People largley watch individual sports for the personalities and their support for particular players. Even the badminton playing public do not have feel familiar with the top singles players. This is largely due to the low standard of current british players and the lack of media coverage.
In recent years the biggest media attention on Badminton has been on the more controversial incidents....the infamous coke incident, players suspended for drinking, selection rows or arguements at the nationals, Gail Emms photos in the tabloids! The results never make the news!
Its a chicken and egg situation, certainly none of the current british players are going to mount a realistic challenge for the big singles events for the foreseeable future. The public does not realise the intense competition and demands of the game, they do not realise it is a world game played by millions. How will the public be educated? Well this is down to the BAOFE.
If you read a copy of their magazine from ten or fifteen years ago you see a lot of world news, english competing in the far east, foriegn players etc. now the magazine is full of domestic issues, local news which doesn't even interest the real fan and BAOFE self publicising.
I probably know as much about tennis as badminton, just because of the constant stream of tennis news in the media, much of which revolves around Henman / Rusedski, be it there injuries, sucesses failures, change of coach, all of which is apparently newsworthy. How can we get badminton to this situation.
