Dec. 11, 2013

By Kayla Edgar

When college students think of ping-pong balls and cups, they automatically think about drinking and playing beer pong.  When Kris Kahn and Rick Bergmann were in college, they saw an opportunity to create a new product, Skill Pong.

Bergmann and Kahn were playing with water in their cups one night during their senior year at UW-Whitewater and wondered what the purpose of the water in the cups was. They figured it was just to weigh the cup down, but it made a huge mess.

“Bergmann told me of the idea of liquid-free beer pong, so we decided to Google it and see if anything like that existed because we wanted to buy it,” Kahn said.

With no luck on the Internet, they decided to buy material to make their own.

“We got some cotton balls and put change at the bottom of the cups, but the ball would still bounce out every now and again,” Kahn said.  “Obviously we couldn’t market something like that.”

Kahn and Bergmann went to the Market Research Department on campus and had them do some research that took a few months. They came up with the same results. There was nothing like this product out there.

From there, they took it to a prototyping company in Milwaukee and had them work on a few different types of foam inserts.

“Our idea was to have a weight at the bottom of the cup and a concave foam insert over the top,” Kahn said.  “Unfortunately, even the best prototype we had the ball would bounce out of the cup one out of 50 times.”

Kahn and Bergmann had the prototyping company work for more than a year. Unfortunately, money became tight, so they had to turn to Kahn’s dad.

Kahn’s dad was on board with the idea right away and became the third partner of the company.  He came up with the idea of the material that is now at the bottom of the Skill Pong cups.

“There are these things called Splat Balls. When you whip it, they splat and stick, then slowly brings itself back into the ball,” Kahn said.  “We tried those out, and the material worked out perfect.”

Kahn found a company in China that produced the thermoplastic rubber (TPR) that Splat Balls were made of, and they were able to have the material shipped over.

“We were upset because we were expecting the same size as the Splat Ball, and they were much smaller,” Kahn said.  “I just said let’s throw three in each cup, and they fit perfectly.  We just started playing, and that was the original version of Skill Pong.”

Kahn asked the company if it could customize the TPR to the shape and weight they needed so it would simulate a half cup full of liquid and would fit in any 16-ounce cup.

Kahn and Bergmann’s original goal was to eliminate the mess for college students.  However, when they got their first shipment and started out at the Brookfield Square Mall in Milwaukee, their biggest customers were moms buying them for their kids.

“We never thought of marketing towards kids, but they loved it,” Kahn said.

“We’ve been trying to promote it as a way to get kids off of video games and for college kids to keep from drinking,” Kahn said.

Kahn and Bergmann want to eventually take their company nationally and worldwide.  They are trying to create a new sport.

“The World Series of Beer Pong has the same goal as us, but they aren’t willing to get rid of the beer and all the bad language,” Kahn said.

They want to start their own Skill Pong league where different age groups compete and have a national tournament every year that can be televised.

Kahn and Bergmann also want to start tournaments at every college, starting with UW-W.

“We want to have a commissioner who runs the tournaments at every college starting next semester,” Kahn said. “We’re going to be looking for a bright student who wants to help us set up this huge tournament where students can compete sober, and we will have big prizes for whoever wins.”

“Everyone loves the game,” Kahn said. “You’re just throwing a ping pong ball in a cup, but it gets competitive. It is an actual sport and has entertainment value.”

If anyone is interested in being the Whitewater commissioner, you can contact Kahn at [email protected].

The Skill Pong sets are available at the campus bookstore and are part of the 12 percent off items for the 12 days of Christmas.