As our club is considering expanding its facilities, we tried to convince the Management Committee that we should have a Multipurpose Hall (MPH) with badminton courts since at least 3 to 4 tennis courts will continue to be available at the new complex. Hitherto, for some unknown reasons, the MPH was never considered even though badminton has been known to be more popular than tennis for a long time and our club has been in existence for the past 50 years. So we decided to do a little research and dig out some official figures for sports participation in Singapore. We managed to obtain our source material from the Sports Library located at our National Stadium. The Singapore Sports Council last conducted a survey in 2001 and documented it in a report entitled "National Sports Participation Survey 2001". Here are the main summaries: Table 4: Top 20 Most Popular Sports Among Regular Participants (Total survey population size 15 years & above: 2,562,400) Rank 1 Jogging (341,575 participants) 13.33% (of Total) 2. Swimming (260,163) 10.15% 3. Walking (178,457) 6.96% 4. Soccer (112,973) 4.41% 5. Badminton (101,175) 3.95% 6. Cycling (79,937) 3.12% 7. Gym Workout (74,037) 2.89% 8. Basketball (65,483) 2.56% 9. Golf (38,641) 1.51% 10. Tennis (36,871) 1.44%11. Athletics (26,252) 1.02% 12. Dancing (all forms) (24,777) 0.97% 13. Tenpin bowling (23,303) 0.91% 14. Callisthenics (22,123) 0.86% 15. Qigong (20,943) 0.82% 16. Rhythmic exercises (incl. aerobics) (17,403) 0.68% 17. Taiji Quan (15,928) 0.62% 18. Table Tennis (15,043) 0.59% 19. Netball (12,979) 0.51% 20. Billiards/Snooker/Pool (12,979) 0.47% If one were to take out jogging and walking, which generally do not require built-up facilities, then Badminton ranks third behind Swimming and Soccer, a very popular sport indeed. A further breakdown of Badminton participants showed 62,829 Males or 5.1% of Total Males 1,234,742 and 38,346 Females (2.9% of 1,327,658). On the other hand, Tennis attracted only 25,072 Males (2%) and 11,799 Females (0.9%). A further breakdown into 4 age-groups in 15 sports revealed the following: Table 6a: Teens (15-19 years) Total 240,695 R5 Badminton 28,022 (11.6%); Tennis (not listed) Table 6b: Young Adults (20-39 years) Total 1,042,717 R4 Badminton 48,965 (4.7%); R9 Tennis 23,008 (2.2%) Table 6c: Middle-Aged Adults (40-59 years) Total 961,896 R5 Badminton 23,008 (2.4%); R12 Tennis 7,964 (0.8%) Table 6d: Senior Citizens (60 years +) Total 317,092 R13 Badminton 1,180 (0.4%); R14 Tennis (1,180 (0.4%) From the above statistics, one could see that Badminton is much more popular than Tennis for Teens, Young Adults and Milddle-Aged Adults and this is despite the often heard claim that it is more 'dangerous' for the middle-aged adults to be actively involved in Badminton than Tennis. Not only is Badminton being played by more people, even as a spectator sport both at the venues and on television, Badminton ranks second (9.8% of 2,562,000 survey respondents) after Soccer (37.0%) with Tennis (5.6%) a distant sixth. So Badminton in Singapore is immensely popular with a broad spectrum of sports loving people! The next survey report will be available this year, I understand, but I think Badminton will continue to rank high, certainly higher than Tennis, given the higher profile enjoyed by the sport owing to the greater success we have achieved at international competitions such as the Commonwealth and SEA Games, and individual GP events. How's it in your country?
Hi. Although I cant give statistics. Badminton is by far the fastest growing sport here in the Philippines. The literal mushrooming of badminton courts here attests to the sport's popularity. It is still far behind basketball as a sport, however. I would venture to say, though, that it just MIGHT be our #2 sport now in terms of popularity in urban areas.
In Australia, badminton is still very much a minority sport. However with more migrants coming from Asia in the last twenty years, the sport has picked up some momentun in the popularity stakes.
France Number of registered players in each french olympic federation (2002 figures, couldn't find more recent ) : Football 2 066 339 Tennis 1 067 755 Judo, Ju-jitsu, Kendo etc... 576 607 Horse-riding 452 585 Basket-ball 426 751 Handball 318 895 Sailing 276 644 Gymnastics 226 882 Swimming 214 053 Table tennis 186 265 Athletism 165 857 Skiing 152 448 Shooting 132 447 Canoeing 123 102 Fencing 116 440 Volley-ball 101 873 Cycling 98 642 Badminton 85 712 Rowing 64 806 Archery 51 906 Taekwondo 49 974 Triathlon 41 212 Ice sports 40 405 Weightlifting 26 781 Boxing 21 057 Lutte (translation?) 12 549 Hockey 7 635 Baseball, Softball & Cricket 7 434 Current figure for badminton (2005) is : 106 725 registered players at the federation. (badminton federation is the olympic federation with the highest progression every year)
I can't find the figures but I remember reading that badminton is the number one or two sport in french schools... Anyway, badminton is still a rather minor sport in France still, but it is growing year after year, while other traditional sports are fading away... (tennis for example )
Loh, Those surveys confirmed SQUASH is dead. As for swimming in Singapore, some parents are reluctant "swimmers", because of the kids.
Basketball is still number one here, followed by billiards, Tae Kwon Do and Boxing. I'm not sure if, on the country level, badminton is in the top 5 sports. The lastest AC Nielsen study doesn't report badminton in the top 10 even. But you're right about the phenomenal growth of the sport here. Within a 10 minute drive radius from my home, there are about 5 or 6 clubs nearby, with an average of 8 courts per club!
France (again) Found 2003 data (most recent governmental official data) : 1.Football 2 141 239 2.Tennis 1 075 025 3.Judo-jujitsu & associated disciplins 556 406 4.Horse riding 462 955 5.Basketball 427 445 6.Handball 318 981 7.Sailing 254 936 8.Gymnastics 231 002 9.Swimming 216 424 10.Table tennis 180 694 11.Athletism 177 509 12.Skiing 157 762 13.Shooting 131 259 14.Volley-ball 101 343 15.Cycling 98 276 16.Badminton 91 782 17.Archery 52 467 18.Taekwondo & associated disciplins 49 538 19.Fencing 46 975 20.Ice sports 39 181 21.Rowing 33 693 22.Canoeing 30 257 23.Weightlifting 30 073 24.Boxing 24 646 25.Triathlon 19 398 26.Lutte(?) 13 429 27.Baseball, softball & cricket 8 635 28.Hockey 7 698 29.Snowboard 3 090 30.Modern pentathlon 617
No. 1 Sport In my country Soccer is the most famous and the no. 1 sport played. Badminton, running, swimming, bodybuilding, tennis and netball are sharing more or less the same amount of people. Individuals here do different sports in a day or in a week. Some would run first after that go to gym then for a swim or run, play squash then badminton. Hill running is the growing sport here. Here badminton is played by veterans, teachers and mostly foreign workers. The young ones are not interested because badminton is very less exposure and eventhough there are some who are interested to play professionally but they have nowhere to go and lack of encouragment by parents. Becoming a soccer player here brings fame and can travel around the world and also there are lots of football matches all year round but badminton tournament is very rare sometime there is non in a year. Sorry no statistic or data recorded in Brunei.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/arts16.htm Wow !! And I thought badminton wouldn't even be on the list . Badminton is ranked thirteen in Canada , according to this chart at least . It's not really the most popular sport in Canada , but it's not bad ...
I remember reading a published article where the head of big sporting goods chain said that badminton related items was number 2 on their sales behind basketball. It has also been mentioned that most of the badminton players here are in the 25-40 age bracket. We'll see in five years if badminton is here to stay. If it's a fad, most of these players would have quit the sport and badminton would have become a niche sport. On the other hand, a lot of these players are parents; there's an army of 7-12 year old kids taking formal coaching in badminton right now (school's out).
Wow that's quite a surprising statistic for badminton. I'm glad it's up there, but I somehow doubt that it's actually that popular lol.
As for squash, I'm afraid you are right. Yet in our present clubhouse, apart from the tennis courts, we have two squash courts but no badminton courts! The reluctant parent swimmers deserve more encouragement. Kids are often the ones who initiate, act as bridges and links and in this case, they indirectly 'force' their parents to take up swimming just to be able to accompany them. The end result is that both the kids and their parents are better off participating in a sport.
Interesting to note that there are actually more women than men playing badminton in Canada! In France, I think the ratio is approximately 60% men and 40% women.
Also, it is interesting to note that Tennis commands such a high standing in France, just a rung below soccer, for which France was World Champion. Just being champs can really ignite the passion and win more converts! Well, the French (Tennis) Open has been telecast live in many countries in past years and they were just irresistible although I think there were not many French names in the Finals that come to mind.
Yes, football and tennis have a long tradition in France, though french tennis players are rather crap! (except Amélie Mauresmo, world #3) Badminton is a relatively new sport as the french badminton federation is only 25 years old (!!) but badminton is the olympic sport with the highest progression and though there are only 100.000 registered players, the total number of occasional players must be nearer one million...
Lol, its sux, I left france 2 years ago to go to the US, and here, there is no badminton at alol, my friend and I create the badminton club in our university. All the poeple are either japanese or indian ^^
Just this year, here in Belgium, the badminton federation reached up to 20000 members, not much. And it's never shown on tv
Theres 15000 people in my city and like 5+ places to play badminton. We got 4 courts in my club (badminton-only courts) and we are 400 members.
