The Badminton World Needs Changes

Badminton World Federation, the international governing of body of  badminton.  The body currently has 169 members around the world. The governing body's headquarters is based at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

Badminton, the fastest racquet sport in the world holds the fastest smashing speed of up to 421km/h. It’s a sport played by at least two opposing players or pairs. Players are required to strike the shuttlecock and land it on the ground of the opponents in order to score one point. Countries like China, Korea, Denmark, Malaysia and Indonesia are the traditional powerhouses in the sport.

But the sport needs some serious changes. It’s sad for me to see one of my favorite sports is going downhill. Everybody including organizations, players and coaches need to change. After that infamous incident at the recent Olympics, word says that badminton is at risk of being kicked out of the Olympics. Well, I think badminton isn’t really that “at risk”, but certainly one of the candidate (certainly not the first one) to get booted out of the Olympic family.

First of all, the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the organization that controls and governs the badminton world needs some serious changes in their calendar. The current calendar is way too tired for the players. Looking at the timetable for 2012, there’s no rest time for players. BWF need to cut down on the amount of tournaments. The WTA calendar (Women’s tennis) gives players a two months break at the end of the season. There are currently 13 Super Series event on the calendar which include one Super Series Masters Finals and four Premier Super Series events. This excludes the Olympic Games or World Championship and Thomas Cup/Sudirman Cup Finals. (This is only top tier events, excluding Grand Prix Gold and Grand Prix events) There’s no month break for these players. This certainly is a torturing schedule for the players. Often players choose to skip events, which makes some Super Series events less attractive to viewers. Some players who wants to avoid the $5000 fine impose on those players who skip the event choose to walkover or retire half way through the match.

BWF should instead give players some rest time. A one month break in the middle of the year (June or July) and a December break for the players would best a good fit for the players. This will allow players to train properly and gear up for the tournaments in their very best. Second, BWF needs to cut down the number of Super Series events. 4 Premier Super Series events, 5 Super Series events, a Super Series Masters Finals, World Championship/Olympic Games and Sudirman Cup/Thomas Cup. 12 events in a year with a 2 months break schedule is a reasonable one for the top players.

Players from 3 countries involved in that infamous “not using one's best efforts to win a match” incident at the Olympics received 3 different types of punishment. The Korean players, perhaps the most unlucky ones, got punished with a 6 months band (Did the band reduced? I’m not sure) and their coaches got fired. The Indonesians received a 4 months band and their coaches received some degree of punishment. While for the Chinese, what did their players get? (Correct me if I’m wrong) Nothing! Their arrogant head coach claims responsibility of it and that’s all. The players were given a break and came back for competition in November.

The reason I mentioned this incident is because some coaches failed to notice the importance of sportsmanship. You don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you what sportsmanship is. Everybody is required to give their best whenever they are playing. Coaches are absolutely not allowed to instruct players to throw away their match in favor of their own country benefits. These coaches seriously need some wake up call. Some serious punishment is needed to punish these coaches whom instruct players to not give their 100% in matches.

While it is a great news that prize money have increased over the past few years, but the total prize money offered by badminton competition is nothing near to other top sports in the world like tennis. The 2011 Korea Premier Super Series offered the highest prize money ever by offering $1.2 million in total prize money. But the amount of money offered is nothing near to the highest prize money offered in some more globally known sports like tennis - Australia Open offers up to $16.66 million (AUD 16 million) and golf - FedEx Cup, a total prize money of $10 million.

The 2011 Victor Korea Premier Super Series recorded the highest total prize money offered in badminton history, USD $1.2 million. 

It’s impossible for BWF to up the prize money to the level of tennis in such a short time. But perhaps what BWF should do is upgrade the prize money in all degrees of tournaments, get more sponsorship involvement which allows more people to make a living out of badminton. There is an increase in badminton clubs around the world. Most badminton clubs are designed to give players a second chance to make a breakthrough and fulfill their dreams of being a professional player. An increase of prize money in smaller tournaments will give professionals or amateurs to make a living out of playing badminton.

At the moment, badminton is still widely considered as a sport dominated by Asians. Perhaps BWF could think of the possibility of expanding the sports into regions like Africa and Latin America and make the sport more globalize. At the moment, the sport’s status quo is still maintained. Generally, Denmark is the only country outside of Asia that has the capability to challenge the Asian countries. We haven’t seen a badminton version of Li Na (First Asian grand slam winner in tennis) yet and I really hope someday we will have a great champion from a new region of the world.

By,

Zhe Xu

January 25th 2013