Lee Peppard – Foosball Legend

Lee Peppard

NW HALL OF LEGENDS INDUCTEE 2012, US Table Soccer Hall of Fame Inductee 1986

History is too often part fact, part speculation, part bias and overly dependent on memories. In the foosball world, one thing is undisputed –Lee Peppard is the originator and founding father behind the birth and development of professional table soccer. Before Lee, the largest tournament held was a $5000 event. He upped the ante overnight when, in 1974, he shocked the foosball world by announcing a $50,000 event.

Peppard was a tavern owner who witnessed first hand the explosion of foosball popularity in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. In 1971, as owner of Eight Ball Billiards in Missoula, Montana, Peppard quickly realized that the two German tables were busy all of the time and that there was something to exploit in this odd but popular game.

Always a visionary, Lee staged a daring $1500 tournament on the German tables in 1972, drawing players from as far away as Oklahoma. Its success led him to sponsor a $5000 tournament the next year, only this time he used his own newly designed Tournament Soccer tables. Again, success reigned and Lee set about plans for the most ambitious and most important tournament in table soccer history.

His monumental 1974 event, the $50,000 International Championships held at Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado, was the first big-money championship in the sport’s history. In 1975, he created the first professional foosball tour. For the next seven years, he sponsored the pro tour, which became famous worldwide as “The Million Dollar Tour.” Lee gave away more than $3,000,000 in over 100 major tournaments through 1981. His aggressive style of promotion and the creative tournament formats, designed with business partner Cal Rogers, provided a blueprint for today’s professional events-one that has been imitated but never equaled.

His small company–Tournament Soccer–became the stuff of legends and myth. He revolutionized the coin industry by establishing that the true customer was the player, not the distributor or operator. In an era of big-time, powerful industry players like Bally, Williams, Atari, and Sega, the industry looked to Lee as a leader. He established the practice of “tournament marketing,” showing that promotions could dramatically increase revenue and establish brand loyalty.

After 1981, Lee found the highly successful Medalist Marketing, specializing in electronic dart games. Today, as the CEO of Medalist, Lee splits his time between Seattle, Washington and Bangkok, Thailand.