Living in the UK i find the promotion of badminton, outside the very basic in school, has no public profile. Very bad.The Mega star player don't seem to have any of there own YouTube. Content or blogs. Virtually no coaching videoes or promotions. The world championships are coming to Glasgow in August but nobody here knows and the costs of going are more expensive than the Davis cup which everyone watched. The BBC has right to championship, no inclination to broadcast any of it, unless there a chance of English success, interest nil. The government body's and the local council have had no advertising of the tournament. Have tried to vent my anger at someone but been unable to get any response. Changing rules wont make this game maim stream but better running of it might. Sorry if in wrong threaded not sure which one.
Glasgow had the successful Commonwealth games a couple if years ago. Badminton Final, like all the events well sold and attended and had very affordable tickets. Davis cups great weekend in Glasgow, atmosphere, tourism, enhancing the sport, aswell as affordable tickets. Great buisness marketing chances have been missed, zero effort in selling the sport to the masses. This championship will come and go and the locals will have not noticed it. TV rights should have been to push the game not just to take the money.
Without getting too political, go and look at the BBC's current reputation around UK politics, and then revisit the 'not just for money' idea. I don't want to go on too much of a rant, but they've been called out a lot in these last few years for their extreme biases that would lead to bigwigs getting more money.
BBC losing some many top events to BT and Sky, there is an chance to develope cheaper sports and bring them to the general public. In the past snooker and darts and more recently CH4 with cycling. Needs vision.
The England players could do with updating their facebook and creating a bit of interest. Gave me a shock to see Gabby and Chris update their facebook. As a side note, a sponsor pays for publicity but if the player doesn't care about showing off brands, why would any potential sponsor consider the player.... I dont have instagram
Yeah I remember when I was at school, I asked the teachers why "sports day" never included racket sports. I was told it was essentially just athletics... so why isn't it called athletics day then? Because it isn't. We had some good keen kids who wanted to play badminton all year round, but badminton was only played for about 4-8 weeks in the winter. If the schools aren't interested in the sport, what chance do the kids have in developing? It's just not a sport our country wants to promote, support or invest in.
Needs a bit flash, visits to cities from top stars. Lin Dan in flashy Ferrari, Lee ChongWei in a DB9 and Victor Axleson on a unicycle. Build it up. Far east media deals must be vast and cover the promotions.
I actually TOTALLY agree. Even here in China they have a league with all the pro players and they play around different cities. My city has a huge badminton community, touted as the best in China, and there is basically no advertising outside of ONE wechat account so you have to be very embedded in the badminton commmunity to even hear about it. A nd when you go to the games they don't even have food to buy much less shirts or team memorabilia. There is zero marketing done and I feel like it is such a wasted opportunity. Gronya Sommerville seems like the only one with a consistent online presence. And it works! Despite her lower ranking I am more interested in her because she updates FB regularly (herself, not the cheesy "look at lee chong wei meet his fans" thing his FB does) so I can see her personality and I get more invested in her. Anyway, I'm writing a blog post about this but this is really one of my major issues with badminton. Fat out of shape people who hate exercise walk around in Basketball and football jerseys all the time. But even dedicated serious players have a hard time finding badminton clothes outside of some teeny tiny shop which has a only shoes and rackets and maybe 3 styles of plain shirts. Where is our chance to show badminton pride? Adidias has a badminton line yet even here in China I can't find a single Adididas store that stocks them.
To push badminton in today's world tournaments in TV need to push statistics, peopleq today are obsessed with fitness and a calorie burn per game and quantitive stats is way to sell the sport. Rebrand from a Dad game
The trouble is, you can have someone like LD or LCW walk down a London high street and hardly anyone would know who they are. Badminton is just not a sport that is covered by the media here. We're more interested in Football, Cricket, Football, Rugby, Football and Golf. Did I mention Football as well?
Yet when BE did manage to put funding towards promoting the sport, they got a good response. This makes it sound like there is potential.
Perhaps all those commenting here about the perceived lack of effort in promoting the game should contact their national organisations , the current sponsors and event managements to try to find out how much work goes in to promoting this great game. It doesnt matter how much money or effort is put in if the media isnt receptive to that imput, the amount of promotional work etc put into the YAE is huge, but the take up is ridiculously small. So what does a NGO do, spend more and more on flashy adverts etc...and get nowhere, or push that money into helping the players they have to improve
Uk badmintion was only concern with a small group elite level athletes, now with the government funding gone. They have to bring money in which means they are going to have to work hard for cash. This might mean bringing media savy people in to run the sport instead of a extra elite pension for ex players.
So many issues with that last post, firstly as far as BE was concerned they certainly were not only concerned with an elite group, yes the elite players got mosr of the headlines (which is what I thought you were asking for more of) but a huge amount of work was put into club and social play at all levels. Yes your right, they are going to have to work for cash, but thats something they have been doing for years. unfortunatly its not easy to come by, easy to say go get it, but the other side of that is that there needs to be people willing to give it. Perhaps you could give us some idea as to who these people are? As to bringing media savvy people into run the sport, do you mean as cheif exec, or development manager, or event head, or finance manager...or just to run the media and communications side. Well in BE,s case they already have media people in place doing just that, again perhaps you could quide then to these cash rich folks that you seem to think are out there wanting to invest in the sport. As to the part about an elitepension for ex players .....who are the ones your referring to, if they do exist has it occurred to you that the particular ex player may well have contacts to bring in what your asking for or even a qualification to do that job. Its so easy to sit back and critisise and make broad statements, perhaps a few constructive level headed suggestions might help your point
In every Level Badminton is failing in the UK. Tv no coverage of any super series events. No live broadcasts, streams or even results except the All England, whose coverage is patchy to say the least. YouTube block Bwf live streams to the UK now.Why? World Championships in Glasgow, fantastic chance to promote the sport and the BBC promise to dream it, good luck bring in viewers. locally, can't talk for England, can only see coaching focussed to Badminton school of sport, the rest discarded. Need competitive inter school leagues and direct coaching not tokenism. They chased the medal money from the government and easy lottery money and lost. Uk have some great current personalities in competitive badminton, shame their better known abroad.
Not just UK, but look at how low the purses are for the biggest badminton tournaments. Miniscule compared to basically every other sport ever. So to be good enough to be a top pro, you need someone to support you. Badminton doesn't have commercial support, due to the fact there is basically very little competition in the commercial marketplace, so governments need to support the players. It's one of the reason China is always dominating. Because they have a fantastic system in place to fully support and take care of their players. In other countries players need to support themselves, or fight over teeny tiny government grants so they can't dedicate themselves so fully to training. The thing that is needed to push badminton into the commons man consciousness is good old fashioned american style capitalism. Some company (or preferably several companies) need to make badminton clothes cool and sold in every mall, make badminton video games, put badminton players in commercials for cars and have them attend Paris Fashion week. Lin Dan is in a great position to really appeal to a lot of people (As a "sexy rouge") but China is squandering his commercial appeal because the government isn't a for-profit company and doesn't have any reason to do that. In china he sells thing like Mint Blanc pens and watches, but he's still not at all famous in western countires outside of the badminton community. In china, for sure more people play badminton then basketball, yet every store in the mall sells basketball clothes, every marketplace has basketball sneakers, and all my students can name 10+ american basketball players, even the ones that hate basketball. Meanwhile they can name one badminton player and finding badminton clothes or rackets requires a trip to a court or some tiny row of shops outside the city sports arena. That's the real problem. It's not about investing in players or promoting some league in England.
I don't think the Badminton Association can do everything. This I think players have to understand. They have to learn ways to market themselves, put themselves out on social media and increase their own publicity. Yes, they are professional sportsman but as a badminton sportsman, you have to look for different things and not expect things handed on a plate to you. For instance, when I go to HK open, there is very little contact with players with the public. Ok, some players are less popular. But those can make up for it by being more personable. And I think BWF can do better by organising a stand and having players in rotation there for publicity, pictures, short question and answers especially with school kids. Then putting pictures of the event out there on social media and giving the photos to players to use on their own social media accounts. It is a two way process. I tried talking to some of the England team during some down time at HK Open and basically got brushed off. And yeah, no communication problems since I am a native speaker of English. Yet, I speak to Jan O or Mads Conrad and find them to be quite engaging personalities. Tai Tzu Ying's facebook is also very active. Goh Liu Ying is injured but still posts on facebook showing some of her rehab. Saina is active. I get the impression girls are maybe a bit better than the guys and the Danish players are pretty good as well.
