Arizona Daily Wildcat

Issue date: 1/23/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Jake Lacey King Pong, Inc., a company owned by UA business graduates Adam Wasserman and Dan Schuman, markets beer pong tables similar to this one. Schuman and Wasserman have been promoting their tables by holding beer pong tournaments in bars on the West Coast.

Like thousands of other people, Adam Wasserman and Dan Schuman graduated with business degrees from the UA. But while other graduates are now carrying briefcases and making copies, Wasserman and Schuman are still doing pretty much the same thing they did in college - playing beer pong.

Wasserman and Schuman build and market beer pong tables for their company, King Pong, Inc., in San Diego.

The two friends, who met while attending the UA, started playing the game their sophomore year.

"We met some guys, and we just started playing, and we just started making our own tables," Schuman said.

A few years later, King Pong was born. The two started the company after graduating in 2004.

The company makes portable beer pong tables out of either plastic or wood, which start at almost $100 and $200, respectively.

The tables are customizable with 13 different colors and personalized logos.

"Plastic is more lightweight, affordable, portable than the wooden ones," Wasserman said. "Then you have the wooden one. It's a nicer piece of furniture."

To promote the business, King Pong has been holding pong tournaments in bars on the West Coast. In Tucson, the company will host a tournament at the spring Fourth Avenue Street Fair.

The tournaments usually have 32 teams compete, Schuman said. King Pong provides tables, a grand prize and their bikini-clad promoters, the King Pong Girls. Grand prizes in past tournaments have been cash, iPods and bragging rights.

Other UA students also create customized beer pong tables.

Kevin Alber, a mechanical engineering senior, said he and his roommates have made their beer pong table into a replica of the McKale Center.

"We got a big piece of wood and laid the lines down. I got some decals from the same people who make the school's ones," Alber said.

Alber said the table was signed by former UA basketball players Hassan Adams and Matt Brase.

Alber said he and his roommates contemplated selling the tables, but after spending around $250 and countless hours on their own table, they decided not to.

The tournaments held by King Pong are just one example of the growing popularity of beer pong tournaments in venues outside of college living rooms.

One of these tournaments is the World Series of Beer Pong tournament, held during the first week of January at the Oasis Resort and Casino in Mesquite, Nev.

The second-annual event hosted teams with quirky names, such as this year's winner, "We Own Your Face," who competed in several smaller regional tournaments.

The first-place team won a $20,000 grand prize.

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