I will be nominating for the state Board soon and it seems a formality I'll get on. I live in Australia, and what's clear is that there aren't many players here who aren't Asian. Even I'm part Asian! One obviously can't say that badminton just doesn't appeal to many non-Asians, because you will find countries where this is not the case. But it does seem to be the case in most countries. So my question is why badminton isn't appealing to many non-Asians in a lot of places, and what can be done about it?
For me the answer (at least the one that matters) is real simple: kids are not playing it. so the solution is to make it more accessible to kids. I have seen proposals such as to paint badminton courts on the floor of every elementary school gym.
This is a repost from https://www.badmintoncentral.com/fo...ting-kids-into-badminton.189797/#post-2842072 "Reach out to schools to try and organise a demonstration/playing session in a school's PE class. Many children are never exposed to badminton at all, and badminton is never even a thought in their mind. If you have 2 players with a nice technique come in and showboat a bit, trick shots, some big smashes, it can make an impression. All you need is that a few kids go home and ask their parents about it. Of course the younger they start, the better it is for their development, but take what you can get. Badminton isn't 'cool'. A poster promoting boxing or karate classes will be far more interesting than a poster or flyer promoting badminton. Kids need to see high level badminton being played to realize how great badminton can be. Repeat every year with a new class. The fact that badminton exists as a sport that can be played locally needs to exist in the minds of as many people as possible." I'm not sure how this would help you in your role as board member, but the fact that my former club would go to these measures to attract members highlights that badminton simply doesn't exist in the minds of many non-Asian populations.
A lot of factors: Sports like tennis and rugby are more obviously power based. History of a sport Marketing (difficult when the best players in the world don’t speak fluent English) Asian role models in badminton don’t have the same appeal. Etc.
Starting in schools is a good place to start. Another point is the eye candy. Some ppl are sensitive to this comment of eye candy. But is true ppl like to look at nice stuff. Look at badminton vs tennis, no rest time cannot even wipe ur sweat. Also the dress code. Again we compare with tennis. The colours used in badminton clothing are terrible. Ask Becky. Also the space for ads. The badminton racket being small vs tennis racket. Since little space and opportunity for sponsors...so nobody wants to put money into the game. As such small prize vs other sports, less drama so no entertainment value. World Champion but it has no prize to this title! To me these are some reasons. Sent from my SM-N986B using Tapatalk
Maybe the sport of Badminton is too complicated for its' own good. Football, kick ball into goal, win. Tennis, get ball over net, win if it doesn't come back. Swimming, get to goal before other people. Badminton, use a variety of shots and tactics to outmanoeuvre and outsmart your opponent(s). It's less "pick up and play" than more popular sports are. In England, we did play some badminton in my secondary school, but a lot more time was spent doing gymnastics, football, swimming, hockey and athletics (British years 7-11 of education, so ~11-15 years old) When I played near Bournemouth for some years someone convinced their shy kid to play at the club night. They'd had less than a years worth of after school badminton training and omg, they thrashed everyone at club night. Even the best players. I am a firm believer that the right training and right attitude towards the sport will produce talented players. - As for Ethnicities of players, I would say it depends on the area you are in. One club I see are 100% Indian players. No strings sessions I go to are mostly white british with 10-20% other ethnicities and up to another 20% Asian. - I also personally don't like the viewing angle they choose to televise the badminton in. It doesn't show the height and depth of the shuttle very well. If they showed it from the crowd, or diagonally above, it might be a bit more successful in viewership and watchability.
I think its more about environtment we grow up. How much we are exposed to the sports. For a parent that had football background (pros or not), high likely their kids follow playing football to. Kids tend to mimic anything around them right. For country with so little badminton exposure, then it wont be growing its comunity much, not to mention economic ways, less rich want to invest on building badminton hall which makes it even harder to grow the comunity. For example My friend who had little daughter. The dad are football hobbyist player & not badminton. Like to play with his friend or watch any football match on TV. So much exposure to the little lady & she asked for it but well its a girl & no girl team here, so she end up just fixed herself with her gadget. The dad want her to let go off her gadget & do more physical activity but not know what to do. I tell him to play badminton. No body contact so surely its ok for a girl. But to actually makes the little one interet on it are not an easy task. So i tell my friend to come by on my schedule. No need to play, just let her see some action on court & if she want to try, i had some spare racket he can use on the side of court. Watch pros badminton match on TV, expose her to badminton as much as possible even tho you are bored but just do it for ur little princess. & About a month ago she ask the dad to buy her badminton racket & now start practicing with coach.
This post mainly applies to the popularity of badminton as a whole in U.K. Role models are a strong factor. We see people of Asian extraction winning world championships. We very occasionally see UK non Asian players (how many in the past ten years?) getting medals but not enough to reach a critical threshold. Why do we see so many British south Asian second or third generation teenagers play badminton with a very healthy gender balance? It must have everything to do with Saina and then Sindhu. For them to see Indians regularly getting to the latter stages of the big tournaments including world championships and Olympics is huge. These two successful athletes are also female in a country where cricket is massive …. amongst the male population. That’s a huge thing for an Indian girl to see Indian women succeed in a sport where they get further than the men. Indian parents are likely to put resources into the sport. Spain are also coming up with juniors. Marin is a great story of success against the rest of the world. It’s very inspiring to younger players to see your home country player repeatedly win major titles. Saina and Sindhu won’t appeal to non- Asians. Most U.K. people don’t speak a second language and have little affinity for European neighbours successes. And there’s football which is easier to talk about with your friends. Let’s face reality. Asians trying to get into football or rugby etc have a hard time getting into the sport. So they move into sports where they can be successful. The non-Asian background group as a whole don’t have any great incentive to increased participation in badminton. Hence numbers for non-Asians stay small. I don’t live in Australia but probably you will find all the publicity is on rugby, Australian rules football, football, netball and swimming. Why would a non Asian background person or parents think of and then choose badminton?.
In USA, badminton gets very less Media and Television coverage. Priority is given to Football, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis and kids are exposed to these sports only from childhood. Even big companies build stadiums related to these sports only and also government gives funding to build these sport facilities. So its all planned at higher level. Best Regards Prady https://www.nydhi.com
Many great points here, and one of it is definitely the lack of exposure. Many, many people (like USA, for example) don't even know that badminton is an indoor sport. They thought that it's an outdoor backyard thing with very chill pace and keep the rally as long as possible. Even while holding some drinks by hand. I heard that some school even designated badminton as girls-only sport. I saw many people online ridicule badminton without ever seeing how professionals actually play it, or brought it up in discussion of other sports and used badminton as a lesser comparison. And many are surprised when they actually see high level badminton because it's unlike what they imagine it'd be.
I asked Thomas Laybourn in his forum, and he replied 'It sounds like a question to be answered in the next News Update; it´s a complex talk and also could be a topic for future Podcasts as well...'
When I played tennis as a child, of about 10, there were no issues of needing to generate more power. And on the backhand you can do it double handed. In badminton, at beginner level, I saw a class where a row of adult mostly male players lined up, and fed them a shuttle to clear, and he fed them with lifts that lacked depth cos he said if he didn't, they won't be able to clear it to end of the other side of the court. Not even going into the absolute lunacy of how doing a full length backhand clear is so hard that maybe only 1% of players can do it. From what I understand, the situation among female players, I heard that national level pro female players can't generally do a cross court backhand clear. That needs top international level female player level. And even with forehand clears one has to be able to handle a slow shuttle.. In tennis if you don't put top spin on the ball you can easily hit the ball not just out the court but high over the fence that surrounds all the tennis courts, and might not even see the ball again. in tennis, the men hit it hard. And some women moan that other women hit like men. But they all have the power(/can generate the power!), to hit a decent shot!!! I haven't seen lots of tennis players as I played it more as a child, but If I think about beginner tennis players and beginner badminton players, there is no question that it's the badminton ones that are concerned re not generating as much power as they need/want. The beginner tennis players are more concerned about rules 1 and 2. Rule number 1, "over the net". Rule number 2, "in the court". And that is from my experience at tennis when I was about 12. So how much moreso as an adult.
It’s not about the individual generating more power. Tennis has more visual appeal to “non Asians” because much of the game is based on strength and the many role models. Of course, there are other factors as well. I also played tennis before as a youth, had a grass court club, and entered some local tournaments.
I don’t think this is true. Tennis ball is heavier, racquet is heavier. Yeah you can “hit” the ball afar, but it’s much harder to generate racquet speed to control the ball to do rallies. Badminton otoh, it’s very easy to hit back and forth which should make it simple to start for kids. Of course, getting power out of your strokes could be a lifelong journey, but we are talking about popularizing the sport, not mastering the sport…
When I played tennis at 12 I never even heard the phrase generate racquet speed cos as you say, the ball goes far in tennis. There was never a problem even at beginner level of lack of racket speed, hence the ball can go really far. As for control. If somebody already has the strength requirement to hit it far(which isn't much), then they have more than enough strength requirement to control it! Controlling it is a skill. Top spin is the thing that can control it, and aiming. It's not like you need extra racquet speed to control it. That's not true of any sport!! Even in badminton nobody would ever say it takes more physical strength to control the shuttle than to hit it far! In contrast, nobody would say that getting the power to hit a decent shot in tennis is a life long journey! That helps make tennis easier to popularise. Rallying from the baseline in tennis is an easier milestone than clearing end to end in badminton. When you talk of low power beginner badminton that is what some call "to me to you" badminton, below club level badminton. Basically a different game and barely a sport. Any coach would coach people out of it quickly, which then gives the problem of generating power! (Which isn't a problem in tennis). A tennis game where you can rally from the baseline is more awesome than a "to me to to you" style badminton game. Even "to me to you" badminton isn't easy for everybody. A lot of people seeing my level of Badminton (strong intermediate level) , that saw me in my first year of badminton, have remarked at how when I was a beginner I couldn't even hit the shuttle! I don't remember not being able to hit it in that period,maybe they are exaggerating. But when I was in school decades before that, they had a few badminton sessions and initially I couldn't hit it. The guy I was playing with advised holding the racket face in front of my face and looking through the racket face at the shuttle. Then I could hit it! A main thing that makes badminton better than tennis, is you can play it whatever the weather, which is good in the UK, where the weather is erratic. With tennis you can have a plan to play but have to cancel or quit in the middle because of the weather! There are indoor tennis courts in some places though.
Maybe the age is a factor here. Most youth sports start (in US) at elementary school age. I think for badminton to gain popularity, young kids (7-8 olds) need to start playing it. At this age, I honestly think tennis requires a lot more to play. They make soft tennis balls for young kids for this reason. Again we are talking about popularizing the sport… I honestly don’t think “difficult to play” is a factor here. Most kids at my clubs start at 7/8 age and the skill progression is quite natural.
I don't know what the standard for the bottom grade in graded tournaments is overseas, but in Australia it's nuts. Players that aren't at quite a high level pretty much never play. D grade is normally the bottom grade. Some of the top players at my club have gone down to Sydney thinking they'd go all right in D grade singles, only to lose first round. I come from a table tennis background. The people in their bottom grade events are beginners who are pretty useless. Even people in the second bottom grade aren't that great. That even players a fair bit above my level tend to shun state tournaments makes me think not having a grading system accommodating low level players is just losing people to the sport. Table tennis uses ratings central to determine who is eligible for which grade. The top seed in D women's singles at the NSW Open last month was ranked #46 in Australia in women's singles. One thing I'm going to try to do on the Board is to reform the grading system so there is a grade for everyone.
Well, I don't know much about either sport in that age bracket.. But, I know that tennis can be practised very well against a wall.. I can play tennis against a wall, and my tennis is very beginner level. Whereas badminton against a wall, i've found it very hard! I've seen coaches do badminton against a wall, and even then they can't do a really long rally. In tennis, a wall works so well it's like a coach feeding it back. A 7/8 year old could do tennis against a wall.. In tennis from what I have googled, the commonly stated reason for the different type of ball for children, is that regular balls bounce too high relative to their height. So by that reasoning, different type of ball will make it more realistic to adult tennis. I reckon tennis by children with a ball that bounces less high, resembles proper tennis far moreso than "to me to you" badminton being done by 7/8 year olds resembles proper badminton. 'cos coaches try to coach people out of "to me to you" badminton. I really don't buy the badminton is easier argument, for any age. And I think tennis has other arguments in its favour over badminton e.g. I don't think the heart rate goes quite as high so I think it's healthier for the heart.. Badminton is very stop and start.. Tennis is I think more natural for the cardiovascular system to get into. But, I think there may well be arguments for where badminton is better than tennis.. If it's "To me to you" badminton.. it's fun..and good cardio.. Could be more enjoyable than tennis there.. (though coaches come and coach that style of badminton out by showing how to punish bad shots! And "to me to you" badminton is not a thing at club level and upwards) Also At an advanced level, it's a very beautiful sport, the movement is so unique and unusual. BWF do it a disservice with their bad videos and not only that but their copyright policies preventing other people from clipping any part of their videos for other person or not BWF youtube channels. It's a complex remarkable sport, it's hard to cover a whole court, learning the footwork.. A person can easily be inspired by how beautifully the top players move. And wanting to be able to do that. (Not being inspired by trickshots 'cos that's not what badminton is all about,.. the people that can do trickshots, have trained over 99% other things, so somebody getting into badminton for the trickshots is a false sale!). And the fact that it has power shots and delicate shots and precision..all mixed together.. it's a very technically interesting game.. (though with the tendency of most people to skip over technicalities, maybe may as well do tennis ;-) )
