Badminton strikes a chord in online community

In a sign that badminton now has a massive dedicated online audience, the Badminton World Federation announced that traffic to its online channel had hit nearly 22 million views over the last year and a half. The channel (youtube.com/badmintonworld.tv), which has 51,610 subscribers, was started in August 2011 and provides match footage, reviews, previews and coaching capsules.

The figure was announced by BWF Deputy President Paisan Rangsikitpho, who was speaking in Kuala Lumpur to representatives of host cities of the forthcoming Superseries cycle 2014-2017. In contrast, the ATP channel (youtube.com/atpworldtour) is only marginally ahead, at just over 24 million views but a lower number (40,777) of subscribers.

Fans have watched nearly 70 million minutes of badminton coverage since the channel began. “Having that live broadband channel on YouTube has opened our product to the world and made badminton even more accessible to fans,” said Rangsikitpho. “Badminton is now televised throughout the year in more than 160 countries, with more than 5,000 hours of television coverage. This included more than 2,000 hours of live World Superseries coverage in both 2011 and 2012.”

“We are growing all the time. There’s more interest in badminton as a sporting spectacle and we’ve seen its commercial value increasing in line with this. The keen bidding which potential hosts engaged in for this four-year cycle shows just how highly the World Superseries is valued. Australia were eager to be part of the tour and we are happy to welcome them. We have also seen Malaysia elevated to Superseries Premier level. That says a lot about their ambition to be seen among the best tournaments on the circuit,” he said.

The rising worldwide interest has fuelled a hike in prize money, with the next cycle likely to make millionaires out of the top players, if they win titles consistently. The five Premier Superseries tournaments – China (Guangzhou), Denmark, England, Malaysia and Indonesia – will have a minimum prize money of USD 500,000 (in 2014 and 2015); and it will increase to USD 550,000 in 2016 and even further to USD 600,000 in 2017. The current prize money is USD 400,000 for this year.

The other Superseries events – including the India Open – will have prize money at USD 250,000 in 2014, USD 275,000 in 2015; USD 300,000 in 2016 and USD 325,000 in 2017. The next cycle will also see Australia become a Superseries host, and that will probably propel the growth of badminton in Oceania.

“Next year’s total prize money for the Superseries will be higher than ever before. Including the Finals, Superseries prize money will be at least US$6.3 million,” said BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund.

The purpose of the meeting was to share thoughts and come up with new ideas that would help badminton spread its appeal.