Techies entertained by little men, big goals

They are probably the most overworked and underpaid 26 members of any technology company--whipsawed between rival factions, spun senseless from overuse, dizzy after round-the-clock shifts. But the plastic men who toil on the foosball field are nothing if not respected pillars of the New Economy. After spending most of the '80s and much of the '90s in relative obscurity, virtually unknown to anyone unfamiliar with the inside of low-rent pubs, foosball has staged a stunning comeback. And it owes its renaissance to faddish Internet companies that have embraced the game with gusto. Annual foosball table sales in the United States, approaching 100,000 per year, are about quadruple what they were a decade ago. Sales at leading retailer FoosDirect, which sells tables online at Foosball.com, have surged 62 percent since 1998. Corporations now account for 61 percent of FoosDirect sales, compared with 22 percent in 1997. The company's No. 1 customer is Internet portal Yahoo, which has foosball tables in offices around the world and has 10 in its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters. IBM has about a dozen tables in its Austin, Texas, facilities. The resurgence has many foos aficionados trying to muster support for a national tournament pitting the best of Intel, IBM, Yahoo, Cisco and other foos-obsessed offices against one another. Some even argue that foosball should debut as an exhibition sport at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Foosball retailers don't really care why the game has become so hot--they're simply thankful that it has returned from the brink of extinction. In addition to soaring corporate sales, foosball tables have become a major auction item on eBay. The low-end tables, which cost between $150 and $900, are shaping up to be a big seller for the upcoming holidays--so much so that retailers are concerned about a lack of supply and are warning customers to place orders before Halloween. Todd Shelton, owner of Recrooms.com of Bay City, Mich., says tech companies are the catalyst for an even broader revival of foosball. He just shipped 10 Cyclones--one of the top-ranked home foosball tables, which sell for $1,100 to $1,400--to the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas.