Sharon Vattukulathil Joseph

JOOLA was founded by Karl Frey, the former owner of the department store group, Fr. Th. Jooss, located in Landau, Germany. The sports department of Jooss was involved in the production of the first table tennis tables in 1952. By 1954, table tennis production became an independent department within the group. In the 1950’s, it was common to combine the names of companies and cities, which is how the JOOLA brand name came to be – a combination of Jooss and Landau. After tremendous success and popularity, JOOLA established itself as an independent company and relocated to Godramstein in 1963. The company experienced exponential growth and quickly reached production capacity in its new location, despite taking over additional buildings. In 1973, JOOLA opened its Siebeldingen campus, which features an 1800m² production facility, 1200m² of warehousing space, and 700m² of office space. The Siebeldingen campus is still being used today as the home of JOOLA’s European Headquarter. In 1979, Michael Bachtler, managing director of JOOLA since 1968, took over the company as CEO. He oversaw major milestones such as becoming the official table sponsor for the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Summer Games. In 2018, Michael Bachtler announced his plans for succession and in 2019 JOOLA was acquired by their North American partner, Sport Squad, Inc. under the leadership of Richard Lee, President of the company. JOOLA and Sport Squad, Inc. have been partners since 2006, when Sport Squad, Inc. became the North American distributor for the JOOLA brand. In 2022, JOOLA launched JOOLA Pickleball and immediately took the sport by storm as the sponsor of pickleball world #1 Ben Johns and a partner of USPPA. JOOLA INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED is the latest addition of country-specific Company subsidiary. It is registered with MCA, GoI.