own tables. He arranged for the tables to be
manufactured (the1! stiU are, for that matter), and
he focused his efforts on marketing the new
product. The first Tournament Soccer table was
introduced in 1979. And after years of give-and-
take with operators and pro players, the table was
refined to its present form.
Today, Tournament Soccer markets, on the
average, 1,700 tables per month. The bulk of that
figure, about 1,200, is sold in the United States.
About 200 tables are sold each month in Canada,
and another 400 in Europe.
In 1979 the firm employed three people; today
that figure has grown to 97. AU 97 are either
8
involved with the marketing or promotion of the
tables.
Lee, who is the firm's president, is 36. His wife's
name is Lynne. They have two children-a son,
Christopher, and a daughter, Kyle. Lee stopped
just four credits short of a degree in accounting
from the University of Montana. Before getting into
the foosbaU business, he ran a biUiards parts and
supplies shop that covered a seven-state area. He
has also tried his hand at building miniature golf
courses and was even at one time a smokejumper
(that's someone who drops by parachute to fight
wildfires). This may not seem very noteworthy
until one reads Peppard's words about what
Tournament Soccer has done to the foosball
market: "We have started 'a fire that we have a
responsibility to feed." It's quite a change-from
firefighter to fire starter.
Cal is 32 and single. He received his degree from
the University of Texas in Personnel Management.
It's a rather appropriate degree for someone whose
life's work requires that he manage large numbers
of people at the Tournament Soccer extravaganzas.
Before joining Tournament Soccer, he was a dealer
of foosbaU tables in the Dallas area and was
responsible for a series of tournaments on Tornado
tables.
Both men average about five months a year away
from their homes in Seattle, and figure they both
travel about 200,000 miles a year.
Presently the company is weU into its second
straight miUion-dollar tour. That in itself is a feat.
How do they do it? Why do they do it? What do all
these large purses mean?-we decided to find out.
PLAY METER, May, 1978