A rally gives spectators something immediate to follow. Players take turns, react to the ball and work within the same rules, regardless of how well known they are outside the room.

That makes the game a useful focus for a social event. A short exhibition can introduce an audience to a specialist player while giving invited guests a chance to participate.

In February 2017, the International Table Tennis Federation featured Susan Sarandon discussing her enthusiasm for the game and identified her as a co-owner of SPIN. That is a documented connection between an actor and table tennis.

Her involvement connects public enthusiasm for the game with a venue organized around social play.

According to SPIN’s own history, Jonathan Bricklin and Franck Raharinosy began hosting weekly table tennis parties in 2007. With Andrew Gordon, they opened the company’s first Park Avenue venue in New York in summer 2009.

The company describes the original gatherings as bringing together artists, musicians, bankers and professional players. In that account, the gathering around the table was part of the idea from the beginning.

In his May 6, 2013 account of the Berkshire Hathaway weekend, Bill Gates described an exhibition with Warren Buffett and table tennis player Ariel Hsing outside Borsheims. He also recalled watching Hsing represent the United States at the London Olympics.

The event put a specialist player alongside famous participants from another field. The pairing made the contrast between specialist experience and invited participation part of the event.

Gates’s first-person account places the exhibition within a wider weekend of Berkshire Hathaway activities. A game could be part of a public gathering without being the main event.

For a workplace considering a table, practical questions matter more than the celebrity association: adequate playing space, noise, fair access and whether employees actually want to use it.

For willing participants, table tennis can provide an activity around which to gather. A host can choose short games, doubles or informal rallies to suit the group. Choose a format that fits the available space and the participants’ interests.

Good arrangements leave room for people to watch or opt out. The social experience comes from the guests and the setting as much as from the equipment.

Sarandon’s public enthusiasm, SPIN’s origin story and the Gates–Buffett exhibition show different ways table tennis enters public life. The interest lies in those concrete examples. A home or shared game room does not need a famous endorsement to give its users a reason to play.