Its growing, need to be as popular as tennis, that's why need taufik , lin dan , Peter gade and Lee chong wei to spreads at the Legend vision . Last stop this year will be held in Malaysia .
It depends where I suppose. But in Europe, it is growing fast, if we look at the number of people practising the sport. At least it is in France, I think it is in Spain and Germany as well.
Here in Germany the number of members is declining for the last 5 years but I think the national association is now trying to stop this trend.
Growing worldwide. In India, as a recreation/hobby sport, it was ALWAYS saturated. Everyone played it everywhere, but the number of serious players have only grown with PGBA.
It is very much on the decline in Europe with France just about the only exception in recent years and perhaps Spain now. England is no exception but maybe the decline is leveling off in serveral countries ... England: Olympic legacy failure: sports participation figures Top five increases and decreases between 2005/06 and 2014/15. Only Olympic sports (with available data) are shown Badminton: -12.9% Once a week participation (16+), England. Percentage change since October 2010-11 Badminton -60,400 (-11.8%) http://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...c-legacy-failure-sports-participation-figures (why the heck is the FA getting money from Sport England , like they need it ...) But according to some data leading up to 2012 club membership had remained steady. Usually an Olympic year will stall the decline or show a slight increase (if good performance by a home player) There is strong competition from the current fitness rage which has become more extreme with crossfit and whatnot which are a lot more 'fashionable' ...
..."Well, don't believe every thing you read on the internet" - Jesus From my experience alone, although this may be extremely limited, badminton is certainly increasing in participation in the last few years.
"The internet" - these are Sport England numbers (though based on surveys) that two years before were boasting about "Badminton experiences 70 per cent participation increase thanks to "Olympic Effect" In any case these once a week/casual players usually have little engagement or positive financial effect. Registered club and Badminton England members are more solid numbers to work with ... but I must admit the structure in England differs quite a lot from that on the continent with far more local leagues that are not directly linked to Badminton England.
to be honest badminton in uk is alright however i reckon its probably stalling to improve even though nbl is ACTUALLY on sky sports the level of clubs are too low sport england doesnt give enough to BE hence the facilities are crap http://www.badmintonengland.co.uk/core/core_picker/download.asp?id=13656 go on this pdf link and see what BE has achieved compared to what they want to achieve competition is a problem as well (manchester the 2nd biggest city only has like 2 comps a year (bronze))
Participation rate wise; growing. Image wise; Dying. If you ask me, there are only two real stars in badminton, and the two of them are waning.
In France, there were 142.000 licence-holders in december 2010 and in december 2015 we are 172.000 (source : french badminton federation). It does increase. There are also occasional players which are not licence-holders.
